Octogenarian contrarian dissenter, wary of perhaps fatal decline in morality and faith based underpinnings of the Republic, ignores the sting of slings and arrows of the “tell me only the good news” crowd while awaiting the sting of final personal demise, but not without firing warning shots to those who refuse to know that history repeats itself.

Shakespeare penned a most famous line in Hamlet; “To be or not to be that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them, end them.” In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare writes, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

Non-functional ObamaCare and HealthCare.gov may qualify as financial and health care evils that like all bad laws passed by Congress, have a never-ending shelf life, provide no valuable service, but the cost and bureaucracy continue into infinity or the collapse of the country, whichever comes first. If ObamaCare does not qualify as doom and gloom, nothing does.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 presciently states, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” The sun rises in the East and sets in the West repetitively, day after day, year after year, for millenniums of recorded history. Each new generation assumes the illusion it is the know all and be all, expanding the illusion of the builders of the Tower of Babel, meant to reach the heavens and become god-like.

This 21st Century is particularly vulnerable to the belief in the here and now due to the geometric explosion of information. Expansion of knowledge is exemplified by proliferation of digital iToys, computers, Tablets, expanding iteration of iPhones, new pending iWrist Watches, and countless devices and software designed to do everything including virtually read brains, all reinforcing beliefs in human superiority, God notwithstanding.

Doom and gloomers like Rodney Dangerfield get no respect, can lead the horse to water, but cannot make it drink. Naysayers know all the answers and as opposed to gloomers who see the glass as half empty but cynics see only undefined good news. Intelligentsia see the glass as overflowing with information, invulnerability, and everything good without paying tribute to God and the inhibiting Ten Commandments.

Is Doom and Gloom based on fact or fiction? Do gloomers speak only to a minuscule choir that does not need speaking to, an exercise of beating the gums only? Does anyone that does not already believe care?

Gloomers are right at times, and this gloomer was one of relatively few 10% to 15% opposed to the 2003 President G.W. Bush pre-emptive war against Iraq, proved by publishing date and time stamped objections on EarthLink.net, Copyright 2003, titled “Does Anybody Think Anymore” Name changes to the rationale for war indicate the wrongness of the Iraq War, first attributed to WMD, changed to Shock and Awe, and finally morphed into Iraqi Freedom. Six trillion and a million deaths later, and counting, the endless war continues unabated. The author hoped to be wrong, but history proves otherwise.

Bipartisan Congress overwhelmingly approved the Iraq War, Sec. of State Colin Powell being the most influential peddler of what turned out to be false information about WMD, that even if true, were no threat to the US. Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and “I am a simple man” fame, was adamant that opponents to the pre-emptive strike against Iraq were unpatriotic, and only recently has “Bull” O'Reilly declared himself to be against the Iraq War. Monday Morning Quarterback!

Is the country a barrel of apples that gradually, bit by bit, enables the moral un-natural rot to continue until there is nothing substantial supporting a country that cannot end useless unendable war; cannot create Universal MediCare health care system (not just insurance, but actual health care) for all legitimate residents of this once great country; cannot create a good job environment; cannot survive financially or fiscally without passing debt to heirs; and cannot gain election or re-election without giving up the store to illegal aliens as well…for free.

Doom and gloom adherents have their place and at times should be considered as beacons of light helping guide the country of lemmings safely through endless morass of world turmoil fostered mainly by the 57 Muslim nations comprising Islam that are dedicated to one common goal; destruction of Israel and the US, but America is doing a good job of self-destructing, saving Islam the trouble.

George Snatanya said, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” There is legitimate cause for doom and gloom from octogenarians who lived through the Great Depression. Experiences include The First World War WW I and The Second World War WW II, The Great War. More declared, undeclared wars, include stealth operations in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq twice, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, and now clandestine operations in Africa and the Sudan.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that the Congress has the power to declare war, and Article II, Section 2 states that the President shall be the Commander In Chief of the military. This raises the question of the Constitutionality of America’s undeclared wars.

Unlearned lessons for America are that there is no way to win in modern warfare spread across the globe, against a Billion non-uniformed unidentifiable members of the Army of One, against which there is precious little defense as they are everywhere including in the US. One thing the US can and must do is withdraw any and all financial and military aid to 57 intransigent Muslim countries bent on destruction of the US, something the Military Industrial Complex staunchly opposes.

This octogenarian is unapologetic about being a contrarian, recalcitrant, naysayer spreading well deserved or not doom and gloom warnings to be ignored at the country’s own peril. And for this octogenarian to be wrong, as in sports, constitutes a “No Call;” “No Harm, No Foul.” Doom and gloom – fact or fiction? The bad answer, as etched  in the passenger side mirror of a car, “Objects may be closer than they appear.”