Did they see it coming?

I love watching Japanese movies. Old ones. Stuff from the 60's, 50's, and all the way back to the black and white silent movies. While most folks in the English-speaking world know who Akira Kurosawa was, few know who Yasujiro Ozu was. Ozu was a Japanese director, born in 1903, who made oceans of films. Most of his films were domestic family stories about fathers worried about their children, newlyweds trying to scrape by, and so on. No bombs, no gunfights, no Yakuza. Just people living their lives.

Now here's the odd part. Watching his pre-World War II films such as Tokyo Chorus or I Was Born, But..., I cannot help but wonder, "Did anybody living at the time see it coming?" You watch a movie, and there are people catching the bus to work, husbands needing to find work in a faraway town while wives fret about their homes and children, pushy bosses, nosy neighbors. Did they realize in a few years, their world would be torn apart by war? Did the actors sense the impending doom? How many children playing bit parts were appearing on film for the last time in their prematurely shortened lives? Did they see it coming?

I'm trying hard to not be bitter about the current state of our nation, but cannot help but imagine we're headed for a similar fate, where we'll remember what looks now like hard times as the good old days. I'm not blaming President Obama; he was elected just like every other U.S. President, and he has a following who thinks we can give free healthcare, free houses, free food, free washing machines, free insurance to everybody. Nothing in life is free. Nothing.

I'm sure all those folks in Japan thought the Emperor knew what he was doing when they went and invaded Manchuria, when they allied themselves with Nazi Germany, when they attacked Pearl Harbor. I'm sure they thought their nation was entering some tough times, but they could have avoided it all. How many lost their lives for nothing? How many families destroyed? Did they see it coming? Do we? Will the next decade smile on our nation as we turn our back on God and bow to worship the statues of Marx and Darwin? Do we see it coming?