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civilization with higher intelligence--civilizations that we have generally imagined to be more ethically advanced than we are--but those of us who imagine such things are having trouble convincing our fellow earthlings to behave in a more ethically advanced way. I had thought, prior to the onset of the Bush junta, that human civilization WAS advancing to those imagined heights, beyond war, beyond torturing people, toward equality and more generosity and benevolence. I certainly never thought torture would become a policy of our government! I also thought that "first strike" war--and wars of big countries like the US against little countries like Iraq or Vietnam--would never occur again, especially at our instigation. I thought the worst we had to deal with, as to war, was the war profiteers creating such horrors as depleted uranium weapons, but that, in any case, the devastation of war would be small scale, and on our part, undertaken only with a UN mandate. I knew there were serious problems--with corporate globalisation, for instance, and with our planetary environment--but I thought we might solve them--and were solving them--through public activism, electoral politics and democratic institutions (national and international).
And it may be that Earth's people are, as a whole, advancing-- but we in the U.S. are not with them any more. We are regressing--in some respects, backwards thousands of years, to torture, to serfdom, to the "peons" as cannon fodder for the rich, to kings and emperors, to state imposed religion. It is horrible beyond belief to see my country dragged backwards like this. But I do know that the great majority of Americans oppose the Bush junta, still believe in democracy, peace and justice, and are progressive and anti-Bush in their views. The opinion, issue and approval polls over the last several years establish this overwhelmingly. It is a MINORITY that is pushing these awful ancient hatreds and dreadful policies--a minority that has seized control, after many decades of planning, and several decades of incremental dismemberment of our democracy (the development of war profiteering corporate news monopolies, for instance, the Reagan tax re-write to favor the rich, and the undemocratic passage of trade agreements that are bad for everyone except the very rich).
But we tend to have a very myopic view of things here in the United States. The Bush junta is actually quite isolated, internationally--and the rest of the world is well aware that it does not act with the consent of the American people, and in the interest of the majority. Further, the rest of the world is moving on, in rather amazing ways. There is a profound leftist revolution occurring in Latin America, with leftist governments getting elected by big majorities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and recently Bolivia. Virtually the entire map of the sub-continent has turned "blue"--and it looks like Mexico, too, is going to elect the leftist mayor of Mexico City as president.
These countries are fed up with U.S. global corporations and especially with the Bush junta. In Bolivia, Evo Morales--the first indigenous elected as president--was involved in the big fight there to throw Bechtel out of Bolivia, for privatizing the WATER and jacking up the price to the poor. (The Bolivians succeeded!). Lulu in Brazil was the leader of a major revolt of the third world countries at the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun not too longer--a remarkable coalition that included India, and, I believe, South Korea. And most of us are now familiar with some of the things that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has said and done. They are not particularly angry at Americans (though our news monopolies try to portray Chavez that way). They are just fed up. They've had it. And, having experienced US-installed dictatorships, they are aware that THAT is what's going on HERE. Our country has been hijacked.
The key to the Latin American revolution has been TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS--something that is a thing of the past in the U.S., with rightwing Bushite corporations now counting all our votes, in these new electronic voting systems, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. That kind of crap has been overcome in Latin America--due to the hard work of local civic groups, the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center. But it's now our turn to feel the boot of illegitimate government. TRANSPARENT elections = good, leftist government. Because only leftists represent most people--the poor, workers, small business, small ag, the young, the old, women, the black and the brown, the great bulk of every population.
So, perhaps, in the rest of the world, the human race will be redeemed--and the Cosmic boycott of humans that you posit will end.
I've often wondered about those mysterious failures of the Mars missions--and, of course, Challenger--most of it under Bush. It may not be just this junta's deliberate, vicious neglect of any good government program like NASA (and FEMA!)--their seeming incompetence, which masks their intention to dismantle our government. It may be that the U.S. was PREVENTED from exploring Mars, if your theory is correct, because Bush is the worst of us, and has seized control. They don't want Bush and his henchmen, and his thieves, and his mass murderers in outer space.
Can't blame them.
If there is some Cosmic plan at work, what I hope is that we are being tested: Do we really believe in peace and justice, and equality, and democratic government, and all those ideals of our Founders, and of the fighters for justice in our history, or are we lazy, greedy, selfish "consumers" and "sheeple" who don't deserve to see the stars and join galactic civilization? Will we cast off Bushism and become a better people? Will this "test" rid of our "Manifest Destiny" flaws, and get us to see ourselves more clearly, the way others see us, and lead us to atone from some of our worser acts?
I'm thinking of Michelle Batchelet, now president of Chile, who lost her family to Pinochet, and was herself tortured. Our government supported that dreadful regime, and ASSASSINATED the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, which led to the Pinochet coup. WE are responsible for that, collectively. WE have benefited, financially, from such actions (to a point, anyway--we're not benefiting any more--the corporations and the rich are now exploiting and oppressing US). SOME people in our country have become psychotic with guilt for dreadful actions like that. Bush supporters--real maniacs. Can we heal them? Can we atone?
The same with Iran--we destroyed their democratically elected government in 1953, and imposed the horrible, torture-loving Shah on them for 25 years. We owe them an apology and recompense--not more bullying and death.
I don't really agree with your premise, though, scientifically--that we should have had contact by now, if there were any other civilizations out there. We are--our entire Earth is--just a tiny little speck of dust in the middle of nowhere, and the Galaxy (just this galaxy--not to mention to the bigger universe) is immense beyond belief. We can't really comprehend its hugeness. And, given the numbers, it wouldn't surprise me at all if we were "missed" in a survey of our galactic region--if there was such an undertaking. It also wouldn't surprise me to find out that no one else had yet developed the means or the interest to find us, or to pick up our signals. Perhaps communications just pass us by, because we don't have sophisticated enough instruments to pick them up. I think it may be a mistake of our egocentrism to think that we would easily be found.
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