May tomorrow be the end of oligarchy and kleptocracy

Moral decay and a messed up value system are our national problems. If this seems to be a dicto simpliciter – too sweeping a statement to be valid, let’s get to some quantifiers.
Wholesale corruption is on a constant and rapid rise. It is wholesale because it encompasses every scale and every sector. Petty corruption, grand exploitation, and systemic or endemic corrupt practices are running amok. The scale of corruption ranges from bribery and embezzlement to political corruption – namely the abuse of one’s position and power not for the good of the public but for private gain, directly and indirectly. It is carried out in broad daylight in all the various sectors – the legislature, executive, judiciary, and corporate world. It is carried out and condoned by society because wealth equates to respectability. It matters little, if at all, how wealth is acquired.
Corruption gains in attractiveness because very few have been punished for engaging in it. The culture of impunity has blossomed. Here, money can buy not only love, but also decorum. Our society has become so materialistic that many people believe that the more money they donate to build religious icons and temples, the more the likelihood of them going to heaven; the more the likelihood of them being rich or living in a big house in the next life. Some Buddhist sects will even knowingly praise a pauper who donates Bt1 million to their temple – his or her hard-earned lifetime savings, rather than using it to make his or her family’s life better. These groups give the assurance that with that donation, the giver has secured a piece of real estate in paradise.
Politically, we are a country of ochlocracy or “mobocracy”, i.e. democracy spoiled by demagoguery. It’s the tyranny of the “majority”, or those who went to the polls with passion, both ill and well placed. As a result, we are living with a government of oligarchy, i.e. rule by a few “elites” spoiled by corruption and a lack of virtue. The rest of the population becomes silent and hopeless as they lack the means to change anything. Those who dare to speak out or act contrary to the vociferous mob place themselves in harm’s way.  The lynch-mob mentality is so prevalent that even the courts are reluctant to issue verdicts that are politically sensitive, or diverge from the mob’s views and demands.
And because money is everything important in our life, regardless of how it is obtained, corruption is not only tolerated, it’s encouraged and it’s alluring. Three percent of Bt300 billion -Bt400 billion of our tax money can be scattered around, albeit unevenly, and the “whole country” can be bought and sold, just like an insignificant object. 
Every day, our superlative creativity is on display in the many senseless government pet projects and procurements that pop up faster than weeds. They are the vehicles for wealth transfer from government coffers to individual pockets. The laundering process is a piece of cake, as several clever schemes are readily available. To call our political system a kleptocracy is not a stretch.
Disappearing in this wholesale fraud is the word “shame”, which signifies another vanishing trait: “conscience”. 
So, if the Twelfth Planet or Planet Nibiru is going to hit the Earth tomorrow, regardless of the very slim chance of it doing so, it may not be the worst thing that could happen to us. With the cancer of corruption and impunity plaguing our collective body, sooner or later we are going to see a worst-case doomsday anyway.
What we will face is the same fate as many “less developing” countries, where natural and precious resources are abundant but the general populace remains in abject poverty. Their leaders have, over the years, conspired to steal all the wealth from their country’s resource-rich natural inheritance, and rob their people of a better future and their wellbeing. Some of these leaders have been condemned and shunned by the international community, but it is too late to save the day for the people. Money is fungible and it’s all but impossible to retrieve and return it to the people who are its rightful owners.
Many of us surreptitiously wish that tomorrow will mark the day when the tide is turned and honesty and integrity will reclaim their place in our lives.  Like Rip Van Winkle, we hope that the New Age interpretation of December 21, 2012 is true – that it marks the start of time in which Earth and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical and spiritual transformation. We hope it’s true that tomorrow signifies the beginning of a new era, an era where conscience and the rule of law govern the land, and criminals and thieves are castigated and penalised for the crimes they commit, and called by their own true name. We hope that goodness, decency and reason prevail, more often than not.
In Russia, an entrepreneur in Siberia is offering doomsday preparedness parcels for US$29. They are selling like hot cakes. They contain vodka, buckwheat, sprats, matches, candles, string and a piece of soap. The motto on the package says: “It can’t be worse.”
For many of us, the rejoinder would be, “Exactly.”