Let’s hope future isn’t us vs. them

By Dale Quale, Las Vegas

Friday, June 12, 2015 | 2 a.m.

One night of lawless looting in Baltimore and the right is perplexed. Why do they destroy their own neighborhood?

Baltimore; Gary, Ind.; Youngstown, Ohio, and dozens of gritty factory towns — I grew up in Rockford, Ill. — made the tanks and bombs that won this country’s wars. Now they are rich enough to forget our names.

Steel and aerospace abandoned Baltimore. Money was thrown at the vacuum, but nothing stuck. That’s multiplied by 100 across the once-proud and mighty Rust Belt. Free trade and the race to the bottom are the real reasons those jobs are never coming back and hopelessness gets entrenched.

Creative solutions such as a guaranteed minimum income, true universal health care and quality education are the only ways to break these shackles.

Our near future will see climate change consequences, artificial intelligence robots (see the film “Ex Machina”) and even human cloning (see the TV series “Orphan Black”). What role will all of us play in a world served by this new they?

Hopefully, the moneyless and egalitarian society in “Star Trek” becomes reality before it’s too late.