The Sleeping Sword

Waiting for the sword to fall, indeed. Which of the four horsemen will be the first to strike? Disease seems the most likely. But then there is War; diplomacy and things unseen in the background could avert that first blow. Famine calls itself economic downturn now a days, and we have been living with it for some years now. The Earthshaker has done his bit, and could strike, but nobody expects that expected event.

Disease. There are more than one plague to choose from. Which do you favour? The tuberculosis, the gonorrhea, or the dirty hospital cough? We had ways of dealing with diseases before we had anti-biotics, but the sanitarium, the quarantine, and the closed port technologies have been sold off for votes for the insane, the roaming cougher, and the illegal immigrant. I would mention the clay footed response to the HIV epidemic, but in a country without freedom of speech, that could get me in trouble. Better half the population dies choking on their own vomit than we be prepared for the predictable and inevitable.

War. The dead white males always said it only takes one aggressor to make a war. We have two: the bomb crafting Iranians, and the holocaust stung Israelis. If a war does break out, the Obama voters will flock back to vote for Obama, which does put a spin on the foreign policy of the world’s smartest leader. Patriotism. No mention in the media of the support of the usual ex-Bolshevik powers for Iran. Any rail movements of munitions over their common border? Nary a peep: all is mourning for the latest crack pipe casualty in Hollywood.

Famine. There were always peasant uprisings after a famine. Marx noted this, but the current crop of Marxists are in love with the non-workers of the tax spending class. They have built up a security apparatus from the ranks of the freedom loving patriots, a strategy that a Roman emperor or Greek despot would judge unwise. Likewise layoffs in the military, those looming endings of career and avocation. Mind you, coups do not happen in the modern Rome. Not never. You can press their buttons, take their wealth, and what always happens will not happen. You can find that not written in the history syllabus. Better to read about the heroic struggle to have wheelchair ramps installed at libraries and post offices than about the inevitable.

Disaster. This only seems to show up as a logical consequence of some economic activity that creates jobs and capital. Going back to horses will stop the hurricanes in Florida and the earthquakes in California. Yup. And from the last disaster, nobody prepares for the next. At least, the preparations made are made by people who do not show up on the white guilt gummed up monitors of the media. Just who is buying all those guns, ammo, survival rations, and other stuff I will not mention? Who knows, who knows. If you do, you keep quiet in this time of absence of freedom of speech.

Go to bed and rest your weary head. The sun will rise tomorrow. The dawn may be smoke filled from N-person riot, the air filled with pestilence from roaming victims of oppression, and the news of your job layoff in the mail. If the earth shakes, or the waters rise, the prepared will act, and the looters loot. It is all very predictable, but which Ace will turn up first? Which of the four horsemen will bring forward his legions as vanguard?