When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19: 33-34
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.
1 Corinthians 14: 1
Dad could tell the future. He was a Navy pilot who took off and landed on aircraft carriers, sometimes at night. His time to defend America was long ago. Aircraft carriers were then new to war, and pilots crashed their planes and helicopters a lot. Until the kinks got worked out over a period of many years, the Navy lost about one out of four pilots to mishaps at sea.
Dad predicted a number of crashes. Soon the pilots in his squadron wouldn’t fly if he got a “bad feeling.” His commanders respected him. Over time, good fitness reports and promotions led him to command an anti-submarine, jet-helicopter squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Afterward, the Navy rated his squadron (HS-1) the safest combat aviation group on America’s east coast. Not one man was lost during his command.
Dad went with his feelings; when he got that “bad feeling”, he always flew the mission himself, or led it, rather than risk the lives of his men. Dad rose rapidly in the ranks, holding many important positions, not only in the Navy but also at the NSA (National Security Agency). Near the end of his career, a president appointed him to lead another intelligence agency not known to the public.
Navy fliers I talked with who knew dad said he was the best pilot in the United States Navy. He could fly anything under any conditions. Navy officers don’t lie. It’s against their Code of Conduct. Of course, I believed every word.
My dad was fearless to the very end of his ninety-one years of life. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift, and he refused to embarrass the giver. The cheese smelled the way cheese smells when it has been ripened at the bottom of an army latrine; I almost threw up from the stench, but dad gulped it down like porterhouse steak. He grabbed the cheese with both hands, tore it in half, and inhaled a deep breath to savor the aroma. I was amazed that the rancid mess didn’t instantly kill him.
Today, many people seem to be having apocalyptic fears. People I don’t know well, who seem normal, have told me about vivid dreams they have had about good and bad things. Sometimes their visions trouble them. The thought has crossed my mind that a lot of folks are teetering on the edge of insanity. It’s sad and troubling.
The election added a lot of stress to people’s lives, did it not? Election tampering by foreign intelligence agencies ran rampant and was obvious to anyone who was paying attention. The United States has an unfortunate reputation for election tampering in other countries, which goes back many decades; our recent election seemed to give other countries a golden opportunity for pay-back, which some inflicted brazenly — perhaps as a warning for us to back-off; to stand-down. Who knows?
Anyway, the election is done; Trump won; Hillary won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. In the countryside of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan (among other states) Trump won by huge margins never before seen in the free world, ever. His biggest leads came in districts with electronic voting machines. These margins overwhelmed the leads racked up by Democrats in urban areas.
It was a strange election that lasted a very long time. Many “unprecedented” things happened during the contest that no one in America has ever experienced before. Is it any wonder that some people feel unhinged by an outcome that makes no statistical sense; by an outcome no one saw coming?
Republicans now control the entire federal government; they control enough state governments to enable easy passage of amendments to the Constitution, should the GOP decide to change America in that way.
Some people want to know: what’s coming next; what sudden shocks might rock their world?
How would I know?
Yes, I took the time to compile a list of bad things that could happen. Yes, it may have been a waste of time; maybe my effort might have been better spent helping the poor.
It’s possible that none of the bad things in the list below will happen. Maybe some will. My contribution to understanding the future is simply to point out things that have a chance of happening, which people may not have considered, or yet read about, or even shared (if they have thought about them).
My blog is read by not very many people; stilI, I felt compelled to write these “heads-up” warnings to help any curious humans (or bots) who might accidentally stumble onto my essay; to open the eyes of the few and the lucky, so that they might better understand what’s coming next; to inoculate some of them — especially the people I love — against the despair that can overwhelm any one of us when we find ourselves ambushed by the bad things in our future.
So here is my list of BAD THINGS. I might add to it from time to time if my imagination runs amok, or freaked-out people tell me scary stuff.
Here it is:
— The First Family refuses to live in the White House.
— Blacks and women start disappearing from news shows, replaced by white men.
— Athletes and entertainers step forward to confess: yes, they voted for Trump.
— Evidence emerges: The birth certificate was faked. Congress starts an investigation.
— The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is overturned.
— The military draft of young people is resurrected.
— The USA drops a neutron bomb on a city for the very first time.
— The United Nations disbands.
— Russia reestablishes its control over Eastern Europe.
— The Philippines makes a military alliance with China.
— Donald Trump resigns.
— Mike Pence becomes president.
— A hot year kills hundreds of millions.
— Many popular foods become unavailable.
— The president’s wife reveals that he is gay.
— The Mueller investigators reveal that the new president is an agent of the Russian government — hand-picked by Paul Manafort.
— A major volcanic eruption inside the USA kills hundreds of thousands.
— The Post Office is privatized.
— The Veterans Administration is privatized.
— Social Security is privatized.
— Medicare is privatized.
— Prisons are privatized.
— Public education is privatized.
— Tax deductions are eliminated, raising taxes on the poor and middle-class.
— Inheritance taxes are eliminated, locking-in a permanent aristocracy.
— Unlawful assembly is redefined: three or more unrelated people who gather in a public space for any purpose other than private discourse shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, unless they have in their possession a permit signed by the president of the United States.
— A 1954 law denying tax exemptions to churches who endorse politicians is repealed.
— Church attendance plummets.
— Charitable giving plummets.
— Inflation rises to 22% per year.
— The banking system collapses.
— Stock markets close.
— Congress declares misdemeanor unlawful assembly a felony.
— The WALL is retooled to restrain fleeing Americans.
— The Constitution is amended to eliminate all forms of naturalization to block any pathway to citizenship for children bred by foreigners.
— An insect species is destroyed by a gene-driver released from an unregulated lab.
— Chipmunks are rendered extinct by a second gene-driver accident.
— Internet access is placed under federal regulation.
— SCOTUS hands over abortion policy to the states.
— SCOTUS rules that businesses have a constitutional right to choose who can buy their products and services, and who cannot.
— State governments add lithium to city water supplies to raise the spirits of unhappy citizens.
— Congress mandates that electronic nano-chips be injected into the buttocks of every person to help ICE track, identify, and differentiate people’s movements and immigration status.
— Congress declares that felony unlawful assembly is ”from this time forward” a capital offense.
— The 2020 election is postponed until ”we can figure out just what the hell is going on.”
— GOP controlled state legislators amend the constitution to fight terrorism; they rescind the Bill of Rights.
— Cruel and unusual punishment replaces baseball as our country’s most popular spectator sport.
— Selfies by folks jumping off bridges and skyscrapers go viral on social media.
Billy Lee