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The End Is At Hand

This article is more than 10 years old.

By James D. Zirin

Last Christmas, I wrote a piece for Forbes, pointing out that 2011 was an unparalleled  year of uncertainty because so much had happened that left us twisting in the wind, wondering what would happen next. I concluded the article by expressing hope for a little more certainty in 2012.

Unfortunately, this is the year that broke our hearts. What may have been certain was often too terrible to contemplate. The Mayans believe that at 6:11 am, (New York time) today, we will have arrived at the end of the world. They say that the Apocalypse is now. By the time most of you have read this we will have realized that the Mayans were incorrect, and life goes on.

But let’s take a look at the unspeakable tragedies that occurred during the last year that make us wonder why we dared hope for the best.

  • A 20 year old troubled kid from hell named Adam Lanza armed with assault weapons, and hundreds of deadly bullets housed in multiple magazines went on a murderous rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, leaving 27 dead in the massacre, including 20 innocent children. No one can explain the motive. People keened about mental illness, guns and gun culture. Obama appointed a task force to consider more stringent gun control. But, no telling if we can accomplish regulation of assault weapons.
  • Bad karma in the NFL. Four players took their own lives in the last eight months of the year. In April, former Atlanta Falcons player Ray Easterling shot himself. He was 62, and an autopsy found that he had the degenerative brain disease CTE, thought  to be caused by head trauma. In May, former San Diego Chargers player Junior Seau shot himself in the chest. He was 43. In July, Tennessee Titans wide receiver OJ Murdock shot himself. He was 25. This month, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot himself in the parking lot of the team's practice facility after allegedly killing his girlfriend in front of his three-month-old daughter. He was also 25. No one can provide a connecting link for the tragic events.
  • The United States ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were murdered in the American consulate in Benghazi. Chris Stevens was the first American ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1988. Initially reported as a spontaneous protest over the anti-Muslim film, the attack was later confirmed to have been a planned assault by Islamist militants. No one can adequately explain why they our people were so inadequately protected.
  • Syria’s already violent uprising became a full-fledged civil war with the death toll said to near 50,000. The international community has been slow to put an  end to the violence, which is spilling across Syria’s borders, with clashes occurring between Syrian and Jordanian forces, mortar and artillery exchanged between Syria and Turkey, and mortar fire into the Israeli-held Golan Heights. Despite the fact that a  new group, the Syrian Opposition Coalition, was recognized by Washington, as well as by more than 100 other countries, as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, it seems almost certain that the country’s fate will be determined by developments on the ground.
  • The service of a brilliant patriot, General David Petraeus, was lost to the country. He had to resign as Director of Central Intelligence because an FBI investigation revealed he had had an extra-marital affair with his biographer. The FBI intrusive examination of intimate messages residing in emails raised serious questions as to whether the FBI can be trusted as proper steward of the investigative power when their inquiries into private matters fail to uncover a basis for criminal charges. O tempora, o mores!
  • One  day after achieving acclaim for brokering an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, a product of the Muslim Brotherhood party, shocked the world by issuing an autocratic decree arrogating to himself broad sweeping Pharaonic powers and fired the judges who might have invalidated his actions. Morsi precipitated immediate accusations of Mubarak-style dictatorship, spurring secular oppositionists to form the National Salvation Front. Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Cairo to demonstrate against Morsi’s decree. Precipitating further violent protests, the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly submitted a draft constitution, quickly approved by Morsi, who then put in place a national referendum that is continuing. It appears that the new constitution will pass. The Egyptian military, where the real power lies in the country, provided the muscle necessary for Morsi to achieve his goals. The military’s backing of Morsi demonstrated a symbiotic partnership between the Muslim Brotherhood and the armed forces. With new parliamentary elections slated for early next year, it remains  to be seen if Egypt’s political turmoil will be resolved peacefully or if rising discontent will lead to more violence in the country’s streets.
  •  China rolled out a new Gang of seven men whom analysts claimed are more likely to reject the old “bide and hide” policies of Deng Xiaoping and instead assert themselves militarily. A harbinger perhaps of things to come is that China’s only remaining ally in the region, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, successfully launched a long range missile that could serve as a delivery system for nuclear weaponry. The launch succeeded after an earlier attempt crashed in the Sea of Japan.
  • No deal yet on the fiscal cliff and unlikely to be a deal before year end. Whether it's a cliff or a slope or whatever the media  want to call it, the inability to reach an agreement is roiling global financial markets. The worldwide appearance that we can't govern ourselves spawns serious national security implications.

Maybe, we muddled through or maybe we fell apart in 2012. But does all this bleak stuff make the case for pessimism? I think rather not! When I was growing up, in the period of World War II. my mother was fond of quoting Roosevelt’s “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and my father often repeated  LaGuardia’s “patience and fortitude.” For them, members of the “Greatest Generation,” these were more than shibboleths. Unless the ancient Mayans were right and the world will truly come to an end today, we must continue to have hope. Otherwise, we are left with “Nothing to be done,” the opening lament in Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”

For hope is surely what life is all about.