The end is nigh...or maybe not

It is quite easy to draw conclusions and to predict events that support various theories that one might have regarding the state of affairs in the world.  I do it myself so I should know.
We've been living in a time of upheaval and momentous change and this fact alone serves to fuel the desire to "put things in context" and this usually leads to making pronouncements of doom.

Optimism and pessimism are dead.  It's time for realism.  What do we make of the signs and portents in the wake of realism?  One could make the claim that we are living in the last days of your religion of choice.  In reality what we are seeing today largely has occurred many times in the past.  We have a short memory indeed.

Looking at the violent riots occurring around the world one might think that this is really IT.

But we have seen this all before:

French Revolution:

Plug riots:

Philadelphia riots:

New York draft riots:

I could go on and on.  There is a strong undercurrent in the world today of a fervent desire to change things for the better and we have been let down time and time again in hopes of making the world a better place for all of us.

We have also had a belly full of economic problems but history is filled with such things.  The point is that there is nothing about today to mark it as special or any reason to think that we will see an end to the continued march of the human race into the future.
The only thing that we can really say is that we have seen the trends of history and they have indicated to us that where we might be headed as a people may not be such a nice place to live in.

We have always been at war with (insert name of country or countries here).

So what can be gleaned from the tea leaves of today?  Since we have been here before?
I think that like all times that we have seen momentous change as a possibility we have a choice.  We can try to achieve that change and carry it through to make something better for all of us.  We can try.  We may fail as we have many times before, but we may succeed.
It's time to grasp the bull by the horns and seize the day.
Do we have the ability to do what our forebears did and TRY?
Apathy is deadly.