How close are we to living in an idiocracy?

I watched the movie Idiocracy last night for the first time, and I couldn't help but keep thinking how close to reality it already is. We are living in a society that is increasingly commercialized and bought and paid for by the corporations. For anyone who may not be familiar with the movie, let me summarize the plot. Basically, Luke Wilson gets frozen in a military experiment and then thawed out 500 years in the future. In the future he is the smartest person alive, and ends up saving the country by telling them that they should put water on the crops instead of the Gatorade substance they have been pouring on them because some corporation thought it would help their profits if they eliminated the use of water for everything except toilets. It seems far fetched in some respects, but in many ways it's very close to the reality we live in today.

Just look at the health care bill and the finance reform bills. These are two examples of where what is best for the corporations won out over what is best for the country. It would have certainly been better for the country if we had adopted something other than what ended up being adopted. While there are some provisions that are good in the health care bill, such as the mandate to cover pre-existing conditions, it doesn't do a whole lot to help those who can't afford insurance.

As far as the finance reform bill goes, the banks managed to kill most of the provisions that protect the little guy. It is very likely that the finance reform bill will not do anything to prevent another banking crisis from happening. As I understand it the finance reform bill does nothing to limit the size of banks, and let's them continue many of the practices that led to the mess that the economy is slowly recovering from now.

Until we as a country stand up and take our country back from the big corporations we are destined to one day live in an idiocracy.