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If you want a glimpse of what could well be America's future, take a look at China's present, as reported by Naomi Klein:

Remember how we've always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American “homeland security” technologies, pumped up with "war on terror" rhetoric. And the global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen.

This is a sobering and disturbing article on many levels, not the least of which is that it is based not on some imaginary world like 1984, but a real one, and one that American and global corporations helped build.

Decades ago, during the height and gloom of the Cold War, I was taught that capitalism and communism would converge, with the best of both systems blended together and the worst filtered out. But no one described it like this:

[In Shenzhen,] I often have the feeling that I am witnessing not some rogue police state but a global middle ground, the place where more and more countries are converging. China is becoming more like us in very visible ways (Starbucks, Hooters, cellphones that are cooler than ours), and we are becoming more like China in less visible ones (torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, though not nearly on the Chinese scale).

The China Klein describes is a neocon's dreamworld. Said a former military intelligence officer Klein interviewed:

George W. Bush would do what they are doing here in a heartbeat if he could.

In fact, Bush and his buddies have already set us well on our way down that road.

Long article, but well worth it.