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Are we on the edge of a cataclysm?

For almost two decades now, the world has been edging towards an upheaval of the type that has not been seen for quite some time.

Politicians and others in power have continued their "thin end of the wedge" strategies to slowly strip people of their rights, invade their privacy, surveil them and increasingly presume guilt rather than innocence.

The declaration of a "war against terror" was the perfect justification that many governments needed to ramp-up their attempts to gain total control over the people they were supposedly elected to serve and now the pace of change has increased to such a point that the previous populations of the Western World may say "enough".

Governments in the UK, USA and New Zealand have all committed "unlawful" acts and, when caught with their trousers down, have moved quickly to change the law so as to legalise that offending -- rather than simply follow the laws they themselves had dictated to the rest of society.

One only has to look at the comments on this Guardian story to see that even in the UK, perhaps the most "watched" and surveiled society in the world, the great unwashed masses have had a guts-full of this abuse.

Here in NZ we have the crippling handicap of a "she'll be right" attitude to all things and that has meant that our own government has repeatedly gotten away with "unlawful" activities for quite some time, and will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

In the USA, the government has established such a strong network of domestic spying and such severe forms of enforcement (many of which breach the nation's own constitution), it will only be the very brave who dare to challenge a government that has far exceeded its mandate. However, when the masses have finally had enough, the second amendment means the result could be very nasty indeed.

Even NASA has predicted that civilization, as we presently know it, is headed for imminent collapse within a few decades.

With China becoming a rapidly rising super-power and the USA's quantitative easing effectively devaluing its currency, economic disparities will heighten political tensions between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the valuable alliance and partnership between the USA and Germany, which has stood for decades -- since the second world war, is crumbling at an alarming rate, thanks in part to the revelations of Ed Snowden.

The USA is in a very invidious position right now, having interfered in the regional politics of so many countries that it has created the very terrorism it now uses as an excuse to strip its people of their rights.

It seems that even the USA's attempts to disempower its citizens are becoming more obvious and alarming. Attempts by the FAA to make some aspects of flying RC models illegal, perhaps because the US government wants to be able to spy on its citizens using "drones" but not be spied on *by* its citizens using drones, have created a huge reaction from this small community. Witness the comments to the FAA's Facebook page and the fact that concerted efforts by this small group of hobbyists has seen the rating of that page tumble by almost two stars in as many weeks.

It's really starting to look as if a convergence of pressures may well lead to some very "interesting times" ahead for the planet. Who knows, there may yet be a World War 3.

What are readers' opinions?

Have you also noticed the dramatic rise in tensions between increasingly authoritarian governments and populations that are increasingly being stripped of rights and treated as "suspects"?

Is war, or some kind of breakdown in civilization inevitable?

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