HOVERING ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW

by Scott Tips, JD
December 7, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

It is a truism that bears repeating that our World is a rapidly changing one. Sometimes, I think back and imagine what life was like in 1909, a hundred years ago. What did people think about their future? Did they even imagine that in five years’ time a huge cataclysmic war would descend upon them and devastate the Western World, killing over 20 million people? That, in Europe at least, many of their male friends and family members would die and their own lives and political and social systems be forever changed?

How could they even imagine that? It was, after all, the Belle Époque. Life was mostly good. Every day, there were advances in science, health, literature, and the arts. With a few regional exceptions there had been no major general war in the World since the end of the Napoleonic era more than 90 years earlier. Most people could not even imagine that that could change – ever.

Fast Forward to the Present

One hundred years later most people have almost the same mindset. With a few regional exceptions there has been no major general war in the World since the end of the Second World War in 1945, 64 years ago. Every day, there are advances in science, health, literature, and the arts. Life is mostly good. Most people cannot even imagine that this state of being will ever change.

Of course, now, since last year, there are actual and under-currents of foreboding. The economic downturn in the Western world has seen to that, changing the mindset of many who had previously skipped blithely through life with little thought of what the future might hold for them. Eager to grasp at any straws of hope, they actually believe those self-serving “authoritiesâ€