Our kids will be: A) citizens or B) cogs in a global slave colony

[lostnfound]

Regardless of whether our kids are destined to be slave-masters or slaves, it's still a grotesquely inferior future compared to the alternative future of being citizens of a relatively free country in an increasingly free world.

A future with police-state characteristics -- increased spying, tasers, tracking technology, rising prison populations. Unmanned drones used for targeted assassinations. Power concentrated in the hands of the very few. Individual rights severely curtailed.

A future where every purchase you make has a percentage filtering up higher and higher in corporate structures -- produced by a subsidiary of one giant corporation, delivered to you by another giant corporation, advertised to you by another giant corporation -- and the shareholders (the 'owners') are each taking a cut.
Only 'ownership' matters in the ownership society -- the fact that some percentage of capital ownership is achieved by actual work doesn't change the fact that it is wealth, not work, which is valued.

Another world is possible. Is the other 'side' incapable of imagining it? Incapable of seeing that a future of being slave-owners is not the ideal future for their own children?

[kuozzman]

1. Living in a third world country

[Dover]

2. "left behind"....

Isn't it just like the GOP to make a mess and leave others to clean it up.

[Warpy]

3. C. superfluous

I mean, look what's happening to us. They don't need us to work most of the jobs. They no longer need us to vote. The machines will do the voting and people in the third world are doing the jobs we used to have.

I guess the only function left for an American citizen is as a target in some glorious war.

[mitchum]

5. They no longer even need us as consumers (our primary function...

for a long time) The consumption will be outsourced (just like the labor already is)

[Old Mouse]

4. an alternative is not only possible

but the reason for today's troubles.

The power of the information age, the transparency and instantaneous communication of the Internet reveal true cost in business and make institutions based on ignorance difficult to maintain. Add to that a dynamic, international youth who embrace cooperation and devour and improvise use of our technology at a speed faster than the old industries can infuse it with propaganda and marketing.

The tyrants of the old system - the financial profiteers, the moral absolutists, the soulless multinational corporate beast itself has realized we are on the brink of a true new world order. Not the moral Super Power control envisioned by Poppy Bush; but one where the customer will pay a fair price directly to the manufacturer, where the lack of shame will reduce the repressive ability of invasive observation, and the opiate religion of celebrity will be scaled back to a reflection on reality rather than a replacement. An end to ignorance and poverty within a generation.

If we can change course now, the transformation can happen with miraculous speed. But if we don't change course, those in power today that have recognized the threat to the stratus quo will break every law of nature, man and decency, and risk the destruction of all to prevent it.

[Griffy]

6. Depends.. will we you be in DC on the 6th? I will