There are only two things we can be sure of in this dimension, this life: the reality of evil and human nature. After that, you just never know. As a former “abstractionist” (those of us who were Marxists were indeed always looking at the tea leaves for how the Hegelian rhythms were playing out) I no longer try to intuit some larger pattern or trend is revealing itself.

Random and decisive events and people can change the trends of history in an instant. “What’s going on?” may just be an amalgam of these unforeseen events and people and the ripple effects they create in other lives and other countries, across many cultures.

And if Obama wins in November the waters get murkier and, I believe, the world becomes more dangerous, not less so. It will mean that the hard guys of the world are going to start taking chunks out of people and nations, because they know they can.

Sometimes it’s just that simple.