Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire, Desolation (1836).

How Soon?

by Cassandra, Staff Prophet

Cassandra Speaks:
Come, my dears, into my time machine. Let’s retreat to, oh, say, 1905, a mere hundred years ago. The British Empire is at its peak, wealth continues to roll into London.

There are just a couple of problems.

Down in the southern tip of Africa 450,000 British troops are bogged down in what came to be known as the Boer War. They’re having real problems with (you ready?) an insurgency that just won’t give up.

The other problem? It’s two-fold. Over to the east Germany is booming and threatening the Brits’ industrial supremacy. Similarly, to the west the upstart United States is going great guns (so to speak).

Is this sounding just a bit familiar? Substitute "Iraq" for "Boer", and instead of Germany and the US plug in "China" and "India" and you’ve pretty well got the present pickle created by five years of so-called governance by George W. Bush et al.

You know all that already, don’t you, my dears. You don’t read Cassandra for re-hashings of the past, now do you? You want to know what’s coming next, yes?

No. Believe me, you don’t.

You don’t want to hear about toppling skyscrapers on a scale that will render the awful images of 9-11 as so much child’s play. You don’t want to hear about coastal flooding on a scale that will make of the 2004 tsunami but a dim memory. And you certainly don’t want to hear about atomic, biological and chemical problems unleashed by our so-called leaders which, within a matter of a few years, will reduce the human population of the earth by, oh, say 80%, do you?

Of course you don’t. Neither do I. The difference between us is, I have no choice. I see these things coming. You don’t, and you certainly have better things to do with your time than to read the mouth-frothings of a grumpy seeress whom nobody pays attention to anyway.

You have a choice, so you might as well stop reading now. Because it’s only going to get worse. A lot worse.

* * *

Still here? My, my.

My antique forebear, once she started mouthing off 2,500 years ago, was generally hustled off to her hellenistic bedchamber and told to keep her trap shut.

But here we are 2,000 years later, me tuned to the future and you tuned to me.

Very well. If you’re sure you want to know…

What you are headed for, my dears, is the end of civilization as you know it. Along with the earth as you know it.

It’s that simple.

You people! You thought, for one example, "Dr. Strangelove" was about the mad and the inept. You were right. What you have continuously failed to realize is that mostly the world is run by 1) the mad, and 2) the inept. Let’s call them the M&I.

Decades and trillions of dollars have been spent the M&I developing oh-so-clever destructive devices. You think, when serious push comes to serious shove, planet-wise, they (the M&I) aren’t going to finally let their twitching fingers push those big red buttons?

Of course they are.

You think Mother Earth is going to just go on letting the M&I throw her lovely, billion-year equilibrium out of whack?

Of course she’s not.

Put those two factors together and you get the end of 1) civilization and 2) the earth as you know them.

Lest you get all sanctimonious, my dears, because you 1) read the "right" books, or 2) worship at and support the "right" church, or 3) subscribe to "Consumer Reports", you are all, everyone of you, implicated.

Many of you think you are "just". Few of you actually think you are "unjust." Doesn’t matter a whit, my dears.

Hard times, way beyond anything your granddaddy knew in the Great Depression, are acoming, and those cold, acid rains are going to fall on the "just" and the "unjust" alike.

80%, my dears. That’s the number.

The bad news is that five billion are going to perish very unpleasantly.

The good news is that one billion will survive.

The bad news, for all you millennialists and primitive religionists and Darwinian capitalists, is that the world those survivors will create will be as different from your present reality as your present reality is from the world of hunters and gatherers ca. 10,000 BCE.

You listening? Nope, of course not.

You doing anything? Nope, of course not.

The good news for me is that that distant world will not only be one in which such nonsensicalities as money, idol-worship, and Diet Sprite will be gone. It will also be a world which will pay somewhat closer attention to my future progeny.

Cassandras you shall always have with you.

END

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