This New Year; 2004

By James Donahue

There is a sense of foreboding swirling around me this day as I sit at my desk, reflecting on the events of the year past and looking ahead to the year 2004. These are not the best of times.

On the surface everything appears today as it always has. My wife and I are living comfortably with our cat in a modest apartment within easy walking distance of a small-town weekly newspaper office where I hold a post-retirement job as a county and city government reporter. In that, we feel somewhat secure and glad to be living where we are, away from big city hubbub and out of harm's way.

Yet we are sensitive to the pain and suffering going on in the world around us. There are moments . . . like experienced on Christmas Day . . . when a major earthquake claimed so many lives in Iran that we reeled in despair. The sensation was so black that we set about clearing our apartment, thinking we were being visited by some unfriendly energies.

My task in a few hours will take me to a meeting of the county board of commissioners where I expect to witness the agony of the beginning of a shut-down of local government. Saddled with the excessively high cost of paying for health insurance benefits for all working and retired county employees and an inability to deal with six skilled labor bargaining units, the commissioners are now faced with slashing services and laying off workers so they can write a balanced budget.

City, village and township governments are struggling with the same dilemma this year as the realization of a dying local economy hits everyone hard.

Factories and business places in this area have been shutting their doors ever since the events of 9-11. No matter how bright the talking heads say our future is, and no matter how high the stock market average climbs, the reality is still there for the people in my state. They are out of work, out of unemployment assistance, and many are now losing their homes. Our paper is filled each week with legal notices of property foreclosures. People are beginning to live in their cars if they can't find a place to bunk with friends and relatives.

There are no jobs.

Many of these people have sons and daughters that have gone off to war in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. They watch the news anxiously each night, and listen for telephone calls, watch for letters daily, knowing their loved ones may return without arms and legs, or worsein flag draped body bags.

There are the letters and e-mails from relatives and friends who are down on their luck or worried about the future. Because I write about esoteric and spiritual matters, they sometimes come to me for answers. Sadly, I have answers, but they are not what people want to hear when they really seek comforting.

The sudden and unexpected death of an estimated 50,000 people by the Christmas Day earthquake in Iran generated an indescribable impact. As does the insanity of suicide terrorist bombings by young Moslem men and women convinced they are buying a ticket into Heaven.

This is not a good time to die.

Because of human foolishness and our constant attacks on the Mother Earth, our planet is dying. People do not realize until they are out of their precious Earthly bodies and looking at the picture from the spiritual side that this planet is a soul generator. When it dies, the soul dies. This may be the wailing and gnashing of teeth talked about in Bible prophecy. It comes from the lips of the dead. Even though their human eyes are forever closed, they see everything. Realizing their terrible mistake, they lament because they took a wrong turn and cannot come back to fix anything.

The Earth and the humans on it work together. The planet needs at least 150,000 humans to keep the soul alive. If less than this number remain alive at any one time, the soul is lost.

This is the great sadness I feel today. I see a world in chaos. The angels have literally won the battle. They possess the mind of world leaders through religious insanity. And they are leading us on a direct path into World War III.

Anyone who listened to Art Bells interview with noted physicist Michio Kaku on Dec. 15 knows just how close this planet has already been to a nuclear holocaust. At one time, in the early 1950s, the advisors to President Eisenhower had a plan to destroy Stalins Russia by lobbing a full armament of nuclear bombs.

Kaku said the bombs they wanted to drop on Moscow alone would have added up to about 100 megatons, or enough to plunge the world into nuclear winter.

Both Russia and the United States have stockpiled about ten times that number of bombs, each.

This is why an adventure by the Bush Administration into World War III is an invitation for complete extinction of the human race.

I believe this is the root of the deep sadness I am experiencing today. Unless the people of this world change their ways, I do not expect this feeling to go away.