Pro-Test

Somebody else has a prophecy of growing civil unrest all over the world, which may lead to the worst world war the planet has ever seen, one that might make the previous world war pale in comparison. Mind you I have interceded for others to cope with the rise of socialism here in the Philippines that if socialism were to become so popular here, that ultimately we could see violence aimed at landowners and politicians alike, even if it doesn’t get this violent it would still be disruptive seeing the Philippines go from a capitalist oligarchy to a socialist country. Sort of like the Russian Revolution before where an imperialist Russia gave way to a socialist one, though it didn’t entirely erase the need to hold onto Russian possessions like Poland and Estonia. Either that they became part of the Soviet Union proper (Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia) or they became satellite states (Romania, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland), so realistically a socialist Philippines might carry at least some holdovers from its capitalist past.

What would change is that it would be the norm for a lot of Philippine companies to be partly state-owned from then on, be it restaurants (Max’s, Aristocrat, Jollibee), clothing (Bench, Bayo, Penshoppe), publishing (Phoenix, New Day, Adarna) and anything and everything else, even something like GMA would become a partly state-owned media company this way. But given God’s out to revoke nearly all American influence over the world that the Philippines would be no exception, a rising socialist movement would accelerate and exacerbate this where it might no longer be fashionable for Philippine people to use English and have western names. Admittedly this is the sort of thing I’ve interceded for others to cope with, but one that would align of God’s plan to revoke nearly all American influence around the world that the things I’ve prayed for are either coming to pass or at already underway. The Irish language’s already getting popularised, though the language getting popularised in say Slovenia has yet to happen.

Even then with God revoking US influence around the world that it’s possible given the US empire kept the English language relevant far longer than it should, a US collapse might accelerate other countries’ drive to either preserve their own languages (Ireland for instance) or it would be more fashionable and practical to learn another language instead (Mandarin in the Philippines). So it’s actually plausible for something like Mandarin and Tagalog to get popularised a lot in the Philippines following US collapse and possibly growing sympathies for China, not helped by that the US will go into a civil war anytime soon, that it might no longer be practical to rely on America a lot when America itself is unable to help the Philippines in any way it likes that realpolitik is a more sensible option instead. It could be plausible for a number of Germans, Slovenes, Swiss, Austrians and Italians to learn Irish as a way to protest against US imperialism, knowing a band like Kneecap has made it hip to learn Irish and this band’s very sympathetic to Palestine.

Learning Irish would be a way to support Palestine (albeit indirectly due to their sympathies for Kneecap), and also to protest against US imperialism given many European countries have come to resent it a lot. Maybe not immediately and not in a way I’d expect, but it’s still plausible given how unpopular America has gotten that a US collapse would accelerate and exacerbate things. Even the Philippines might not only reconsider its relationships with China but grow to sympathise with it more once the US collapses, when coupled with a growing socialist movement, that ultimately it might even consent to it. Likewise the entire European Union might consent to Russian rule, for fear of getting bombed the way America will be getting. There will be greatly expanded versions of China and Russia, or that there will be new supranational unions aligned with either country. Greater China will be composed entirely of all the East Asian countries as well as some South Asian countries, Lesser China will be composed of all the African countries and their Oceanian counterparts.

A new version of the Commonwealth of Independent States would be composed of not only all the forever Soviet Union members, but also all European Union members as well as Canada and members of the former United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales), with America being there for a while before it disappears. The neutral powers would be composed of some West Asian countries, some South Asian countries and the remaining American countries other than Canada, even then it would be a very different world by then where American influence is nearly revoked in its entirety. English would be used less often, especially if it makes other countries like Ghana, Wales, Nigeria and Ireland prioritise or popularise their own indigenous languages more, that even the Philippines will follow suit where it would become the norm for a lot of Philippine websites to use more Tagalog (as well as Mandarin) from then on. It would be the norm for Philippine people to follow Chinese customs (right down to the name order) and have Tagalog personal names, it would be the norm for the Philippines to closely follow its neighbours like China and Vietnam from then on.

