The Cassandra Class

Is it just me, or is anyone else thinking that we’re on the verge of some kind of major collapse in this country — if not the entire world? With our society ostensibly well past the point of crossing the rubicon (possibly rubicons, plural?) I’m sensing something in the air, and it ain’t good. 

I follow a sizable number of independent journalists and content creators on social media, and let me tell you: every single one of their accounts are absolutely LIT right now. Lit with fear, anxiety, “we told you so’s,” prognostications, and even doomsday prepping advice. I’ve been living on that precipice for some time now, so I’m ultimately not surprised. But what about the rest of you? Do you see it coming? Have you “taken the red pill?” Are you up on current events? Because from where I’m sitting — and please excuse my language here but I don’t know a clearer way to articulate this — WE ARE FUCKED. 

And yet Americans as a whole are still going to their jobs every day. Still paying their taxes and bills. Still shopping. Still getting Amazon Prime and Door Dash deliveries. As if nothing is going on whatsoever, and we’re just having a rough economic season. But to that tiny minority of said content creators: I feel ya, brah. Right there with you. 

In the past, we’ve basically had upper, middle, and lower classes. As of just recently, there are two more notable classes to add to this hierarchy — although for the most part, I would submit they are most likely one and the same: the Billionaire Class and the Epstein Class. The world has changed so drastically in such a short span of time — as the pillaging of the economy accelerates while the “haves” morph into an even smaller, disgustingly obscenely richer cabal, while the ranks of the “have nots” continues to burgeon and bloat. Which class do you currently find yourself in? As this is addressed mostly to my Facebook friends’ group, I’m going to assume most of you are finding yourselves in the latter, as we all watch generations worth of progress, fairness, and increased worker productivity spiral downward out of control into negative territory. It used to be that if you worked hard and saved up, that you could afford to simply live. This doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, and it honestly smells like an outright revolution is slowly fomenting. Too little, too late, though, methinks. 

But for those who have seemingly been “in the know” for a while now — especially for the last 10 years — I see a new class beginning to emerge, and I count myself among them: the Cassandra Class. By way of introduction, I ask you to bear with me and read this rather lengthy screenplay excerpt from the movie “12 Monkeys,” which I believe hits the nail on the head: 

——————

WE DISCOVER RAILLY, six years older now, standing at a lectern in a pool of light.  She's dwarfed by the giant screen where the engraving is replaced by a series of slides of woodcuts showing scenes of pestilence in the Middle Ages as she lectures to an audience of mostly SCHOLARLY TYPES.

RAILLY (cont.)

In 1841, Mackay wrote, "During seasons

of great pestilence, men have often

believed the prophecies of crazed

fanatics, that the end of the world was

come." Obviously, this plague/doomsday

scenario is considerably more compelling

when reality supports it in some form,

whether it's the Bubonic Plague, smallpox,

or AIDS. In addition to these "natural"

contagions, there are now technological

horrors as well: besides radiation,

consider our lurking fear of germ

warfare and its close approximation,

chemical warfare, which first reared

its ugly head in the deadly mustard

gas attacks during the First World War.

ON THE SCREEN, a SERIES of SLIDES show images of WORLD WAR I SOLDIERS in gas masks, in death throes, etc..

RAILLY'S VOICE (cont. o.s.)

During such an attack in the French

trenches in October, 1917, we have an

account of this soldier...

ON THE SCREEN, a slide of an old deteriorated photograph shows JOSE, the Puerto Rican kid, strapped to a stretcher, being carried by SOLDIERS through the trenches during an attack. JOSE appears to be ranting madly as the projector ZOOMS CLOSER on his face until the image approximates Munch's famous painting.

RAILLY'S VOICE (cant. o.s.)

-- who, during an assault, was wounded

by shrapnel and hospitalized behind the

lines where Doctors discovered he had

lost all comprehension of French but

spoke English fluently, albeit in a

regional dialect they didn't recognize.

The man, although physically unaffected

by the gas, was hysterical. He claimed

he had come from the future, that he was

looking for a pure germ that would

ultimately wipe mankind off the face of

the earth in the year... 1995!

