Autumn of the Republic?

Miller-McCune freelance journalist Kirk Nielsen writes a review of three books that suggest that America is slipping into an abyss that could include dictatorial mindsets, aided and abetted by corporations, the internet, and "greedy oligarchs." Nielsen carefully stays a good distance away from endorsing any of these books, but certainly leans toward the idea. Here's my favorite graph:

In sum, [Thom Hartmann's] Threshold [Crisis of Western Civilization] is 262 pages of scientific and historical anecdote suggesting that unregulated markets, undemocratic behavior and unecological practices lead to catastrophe. If you haven't already read a good overview of topsoil depletion, the marine fisheries crisis, rain forest destruction, the democratic behavior of red deer, the 1888 Supreme Court decision that defined corporations as "persons," the $15 million that 30,000 corporate lobbyists spend weekly when Congress is in session, President Eisenhower's premonition of a military-industrial complex with "unwarranted influence," the 2004 computerized voting machines controversy, the $1 trillion in tax dollars the U.S. government spent on war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not on infrastructure and schools, and the subprime loan/toxic securities debacle — you can find one in Threshold. Hartmann's common-sense remedies include "recovering a culture of democracy," "balancing the power of men and women," "reuniting with nature," "creating an economy modeled on biology" and "influencing people by helping them rather than bombing them." His book offers few specifics on how these ends might be accomplished in the real world.

I'm not a doom-and-gloomer, but I see the point of the three authors -- that our willingness to be spoon-fed opinion, to fail to ask questions, and to flock only to websites that reflects our (spoon-fed) opinions, will make things worse, not better.