It might be very fashoinable for German, Austrian, Italian, Slovene, Slovak, Hungarian and Czech youths to learn Irish due to the popularity of phenomena like Kneecap, that even their countries’ websites might concede to this and may allow Irish-language options of things like Bible lectionaries for instance. They might even use Irish as a way to support Kneecap’s sympathies for Palestine, essentially the linguistic equivalent to the way the One Piece flag has become a symbol of protest. Even then American influence is waning and any growing unrest in the Philippines due to a growing socialist movement would serve to hasten this, a growing civil war in America would hasten it even further that the world gets de-Americanised this way. But America is a very double-minded country, that sliding into civil instability would be inevitable. It is a house so internally divided that it could collapse anytime soon, if its own culture wars and duplicitous character are any indication. A very duplicitous country that alternates between piety and reprobation, out of the same country come ministries and filth.

Given it’s also a superpower which only serves to magnify its duplicity on a scale that’s not widely enjoyed or done by countries like China and Russia, but then again China doesn’t just own up to its atheism. It even owns it, despite having a good number of online lectionaries and devotionals for its own Christians to turn to, whereas America is very anti-Christian yet it doesn’t own up to it and doesn’t own it either. So America is exceedingly double-minded, its double-mindedness manifests in other ways too. Mind you both Hollywood and the CRU ministry are in California together, this even extends to cultural exports like 1990s boy bands either. Burk Parsons had a similar feeling around Backstreet Boys, which he was set to join, where he felt that although the band was made to endear to parents, it had to be seductive enough to arouse lust in young girls that he eventually didn’t want to partake in it anymore. Perhaps it shouldn’t even be surprising why there’s so much pornographic fanfiction of the Backstreet Boys, these were even called visuals at some point.

It would be even more horrifying to learn that the Backstreet Boys might’ve been molested by Lou Pearlman in some occult ritual, or at least far more sexualised than one realises, that further contributes to a highly sexualised fandom environment. So far only Boyzone’s Shane Lynch admitted this is the case with the secular music industry where such people consecrate these records to the public, that ultimately leads to trouble (I’ve done something similar thing and lost two dogs before). One might wonder if this also extends to New Kids On The Block, a direct precursor to both the Backstreet Boys and Boyzone, that it could be more sinister than it really looks in a way people do recognise but can’t articulate properly why. The fact that America is a very double-minded country, one with a Jekyll and Hyde quality to its culture, leads to an environment where things have these dual purposes. One to entertain people and appear as innocent as possible, the other to corrupt them from the inside out that leads to a spiritually odd environment to be in. So much so that civil war erupts in America anyways.

And why these escalations and tensions would lead to WWIII anyways as well.

Canada after America

This would be a really existentialist question regarding how would the disappearance of America affect Canada (and Canadian culture) in the long term, given it’s one of those countries most heavily influenced by America. In most regards it’s much moreso than what Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Britain, Norway, Germany and the like get, not just because both America and Canada share a language and British heritage together, but also borders that Canada’s going to be this inescapably Americanised anyways. It’s actually been said in some Christian circles that the United States is Mystery Babylon, the nation-state said to corrupt the entire planet with its filth and abominations, as to warrant getting revoked in the foreseeable future. Canada’s really not any better and would suffer from its own sins/vices/mistakes, though America would have the misfortune of being removed from the planet altogether, both physiogeographically and culturally.

Eventually becoming the stuff of legend the way Atlantis did, which Celestial said that it might have been a real place after all. If Canada does join Russia, which is something that I prayed for and interceded for others to cope with as well, and then America disappears and is forgotten by many, then Canada would be in a really awkward position. By then it would be seen as the youngest of the Commonwealth of Independent States (something formed after the Soviet Union’s dissolution) and one of two former Britsh colonies to join Russia (the other being Ireland), as well as becoming Russia’s sole North American protectorate after America’s disappearance. Regarding America’s arrogance and the like, America does have a habit of seeing itself as the hero of the world. Essentially the hammer of the earth that hammers down its policies and preferences onto other countries, regardless of how questionable and bizarre these are at first.

It’s pretty obvious if you go by the GI Joe canon where such comics and the like were made at the tail end of the Cold War, where a battle’s fought between the all-American heroes (Scarlet, Duke, Lady Jayne and the like) and the para-Soviet Cobra (Baroness and Destro), in the case with Baroness even if she wasn’t intended to be Eastern European at first, as she was going to be a mere radical but given the strong anti-Soviet and anti-socialist streak America had in the 1980s (and still does to an extent), she was going to end up this way anyways. It’s a kind of self-mythologisation that America’s prone to from time to time, seeing itself as heroic despite its less than heroic act at times. But it also lived long enough to become the villain, if you get the reference by now. Perhaps outside of Russian, West Asian and Chinese media, if you’re ever going to have a pro-American villain at all in non-American comics you’d have to peruse Canadian comics instead.

