Sink or swim, we're all in this together

It is becoming increasingly apparent that if humanity has any kind of future worth living in it is going to require a community of purpose, co-opting the most people-friendly elements from all the existing cultural traditions on the planet.
In the course of our written histories we have gone from nomadic to village tribal cultures, through feudal monarchies to transnational hegemonic states towards what appears to be an evolving global corporate feudalism where the real power resides in the great Corporate Houses with globally disbursed power bases and their legions of liege vassals (bound by contract and health and welfare benefits coverage that may become increasingly threadbare to general populations in many of the industrialized countries as national governments weaken and become impoverished.)
Witness the predicament of the greatest power of the 20th century, a mercantile empire that for years has been spending more than it has been earning and has accumulated massive debts. Tom Friedman, author of "The World is flat", a book on the implications of globalization (largely positive in outlook) in a New York Times op-ed today in a thoughtful and worth reading article referred to the virtually bankrupt State of California as one of the latest "failed states" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion ), bringing to mind Noam Chomsky's book of the same name written during the last Bush administration in which he argues that the constellation of qualities and conditions that give rise to a "failed state" are all present and dominant in the US.
The torch bearer of Western Civilization is foundering ("he who lives by the endless growth model of credit fueled free-market capital shall perish from its logical extension" to borrow loosely from one whose teachings , honored mostly in the breach,have provided a pseudo moral legitimacy to the largely successful pursuit of world domination by the forces of Western Civilization). End of rant. pro tem.
In fact, it may be that the forces of nature will force us to come together, or if we fail, simply crush us into some kind of hellish existence based on a grim scrabbling for survival. In the last two days I have been watching footage of flooding in the north of England caused by unprecedented amounts of rainfall with more to come, while here in the Pacific Northwest we have have had heavy rains with local flooding. course, one swallow doesn't make the summer, but here's a link to a sober update on climate change and global warming at the icecaps- also from today's NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/earth/02arct.html