Dystopia in the the Present Tense

A state of perpetual warfare. Armed forces occupying foreign territory for over seventy years. Active combat ongoing for more than thirteen.

An ubiquitous surveillance state. Continuous monitoring of communications using advanced technology. Exposers of the truth persistently pursued and prosecuted.

A police state. Local units equipped with military hardware. Prisons overwhelmed with disproptionately minority populations. Inmates regularly murdered, with applause from the public.

An oligarchic state. Corporate elites manipulate "elected" government officials for their own profit. Massive inequality in the distribution of wealth.

An impoverished state. Millions of citizens struggling to scrape by from day to day. Crime and drug use rampant in major metropolitan areas.

A fundamentalist state. Fanatical religious doctrine permeates through systems of healthcare and education.

An anti-intellectual state. Scientific findings and medical breakthroughs routinely rejected by vast swaths of society.

A propaganda state. Mass media breathessly conveys "news" passed down from the elite masters, filling the remainder of their programming with "infotainment".

A rapidly degrading state. Prolonged pollution of the atmosphere by corporate elites produces climate threat to future existence of human race.

This is not a scene from a George Orwell novel. This is a description of the United States in 2014.