But that’s due to America forcing Canada to join and when the latter refused, they began issues taxes in kind to one another. The one thing weirder than America disappearing into the waters forever is a Canadian Saddam Hussein attempting to turn Canada into New America, as the original Saddam Hussein tried to bring back Babylon (the precursor to modern day Iraq) and failed to do so. It should be noted that early versions of certain Iranian languages like Persian use to be written in cuneiform, the same used for both Akkadian and Sumerian, but as Babylon’s influence waned so inevitably both Babylon and Iran got Arabicised over time. But only Iran retained its own language, given it played a hand in freeing God’s people from Babylon despite (or because) of their own shortcomings, It should be noted that there’s also a Persian Jewish community somewhere there as well, so despite Iran’s own faults it did get used by God to save people from their worst enemy.

You can even freely read at least one Persian language/Iranian Catholic lectionary online, so it’s not that hopeless even if it has a habit of persecuting Christians. America might shockingly persecute its own one day, even if it’s been suspected before but it might turn out true. Celestial even said that America might house a form of totalitarianism in the future, but one heavily influenced by the original Nazis who came over to America, which makes for a weird irony that even when America proclaims itself to be a Jewish safe haven, it really doesn’t appear to be this way when it invited over their enemies to work on its causes which was known as Operation Paperclip. It also line up with a verse of Mystery Babylon getting drunk on the blood of saints, again this is the prophetic nation-state that America gets made out to be by some, where it makes for a weirdly Kafkasque transformation from a Christian safe haven to Hell on Earth.

The fact that Mystery Babylon is personified by a woman, both Babylon and Sumer are personified as daughter and mother, and America having been historically represented by a woman in the form of Columbia should point out to Britain being the new Sumer in here and one that will be dissolved into three separate countries as it’s just as bad as its own child. Like father, like son as the saying goes. England, Scotland and Wales might join Russia as three separate countries this time, with America becoming utterly gone from the picture in the future. And Canada would be very different here from then on.

Subset of a greater nation

Celestial said something that regarding the table of nations, countries that seem to be separate from one another are really subsets of a greater nation or people. It’s this way between Northern Ireland (currently a part of Britain) and the Republic of Ireland, which is what happened when most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom. They could reunite one day if Britain dissolves into three separate nation-states (England, Wales and Scotland) not seen in centuries, though the exact same thing can be said of between North Korea and South Korea. The real reason why South Korea came into existence is because America wanted to contain the spread of socialism into the Korean peninsula, so socialism only became a feature of the northern half longer. Likewise Singapore was part of Malaysia proper, to the extent that there are even a degree of similarities between the two. Or Malaysia and Indonesia in a way as they actually speak the same language but with different registers dependent on their former colonisers (Britain and the Netherlands respectively).

America might be exempt but not in a good way as it’s really Mystery Babylon, the nation-state said to corrupt the world only to be destroyed later on by both outside forces and internal strife. A double-minded country that is so internally divided that it’s never going to remain united for long, it has happened before but briefly. This man was Jefferson Davis and he was the only president of the Confederated States so far, though a new civil war could usher in somebody who could arguably be his reincarnation. Maybe not necessarily so but that their position would mirror his, regarding ruling over a newly divided United States not seen in years, quite alarmingly they might be a kind of figurehead for either a kind of seccessionist movement or an ethnic separatist movement. Celestial even said that there might be a racial war in America and a similar one would occur in South Africa, as both of them have been marked by racial segregation and are settler-colonial states themselves. This has also been prophesised by others before, that inevitably America will truly be a house divided.

I remember saying this before that not all African Americans despise or distrust their white counterparts and vice versa, though at other times this kind of unforgiveness boils into hatred and then violence. But there’s also no mistaking that a good number of African Americans have been so repeatedly traumatised by discrimination that some will even make the move elsewhere like Ghana for instance, given many Ghanaians don’t look much different from African Americans that it practically becomes hard to tell the difference. As for Mexican Americans, given ongoing xenophobia and fears of deportation, that even when not all of them feel this way but since we have reports of a Honduran American pupil getting deported to her ancestral country, that it seems the American dream has turned its back on them. Maybe some other country would welcome them with open arms, whatever those may be, it certainly isn’t America even if these countries aren’t without their own faults.

