The Wacky Premise Has Come True

As I recall, the wacky premise of the famous movie “The Terminator” was that the robots, that is, the mechanical creations of mankind, had assumed a will of their own and were bent on destroying their creators.

That may come to pass in due time, but I doubt it for numerous reasons. In fact, it is the legal creations of humanity — corporations — which have taken on a will of their own with the same evil intent, and they’re succeeding with our docile complicity!

They create a social structure where psychopaths quickly rise to the top, they are beggaring the schools and municipal governments, allowing our infrastructure to deteriorate, and they are poisoning our food supply and turning us into an unhealthy population prone to horrible diseases. Then they’re selling us drugs at ridiculous prices that purport to treat the diseases.

And, on top of that, as everyone knows and placidly acknowledges, they are contaminating the air, water and soil at a rate that will soon make our planet uninhabitable.

These destructive goals they are pursuing with dogged persistency and growing resources, and they have an unlimited queue of fiendishly clever individuals, and many who are not so clever but just numerous, who are always more than happy to do their bidding.

In the War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells envisioned the world after the Martian conquest, as the conquerors arranged a system of ranching human beings as meat for export to the Red Planet.

Wells believed that the Martians would have no difficulty finding humans to serve as ranchers and cowboys to “round ’em up and head ’em out.”

I really don’t know what to do about this situation, except to point out that these corporations are our creatures. We made them and we need to control them. If we don’t, we’re toast.