The mere fact that such scenarios are not even laughably cynical, should create Epiphanies in the remaining few think-capable folks among the consumer sheeple. But nary a ripple in the rest.

I still aver that Sinclair Lewis had Our Number in mid-30s (It Can't Happen Here). While there have been recent works of similar plot but better details: he saw the innate fascism and Authority-worship inherent in Puritan engrams, even before Warsaw happened. He was our home-grown de Tocqueville du jour. Hey.. people read a lot of his stuff, then went back to sleep. (I don't recall anyone waving a single copy of ICHH at a HUAC witch-burning - of course Tailgunner Joe wouldn't have read anything, but others might have noticed.)

My guess is that, 'collectively' 'We' (the United Consumers of Murica) are unlikely ever to Get It. Fundamentalism like the current v.popular fiction series on Rapturin Out confirms that we are hopelessly superstitious (thus perennially fearful of Things That Go Bump in the Night) and determinedly ignorant of our own and others' history. Submitted to jury: the regular sanctimonious religiosity for Social Show, exemplified by the identical cant of Pope Ashcrof and W. Cinema verit\ufffd.

The fascination with technotoys of all sizes and 500 channels of Tee Vee With *Nothing* On - will adequately maintain the noise screen of self-absorption, continue to render impossible for most, a single hour of silence in which to contemplate [anything or nothing]. So - we Won't Get It.

"Get over it!" joins the mind-rot of, "Just Do It!" - compared to which, "Oh You Kid!" seems like Dante.

As to your plot above: problem with such an incident is that the perpetrators would have to be killed shortly after.. you can't have this story on CNN (for a megabuck er 'finder's fee'). OK, no es una problema. Not in the Age of post-Satire and Death of Irony. Off 'Em it would be.

No wonder Sci-fi has always been fascinating to the dispossessed; now we can even categorize next, the particular dystopia we have manufactured:

Science Fiction and the New Dark Age, \ufffd 1976 by Harold L. Berger.
Bowling Green University Popular Press (Ohio) neatly categorizes the asymptotes of various conceptions we lumber towards. (Dunno if this is still in print, but - recomended) Only three chapters:

The Threat of Science
The New Tyrannies
Catastrophe
(and a brief Conclusion)


Ashton,
Well... OK
Long as I *Know*
'bout homo-sap and its death-gene.