The idea that countries like Sweden and Denmark may also constitute subsets of one nation might also ring true in another way, as their own languages are highly mutually intelligible. Or the Italian city-states at some point, as they were part of an earlier Kingdom of Italy before reuniting again eventually. Then there’s also an argument to be made for the former Yugoslavia, though another one will bite the dust and it’s Bosnia.

It never really influenced me much

I have listened to K-Pop myself and for some curious reason, I never really get obsessive or curious over any K-Pop band or musician for long the way I do with European bands like Ace of Base, Massive Attack, The Prodigy and Aqua, nor am I actually that influenced by them beyond some interest in South Korea itself in a way. I don’t think I’m really that heavily influenced by any K-Pop band or musician to the extent that I don’t really bother namedropping any one K-Pop member the way I do with Ace of Base members when it comes to learning Indonesian. These are from my notebooks and examples include ‘Jenny membukakan pintu untuk Malin’ (Jenny Berggren’s the younger sister of Malin Berggren, who’s actually the middle child in their family) and ‘Kartu tersebut akan beritahu Ulf Jonas akan pulang’ (Jonas Berggren is the oldest sibling in the family, Ulf Ekberg’s the only nonrelative and was also involved in white supremacy at some point). Nor creating characters resembling any K-Pop celebrity the way I do with the Prodigy and Massive Attack, mind you I based the characters of Fabrice Tientcheu (a forensic scientist) and Colin Sallow (a young politician) after the two oldest surviving members (Maxim and Liam Howlett). Then there’s the Nigerian lawyer Babatunde Osofisan who’s clearly Grant Marshall and the Florentine economist Gaetano Saturni who’s based on Robert Del Naja, not to mention I even have a habit of mirroring mirrored Ace of Base, Massive Attack and Aqua fansites.

Let’s not forget I have also listened to the likes of Altan, Clannad and Capercaillie where these bands piqued my interests in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic, wherein I even bothered learning those for a time being. It’s kind of weird to think not a single K-Pop band actually influenced me to learn Korean in any way, where any K-Pop band has seriously influenced some of the people I have encountered or followed online in any way before. I actually know somebody who does fanart of both Backstreet Boys and Stray Kids, despite being into the Backstreet Boys at some point I don’t like them anymore. But it’s strange that I never really gotten into any K-Pop band or musician, let alone for as long as I have with these bands to the point of mirroring archived fansites mentioning them in any capacity. Let alone namedropping any K-Pop member when learning a new language the way I have with Ace of Base and Aqua members, that it seems whatever influence K-Pop bands have on me is very negligible. The influence they have on me is likely not that tangible, beyond some interest in the K-Pop industry and Korean culture, that it’s kind of strange I never created characters resembling K-Pop musicians. I never namedrop any K-Pop musician when learning a new language like Indonesian, never bothered archiving fansites about them in any way I have with Ace of Base, Massive Attack and Aqua.

It’s not entirely absent but it’s not particularly noticeable in my life that it seems whatever interest I have in K-Pop is more likely to be in passing, since I don’t really get particularly attached to any K-Pop band for some reason. I neither like nor dislike K-Pop that much, but I never really gotten into any K-Pop musician or band that much for that long. The music isn’t bad, but it never really obsessed me much. I’m not entirely immune to K-Pop’s charms but it’s something that I never really got obsessive over in any way, but that I never really developed much interest in any K-Pop band to the point of actively looking for any fansite about any one of them really.

How would fashion be without America?

I suspect if American influence were to be reduced at the very least, the less powerful America gets over time, that this would also affect the global fashion industry to a possible extent. That’s not to say casual clothing will be entirely done away with, as there was a distinction between formal and informal clothing in China before, most especially the differences between the more educated classes and those involved in agriculture. I suspect if the Philippines were to willingly ally with China the more America makes a lot of disastrous mistakes towards its allies, considering how Canada feels about it enough to have its citizens patronise local products more that it’s possible American fashion will be considered passe and unstylish by then. If something like hanfu were to get popularised big time here, alongside pre-colonial clothing, that it’s plausible the rural areas are going to be strongholds of western fashion as we recognise it as.

