Take heed, America. A dire warning from beyond the grave by astrophysicist Carl Sagan from his 1996 book “The Demon-Haunted World”. A spot-on read for 2023. Read it before Gov. DeSantis bans it.

Sagan – “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…’’

Continues -“The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, 30 second sound bites, lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”.

We have had a termite colony chomping at the pillars of our democracy for decades, including Christian fundamentalists promoting science denial and irrational thinking, right-wing politicians driven by fascist ideals, blatant propaganda passing for fact and a citizenry too preoccupied with inane social media to notice.

Democracy is about to collapse from structural damage. May be too late to call Terminix.

Raymond Cerio rcerio3@verizon.net