The End Of The World As We Know It?

I don't know about you, but it seems like some pretty scary things are coming up on the horizon. On December 21, 2012, to be precise. There's a lot of speculation regarding that date on the Internet, some scientific predictions purporting to what could occur in that time frame, and you may even overhear conversations among your friends as to what might happen in 2012.

I hadn't heard any of this speculation prior to discovering that Roland Emmerich was producing a new movie, an epic CGI-enhanced (computer graphics interface) thriller that shows the destruction of Earth's civilization that occurs on December 21, 2012, the same date that the Mayan calendar suddenly comes to a final end.

Since I loved a few of his earlier films, namely The Day After Tomorrow, and Independence Day (can you tell I love big-budget special effects movies?) I was excited to learn this film would be coming out this year, particularly after watching the initial trailer released last year, which can be viewed on Youtube.

That trailer shows an eagle's eye view of Tibet, as a Buddhist monk runs as fast as he can along a trail poised precariously along a mountain ridge in the Himalayas. You first focus on running feet, then see his orange saffron robe. Finally he reaches the stone hut atop the peak and begins to swing a large wooden log to strike a huge bell warning others of impending danger.

As he does so you can begin to see an immense tsunami wash over the crest of Mt. Everest in the background. Holy moly, if that didn't send chills down my spine the first time I saw it. Of course, I had to excitedly show all my friends while exclaiming how cool it would all be. It was just a movie, after all. Nothing like this could ever come true, right?

Well, that's what I thought at the time. The closing screen of that trailer implies that the government knows alot more about what could be a cataclysmic event (polar shift, solar flares, planet X colliding with the Earth) approaching in that year then they are letting on. The parting message urges the watcher to google 2012 "to learn the truth." Um, what the heck are they talking about?

I'd been working so hard the last ten years, my nose buried in the grindstone attempting to build financial security for my pending retirement years that I was utterly - and I mean completely clueless - of this entire phenomena. I guess most people have been talking somewhat dismissively of the whole thing, not giving it much credence (except for the few paranoid nut-jobs who take it quite seriously) for years, but this was the first I'd heard of it.

So, I had a lot of catching up to do. No one wants to be totally unaware of what seems to be becoming a cultural movement. So I dove into the google searches and was surprised at the amount of information out there, all allegedly addressing the various questions I had. And I had alot, because once I started to get into it, I realized that the "end of the world" concept seemed to strike a chord within me, in harmony with some of my own thoughts I had recently been dredging over.

Doesn't it seem to you like events are accelerating? That there are more bizarre and heinous crimes being committed every day? Are we just more aware of these reprehensible acts, or are the news media just more focused on reporting, or is it a combination of both? It seems to me like there is a convergence of some sort of all kinds of bad news that seems to be pointing to some type of culmination in the near future.

People are consumed with worry about the economy and fear losing their jobs (or already have), bankruptcies are on the rise, foreclosures are going through the roof, real estate prices are reeling, deadly epidemics are spreading, global warming is melting the polar caps. You get the point, I could go on and on with loads of examples.

It just seems like things are getting worse by the day, so that on some subconscious level the idea that the world as we know it might be changing drastically in the near future didn't surprise me. I found resonance in the thoughts expressed by James Howard Kuntsler in the piece he did a few years ago on peak oil entitled The Long Emergency.

Look into it, and you'll uncover a sobering assessment of what Kuntsler feels lays in our future once our carbon-based society is forced to find alternative energy sources, as well as the bleak vision he holds for America. The changes he foresees are inconceivable to anyone accustomed to our current standard of living. Prepare yourself to become a third-world country, with all the attendant benefits accorded peasantry.

So, for a long time I had been wondering if all these "happenings" that I allude to were portents of worse things to come. I'd been thinking, "are we in the End Times predicted in the Bible?" One thing that I'd always found curious was that, in the Book of Revelations, there seems to be no mention of the United States!

It doesn't take much imagination to read between the lines and interpret scripture. Having done so, one might easily deduce that Russia and China will someday battle for supremacy. That war, described in the Bible as Armageddon, will take place in the Middle East. So many times, reading current events, I've wondered "is this the start of WWIII?" Iran's sabre-rattling could be the final straw that could ignite a nuclear holocaust.

Forgive me, it's easy to go off on a tangent, so let me retrace my steps. Let's go back to my discussion of Revelations. What could cause the lack of the presence in John's visions of a power resembling America? We were once the strongest nation in the world, and can still wield the mightiest military force. What could take us out of the picture in the blink of an eye, such that we wouldn't even be a participant in the final apocalypse? I'll tell you what I think might do that, and the conclusion I reached might cause you to be as startled as I was.

The only thing that I think could cripple us as a world power would be a complete and total financial collapse, one of such ruinous destructive magnitude that our economy would be devastated and our ability to be the world's policemen utterly quashed. And guess what? That's happening right now!

This country is rapidly sliding into an inescapable morass of gargantuan debt and accelerating inflation. The dollar is becoming worth less and less daily, and will soon be worthless. We, my friends, are headed for hyperinflation, so I hope you've prepared by taking measures to survive that scenario. It's not too late to buy silver, buy gold, stockpile food, and provide yourself with a means of defense. And it might not hurt to get out that Bible and start reading it, I do believe.



The world may not be coming to an end, but we are most definitely living in some interesting times.