But primarily because rural areas are generally isolated from urban areas unless if the locals there have good Internet connections to get around in some way, also if you have people involved in agriculture that they’re more likely to dress practically. Though practical, agricultural hanfu did exist but I feel it’s still going to be part of a phenomenon that would be first popularised in cosmopolitan areas like suburbs and cities, albeit one that might affect Philippine clothing in very unexpected or perhaps creative ways. As a lot of hanfu are designed to have a 2D effect, that’s being designed without much regard for the human body. To the extent that if hanfu were to get popularised in the Philippines, Filipiniana (both the familiar variety and the precolonial one) might also be shaped by the same design philosophy hanfu always has.

That and Filipinos pairing or combining Filipiniana with hanfu in multiple ways, also if hanfu were to be first popularised in cosmopolitan areas alongside precolonial clothing that both of them will communicate the message that to dress in a nonwesternised fashion is to be fashionable. This might break away the Philippines’ tie to the United States in another way, where America will no longer exert much sartorial influence on us anymore. Perhaps even further than at present, given the current Korean influence here. South Korea’s also generally more beholden to the US than China is, so willingly allying more with China would further sever western ties that a South Korean influence wouldn’t do, given China’s a legitimate superpower now. Though it’s a question if such garments would even be normalised.

And if they do get normalised at all, that is both hanfu and precolonial Philippine clothing, then newer influences would be more fashionable the next time around. Familiarity wouldn’t necessarily breed contempt, it would however pave way for such characters to look to the Philippines’ other neighbours for inspiration. Something like Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos and Malaysia would kind of help matters in a way, assuming if both precolonial clothing and hanfu have gotten so popularised in the Philippines as to be rather normalised in the near future. It’s a matter of time when Indonesian folk clothing would also get popularised in the Philippines like hanfu might do at all, but it would still signify that dressing fashionably is dressing in a nonwestern way.

It would be no different if it’s Vietnamese folk clothing, Cambodian folk clothing, Thai folk clothing, Burmese folk clothing or Laotian folk clothing that gets popularised here, it would be no different if these also happens in the aggregate because by then if somebody dresses in a westernised way, they’ll also be seen as unfashionable and highly unstylish. Maybe not necessarily so unfashionable but in a way that stands out negatively because future Filipinos might align more with nonwestern countries like China and Vietnam, moreso if America really does stop being a superpower at any point in time that anything American will be seen as highly unfashionable. Sort of like what’s happening in Canada at present that it will willingly turn to alternatives, now that America has burnt the bridge real badly for it. Though revoking or minimising American influence in Canada would be logistically harder.

One it shares the same landmass as America does to the extent that it’s going to be hard patronising local products alone that if it doesn’t want American products in its stores anymore, it might as well get the same products from Europe instead, which is what Canada might already be doing. Two, if Russia were to get back Alaska (according to this prophecy) and also if America were to plunge into a civil war, likely due to its own doublemindedness as to be unstable over time, that Canada could get Russified this way. If I’m being honest here, I’ve actually been praying to God for various people to cope with such things if they were to happen in the future at all, be it the popularisation of Chinese customs and holidays here (if they’re Filipino) or the popularisation of Russian and Danish music in Canada. It’s possible they could get answered in an unexpected way, but it would still convey the plausibility of American irrelevance.

If American influence were to be nearly undone the world over, it’s going to be logistically tricky at first to make up for a loss of US influence in some industries even when this makes substitutes all the more necessary or appealing, especially if some countries might not have large comics or fashion industries themselves. The comics industry in Japan is much larger than in Russia that if Philippine publishing houses were to develop a habit of translating Japanese comics into the Philippine vernacular, it would do more than suffice for a loss of US influence here. Having Canadian publishers translate comics coming from Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia, Czechia, Russia, Lithuania and Estonia would be tricky, even in the aggregate as many of them don’t have particularly large comics industries due to a prior distrust of all things American.

It’s conceivable that the Philippine fashion industry might still buoy well with stronger East Asian influences (but this time also coming from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia), the Canadian fashion industry would be in a more awkward shape because it’s this tied to the US fashion industry. The one situation where this would be alleviated is if Russia succeeds in getting Alaska back from America, that this is where the Russification of Canada begins in earnest and moreso if Canada even willingly joins Russia at all. A Russified Canada might be one where nearly all aspects of Russian culture gets popularised there, whether if this includes fashion at all, but the fashion part is just as tricky. Russian fashion brands do exist but they’re not particularly well-known outside of Russia, whereas American fashion brands are world-famous.

