A RUSH TO DISASTER

Listening to the news points up the similarities between now and the period of the late twenties and early thirties. I don't want to extend this out further because if history repeats itself in gross outlines, the result is too terrible to contemplate.

Here is what is happening:

The stock market is a shadow of its former self and while some people can make money riding it up and down, there is nothing in the long term outlook that would indicate any reason for a return to former price levels. The economy, while not quite in the doldrums bodes no good for the future financial welfare of a great number of American citizens. Poverty and loss of domicile stares whole populations in the face.

Revolutionaries in Thailand have been effective in scaring the current government into doing nothing. At present, Bangkok airport is mobbed by 100,000 protesters who will not leave until their demand for the resignation of the government is met. The problem is that they have no program to replace it with another government, so the alternative is complete anarchy.

In Mumbai, hundreds of people have been killed in an orgy of random gunfire by a mere handful of gunmen whose only aim was to wound and kill. At least the Indian commandos have not been squeamish about killing the killers although it would have been helpful if they had been able to catch more than one gunman alive. Of course, given the state of the world's 21st century mentality, the one remaining killer will probably live longer than some of our healthy nonagenarians.

Off the coast of Somalia pirates are holding what now amounts to hundreds of hostages which makes it more and more difficult to put a stop to this egregious crime. Each new piracy protects the pirates even more as they increase their prisoners whose lives are the pirates' insurance policies. Just today, it was reported that the pirates have stated that they will never be stopped. How the entire armed might of the world can be brought to quail before the threats of neanderthal savages is an open miracle not having been duplicated since the splitting of the red sea.

The United States and the rest of the world is in the hands of homosexuals and lesbians.Every health and social issue is driven by their need to justify and promote their corrupt morality.

In a few weeks the US will hold its presidential inauguration ceremony. There is widespread fear in the security community, especially in light of the recent Mumbai attacks, that a similar, unanticipated attack will take place in Washington. The incoming president is a weak kneed amateur, completely out of his depths and clueless to what needs to be done who leads with smooth talk and whose primary concern is not the economy but the way we treat our prisoners who have fallen into our net by actively carrying out a program of terror and savagery. Unless our decent leaders realize that tough times require tough responses for the good of all humanity, the worst people will get power and use it to be tough for their own benefit. The leaders of Burma (Myanmar) control their country. They prove the rule.

All over the world there is a tendency toward chaos, uncertainty and anarchy. With the exception of George Bush, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy the world's leaders are too timid to talk about getting tough, much less to do so.

The last time this happened? You guessed it: the late twenties and early thirties. The newly minted democracies of the time and the balkanization of Europe and the middle east, coupled with a disgust for large scale war and a stagnant shrunken economy led to near anarchy and street fighting which in turn led to a reaction against all forms of weak, hand wringing, representative governments and the strengthening of governments. You all know what happened then.

Unless we become as tough as our enemies, they will bring us all down. The scene is set for the world to become less tolerant because people will always choose reactionary dictatorship over lawlessness and anarchy. That is not to say that communism, fascism and nazism is lawful. A point in their favor is that they impose order on their nations. Even if the people on top are lawless, the majority of the people will be forced to become law abiding no matter how harsh the laws.

May G-d help us all.