David Ruhlen is a writer and musician living in Canada.  He notes with great alarm the profoundly negative trends that will increasingly affect us all, and the trends that have come to so completely reflect the human condition are these: staggering wealth is amassed by the few, while the permanent and growing underclass becomes increasingly irrelevant to those in power; a state of perpetual war now exists, both at home and abroad, where citizens are increasingly monitored and coerced into obedience and submission by governments seeking ever more control; the health of the planet is increasingly at risk and, with it, our very survival; and representative democracy has long-since ceased to reflect our will, as politicians openly cater to the demands of a tiny elite.