Given Calvin Klein, Guess, Abercrombie and Fitch, Forever 21 and The Gap are well-known American brands it’s inevitable they’ll be present in Philippine stores at all at present, but the loss of US influence would inevitably involve a loss of US influence in the sartorial sphere. It wouldn’t be a complete loss but it would still be felt in a big way, like if a US civil war were to happen again coupled with America continuing to alienate its allies that ultimately America might no longer be the tastemaker of the world anymore. The writing’s on the wall when Elon Musk turned Twitter into a superapp because he realised that superapps are popular in China, although short-form videos did get their start on Vine they only gained further traction when China’s Tiktok came along. It’s a matter of time when China’s Weibo gets popularised, but it’s plausible the more people turn away from Musk’s mishandling of the Twitter brand.

I don’t think casual clothing will entirely disappear as a version of it did exist in China, maybe not necessarily in the form we usually understand it to be, but I suppose if something like hanfu were to get popularised big time in the Philippines coupled with a similar popularisation of precolonial clothing here that a different version of informal clothing will be appear here. Or perhaps a different way of dressing stylishly and one that’s not beholden to American trends and influence anymore, where it might be fashionable to pair a hanyuansu Filipiniana blouse with a poqun (a wrap skirt with alternating sewn-in pieces of fabric). It might not be a stretch to witness hanyuansu ternos among Philippine women and girls once or after the Philippines willingly allies with China enough to observe a more sinicised Philippines from then on, but it still tells you that dressing like an American might be considered frumpy in the future.

A Russified Canada where Russian folk clothing gets popularised there would be no different, though it remains to be seen if additional influences from countries like Norway and Sweden may follow suit. Assuming if things like Armenian folk clothing were to even get popularised in Canada at all, that it’s likely it would be part of a possible trend of embracing nearly all things from both the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. That is the more Canada cuts off ties to America that turning to countries like Armenia, Georgia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Russia for sartorial inspirations is very likely, but the Russian influence is the likeliest of the all as it’s another superpower returning to former glory and that Alaska’s right next to time, So Canadian fashion would be subsequently and consequently Russified from then on.

One would wonder if a brand like Canada Goose might end up taking cues from its newest allies in the former Soviet Union wherein it could take advantage of things like camel fabric, which is already been a thing for years in Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan. To do so would be to import Bactrian camels from Central Asia, even if it risks posing certain problems like introducing yet another invasive species. But it is an intriguing likelihood the more Canada cuts off ties to America, that perhaps turning to Central Asian and Eastern European alternatives would be pretty feasible. This might be another step in Canada becoming less Americanised (less America-lite if you will), that taking sartorial cues from Central Asian countries like Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan would further sever symbolic ties to America.

This could extend to taking sartorial cues from Baltic countries like Estonia one day. But it’s going to be telling that when Canada does get sartorially influenced by the Baltic countries, that’s when nearly all ties to America have been symbolically severed by then. This would be exacerbated by not only a forthcoming US civil war in years, but also another World War where America gets defeated there. I remember Celestial having this dream of seeing women in ridiculously tight clothing and the like that it’s clear America is the world leader in popularising sexualised garments, that even if it didn’t orignate such attire it does popularise them in a way their originators don’t get to. There was even a time in the past where both short shorts and showing the midriff were considered very provocative, so it’s likely they’d still be seen as such in other countries where sartorial modesty for women continues to be more deeply embedded there.

Mind you Cher pretty much put midriff baring and provocative clothing for pop singers on the map that subsequent female singers like Madonna, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and the like would follow her lead, that they can even be considered Cherlikes (as in any video game reminding people of Dark Souls would be called Soulslike). Even after America goes away that somebody prophesises there might be another epicentre of evil that perhaps this person from whatever country that could be the next America will be someone else’s Cher, whoever they may be in the future. Cher might be one of the earliest female musicians to set or influence the template for the prototypical pop dame, as in she dresses provocatively, sings songs most men aren’t into and has a big gay following to boot, things singers like Britney Spears would inherit from in some manner.

America being Mystery Babylon carries weight in that the nation-state that will become Mystery Babylon is another superpower, the original Babylon having been considered the queen of kingdoms. One who will decline ingloriously, one whose own parent will witness it die. Celestial even said somewhere that America will be affected by a nuclear bomb that was mentioned in the Bible, even if it’s not above doing this to itself for as long as it’s towards indigenous territory for some reason. But these further nuclear attacks would take place in cosmopolitan areas like New York, among other cities though Chicago wouldn’t be spared either. This does line up with a passage in the Bible where Mystery Babylon (as personified by a woman) gets killed by the monster she rides on, in fact she’s even burnt to death that will befall America one day.

