How to Negotiate the End Times

The following excerpt is the preface to an article written by Canadian journalist Darren Fleet and is featured in the current issue of Adbusters.

Camille Seaman, Stranded Iceberg, Cape Bird, Antarctica 2006

Every generation has its apocalypse. It may or may not be real, but if you are overcome with a sense that nothing can stop your society from sinking into the abyss of some type of destruction, you’re probably in one. Jesus of Nazareth claimed he lived in the end times and that the antichrist walked alongside him. Entire cities repented when the bubonic plague killed a third of Europe because people were convinced judgment day had arrived. World War I, the war to end all wars, succeeded in sowing the seeds of an even greater war. During the USSR and American squabbles from the next Great War onwards, the globe was gripped in fear that at any moment some unelected fool in a suit could start the megadeath. In 2011 there are even more apocalypses to choose from, an entire smorgasbord of end time scenarios, comets, ancient prophecies, solar winds, Mayan calendars, reverse Earth magnetism, climate change, species extinction and so on. Take your pick. To whittle some perspective out of all these options, you might ask yourself what do the antichrist, nuclear winter, the end of war and the end of the world have in common?

They never happened.

                                                                                                   -Darren Fleet, April, 2011

Judgment Day billboard photo I took on HWY 5 in L.A, where everyday is Judgment Day.