Earthquakes, floods and storms of Biblical proportions: is the end near?
Posted by MEL REEVES on SEPTEMBER 13, 2017
Recent events including the solar eclipse, Hurricanes Irma and Harvey and the Mexican earthquake have awakened the superstitions in us all. But though some events in nature can’t be explained, or anticipated much of what is happening in the world can be explained.
The weather should, if nothing else humble us. The Native Americans are definitely on to something with their reverence and respect for the earth. Those who claim spirituality may just know something. African Americans in past generations had a healthy respect for the creation and the Creator as well. But that has dissipated with prosperity. There is no need for such superstitions when space has opened for one in a society in which one was formerly enslaved and then legally segregated.
Despite the progress of Western societies and societies dominated by the free market everything can not be controlled or even perfectly predicted. All of the smart folks with all their degrees could not predict the Mexican earthquake. While it is hurricane season the exact places and times hurricanes will form cannot accurately be predicted. And as Floridians will attest, the weather folks can’t always accurately predict where exactly a hurricane will touch land.
It’s tempting to take small delight in the obvious fallibility of the most advanced and richest society in the history of the world which despite its advances finds itself at nature’s mercy.
Christians as part of the religion talk a lot about the last days and most likely many see these events as signs of the end of time and take the position that these events have been predicted and as a result everything is out of their hands.
Some see the recent weather events as signs of the last days or the end of times. Some would include the prevalence of selfishness, rampant individualism and narcissism as signs as well. Oddly the worst feature of class society, materialism is never included as indicators. Racism or racist genocide is not seen as a sign either, so the racist phenomenon that was Charlottesville would not be added to that list either.
Humans are indeed fallible and we are indeed at the mercy of nature and we are closer to the end than we ever have been.
But we aren’t helpless. While we can’t control the weather we can control our response to much of it. We can create a society in which the State responds as if it is actually supposed to take of its citizens and not like it’s doing us a favor, which is the attitude FEMA seems to have. The fact that individuals have to rescue folks from storms rather the government that taxes us is really not a good thing.
Think about it. The US has money for wars which if the truth is told has nothing to do with our well- being, along with a defense budget that in essence is the military industrial complex’s personal piggy bank.
Despite all our advances and despite the richness of our society and its technical proficiencies, the system we live under responds poorly to disasters and storms. This is partly because there is no money in disaster preparedness and disaster response. So from the perspective of the folks who run society, there is no real benefit to doing things like making sure the most vulnerable are taken care of and placed out of harm’s way.
While folks in the US have been led to believe the worst about Cuba they are actually more prepared for natural disasters than the US. Of course that’s because the people are what’s important in that society. Whereas in this one its property, money and people in that order.
Before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba, the elderly, handicapped, vulnerable adults, pregnant women were all evacuated to safe places and hospitals. There was an orderly evacuation in place to move people from less secure structures to more secure ones.
There is little we can do about the weather. However the constant decline of the climate can be limited as scientists have told us. But free market societies, while having conferences to talk about becoming less dependent on fossil fuels and other pollutants rising from industrial society, do little to make real changes.
While it may appear that the world is coming to an end it doesn’t have to be hastened by the practices of societies based on prioritizing the making of money over the needs of the people.
This system, capitalism, is made by humans who are extremely fallible. Despite the insistence by those it benefits that it can’t be changed, if we are to survive it will have to be changed, replaced, tossed out. You choose the term, but the polar ice caps are melting while storms of the century continue to visit us.
At some point it is going to boil down to, do or die!