I happened to sit down in front of a television last night that was playing the History Channel. They ran a show on the 16th century French apothecary and astrologist, Michel de Nostredame. Michel is known to many as Nostradamus: the great seer and prophet who depicted in his drawings and writing many events that would later come to pass. They interviewed scholars, dramatized aspects of the man’s life, and we saw prints of his well done drawings and his text.

I have rarely seen such a laughable piece of racist, propagandist trash in all my life.

It got to the point where I could predict what they would roll out next, and then watch them do it. Just before a commercial break we learned (and then waited breathlessly through ads for Verizon Wireless and pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb) that de Nostredame had predicted an apocalypse, spurred by a powerful Antichrist! There was much talk about the great Apocalypse (and for the record I think that part may well turn out to be correct), and about this powerful catalyst, the Antichrist. Obviously, this couldn’t be a Christian man, like Mitt Romney. Our distinguished experts confirmed: Nostradamus intended for us to understand that this great Antichrist would be Muslim. We know that, they explained, because Monsieur Nostedame drew a picture of a half moon next to a serpent.

Then they rolled out the image of the Real Life Antichrist we face today. I thought to myself… No, they won’t do it. Will they? It’s too obvious! I mean, I know his face sells PBS specials like Frontline, but will they be that predictable? And who’s image did we see next? Take a guess.

Oh yes, Mr. Bin Laden himself. Just in time for Halloween. Terrorism, we learned from our learned narrator, was a result of religious (translation: Islamic) extremists around the globe. Okay!, so the horrific acts of terror, murder, subjugation and oppression committed in Iraq, El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua, to name but a few, the vicious attacks on defenseless peasants in Vietnam including the chemical agent napalm, an inhuman incendiary weapon so severe it burns through to the muscle and bone- were the result of Islamic fundamentalists? Muslims support the harsh occupation, violence and terror against their own people then, in Lebanon and Palestine? And none of these things could cause terrorism. I take it we needn’t look at the multinational corporations that profit from these crimes, either. Wow, I feel better. I’m glad Monsieur Nostredame drew that half moon (which symbolizes Islam, in case you missed that). I was afraid for a moment I might have to look a little closer to home.

I know there is presently a great deal of anti-Arab sentiment in our government and the media that serves them, a great deal of ignorance and scapegoating, but I am truly surprised to find a channel that claims devotion to history, a field that necessitates scholarship and analysis, would produce such predictable, self-serving trash. It appears one of their major research sources is an institution in Washington DC. It’s called The Pentagon. I hadn’t imagined that the History Channel was at roughly the integrity level of Fox News. I’m sure this makes me naive. Curiously though, it turns out a major defense contractor- one that is no doubt very busy as a result of the unprecedented militarization of our country- General Electric, owns twenty-five percent of the History Channel.

It is interesting to consider what all this suggests about our school system, K-12, and what they teach about history. I can’t say I recall hearing the name Howard Zinn back in grade school.

I’m thankful I heard forty minutes of Antidote Radio on my way home last night, with the truthful and delicious Voice of Reason. I’m grateful her’s was the last voice in my head as I fell asleep, not those pathetic shills and their specious interpretations. At least the actor playing Nostradamus knew he was an actor.

If there really was a Nostredame, he is probably looking down on us in anguish as we misinterpret a series of love notes and erotic drawings he meant to send to his mistress during the plague.

I have a prediction of my own, however, a humble one from an American man of Irish descent. I predict the US government will ask you to turn a blind eye, suppress your compassion and your outrage, put your hands over your hearts and pledge allegiance to them while The Pentagon continues their vicious pattern of denial and lies and uses horrific weapons like napalm (with a slightly different petroleum distillate and a new name) and white phosphorus in Iraq. I predict their commitment to conflict, destabilization, domination and control for the profit of a tiny minority will continue to be the worst threat facing the beautiful, fragile, priceless thing that is life on this planet. I predict with absolute certainty that if our species evolves and survives, people will one day look back to the United States at precisely this time we are living in, recognize it as an extremely hypocritical, destructive and cruel one, and will dedicate college courses to studying how it was that so many people were pacified, isolated, misinformed, corrupted, frightened or numbed enough to sleep through it.

I predict that if enough Americans come to realize the horrific realities of death and exploitation we export around the globe so a few elites can profit obscenely while the rest suffer and die, their ugly structure will collapse like a house of cards.

Mr. Bin Laden may be the Antichrist, but in atrocities he is far behind his competitor.

Tristan L. Sullivan

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