The AUDIENCE gives a nervous CHUCKLE. ON THE SCREEN, a different old photograph of JOSE. This time he's in a military hospital, gaunt, haunted, very ill.

RAILLY'S VOICE (cont. o.s.)

Although seriously injured, the young

soldier disappeared from the hospital

before more data could be gathered. No

doubt, he was trying to carry on his

mission to warn others, substituting

for the agony of war...a self-inflicted

agony we call the "Cassandra Complex.”

As RAILLY continues, we SCAN the AUDIENCE and DISCOVER MARILOU MARTIN, RAILLY'S friend, and MARILOU'S HUSBAND, WAYNE CHANG, both listening attentively.  Further away, another MAN listens intently.  A MAN with shoulder-length carrot-colored hair.  His name is DR. PETERS.

RAILLY (cont.)

Cassandra, in Greek legend you will recall,

was condemned to know the future but to be

disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence,

the agony of foreknowledge combined with

impotence to do anything about it.

INT. RECEPTION ROOM - AN HOUR LATER (NIGHT) A stack of new books. THE DOOMSDAY SYNDROME, Apocalyptic Visions of the Mentally Ill by Dr. Kathryn Railly. Surrounded by enthusiastic members of the audience, RAILLY is seated at the table signing books but DR. PETERS has her ear.

DR. PETERS

I think, Dr. Railly, you have given

your alarmists a bad name. Surely

there is very real and very convincing

data that the planet cannot survive the

excesses of the human race: proliferation

of atomic devices, uncontrolled breeding

habits, the rape of the environment, the

pollution of land, sea, and air. In this

context, isn't it obvious that "Chicken

Little" represents the sane vision and

that Homo Sapiens' motto, "Let's go

shopping!" is the cry of the true lunatic?

————————-

Based on the global tea leaves that some of us are privy to, the Chicken Little scenario doesn’t seem too far fetched given our current geopolitical climate. We stand on the brink of World War 3 (if we’re not already at the onset of it), nuclear annihilation has crept back into the conversation, lynchings of African Americans have made a comeback, a third of the country are insufferably still drinking the MAGA Kool-aid no matter what their dear leaders says or does, the oil and gas supply for the entire planet is in a chokehold, genocide seems to have reared its ugly head again, a super El Niño is on the horizon, the government doesn’t seem to care about its citizens anymore in the face of ever-increasing climate catastrophes, the veil is swiftly falling revealing an ostensibly cannibalistic class of sick pedophiles and child traffickers ruling the entire world, and AI is officially knocking down the door with plans to basically wipe out humanity by the end of this decade. All told, the human population of the entire world is in peril due solely to a small handful of plutomaniacal, narcissistic, megalomaniac octogenarian psychopaths, and yet we still set our alarms daily and go to work like good little boys and girls.  

If any of that isn’t in your newsfeed, then you need to get with the program — and soon. Or else you’re going to be caught with your pants down and with your jaw on the floor when the Fit hits the Shan. Because I, like the aforementioned journalists and content creators, can see it plain as day. And, honestly, it boggles the mind that the entire world hasn’t come to a complete standstill via a general strike to put an end to all this nonsense.     

Simply put, I believe we are facing an incipient societal collapse. It could be just one of the following, but one might easily set off a chain reaction, at which point it’s Game Over — whether it be a fossil fuel collapse, economic collapse, environmental collapse, power grid collapse, food systems vanishing, fresh water gone, nuclear codes in the hands of lunatics, or the rise of the machines as we barrel forward in uncharted AI territory with no guardrails whatsoever. 

Personally, I’m voting for the latter. At least it’ll feel like we’re living through our favorite apocalyptic movies such as the Terminator, the Matrix, I-Robot, etc., instead of rehashing the tired, boring, stupid scripts of fascism and racism. 

Did you read this and think I’m prone to flights of fancy — that me, and those others in the Cassandra Class, are alarmist, delusional, histrionic conspiracy theorists? Well, you can just keep your head buried in the sand as long as you like. But you can’t escape the inevitable. And unless we turn things around IMMEDIATELY, something possibly catastrophic is about to happen. Mark my words. “By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.” I’ll be one of those there at the end saying, “We told you so!” 

And no, you can’t have any of my popcorn at that point.