If Mystery Babylon is the mother of all abominations that it’s befitting America would popularise certain things that contemporary gay culture takes for granted, even if both Sweden and France were ahead of it when it goes to legalising gay activity. This includes things that gay men would usually gravitate to like musical theatre, campy female pop singers, house music and gay porn magazines, even if some of these things were there outside of America before. Although things like music and theatre aren’t inherently bad things in and of themselves, there are even things like Passion plays where people reneact the cruxification of Jesus Christ every Easter season. Music’s also been used in service of the church that there are localised versions of this matter in countries like Ghana and Vietnam for instance, but what America did is to create worldly versions of them.

Whereas church music often glorifies and honours God, house music (and most secular music in general) usually don’t. When it comes to the area of plausible deniability whenever such songs are neutral enough to be open for interpretation, there’s always the risk of failing to do what’s right even if people do make mistakes and try to learn from it the next time around. The thing with the Backstreet Boys is that they have a Christian member, sort of like with Hanson and Ace of Base (their contemporaries), but since Backstreet Boys are still very much in the public eye with Hanson having practically become a cult band and Ace of Base being defunct as of late, that this carries a particular set of responsibilities that Brian Littrell rarely, if ever, does at all. At any point where he could’ve gone the way of Zac Hanson, he prefers to remain in the world for some reason.

Both men are practising Christians but Mr Hanson seemed to have plunged deeper in his calling in the church after his band faced a backlash for his prior antics that it’s really wiser to be dedicated to God even if this risks committing social suicide to the public (well, half of their fans), than to remain in the world and commit spiritual suicide. I even prayed for those in Ace of Base to take their fans to church and stuff, lest they risk repeating the past in some way where a fan attacked them and killed one of their relatives. It kind of backfired before but even then this is a responsibility they ought to carry, lest it get into their heads all over again. There are likely some Backstreet Boys fans who do the same thing, though unfortunately Brian Littrell never seemed to be concerned for one of his fans going knee deep in her idolatry for them (though I struggle with this as well).

Perhaps it would be for the better for the Backstreet Boys to go away for good, lest they get much worse than they already are. The timing of their rise and peak went hand in hand with America’s brief moment as a hyperpower, wherein it was the only superpower for a time being, as to have unprecedented unilaterla influence all over the world. I remember some book where those in India would leer at the sight of the Baywatch women in red leotards, yet demand their daughters to dress more modestly. Baywatch was one of those programmes that rose and peaked in tandem with America’s time as a hyperpower, that in hindsight what was globalisation was really Americanisation. If the original Babylon is the daughter of Sumer, then America being Mystery Babylon is the daughter of Britain. Britain is also wicked and may get dissolved into three separate countries not seen since centuries.

This might mark the true end or decline of English as the lingua franca, but this would be more drastic in the Philippines that due to our close ties to Mystery Babylon, that English will no longer be spoken here as it will be replaced by Mandarin instead. Both Spanish and English will become extinct in the Philippines, especially as older generations die and western influence gets revoked, to the point where the Philippines becomes like any other East Asian country in most regards due to its inability to consistently lead a Christian life and never repenting (as what preachers have previously pointed out). America is really going into decline and may decline even further once both WWIII and a new civil war both start in earnest together. Whether or not the American fashion style will be undone has yet to be played out.

But supposing if God does answer prayers when it comes to interceding for somebody and anybody to cope with the popularisation of certain folk garments of other countries in places like the Philippines and Canada that it could happen, albeit unexpectedly where it might no longer be fashionable to dress like Americans anymore. Not that there won’t be any casual dress anymore at all, but that both Canada and the Philippines will follow their new masters more closely this time (Russia for Canada, China for the Philippines). Canadian fashion might end up taking more cues from European countries this time, Philippine fashion might become more heavily influenced by its closest neighbours from then on. But it’s not going to remain the same once American influence does get revoked or reduced the world over.

Goldilocks

Why would this post be titled Goldilocks when it’s got more to do with a prophecy regarding Russia attacking America in the near future? This is because the prophecy uses bears and a late Russian politician to convey this message from God. Goldilocks is generally the story of a young blonde girl who goes to a house and gets the bears’ porridge, which has been retold multiple times but the story itself has seen other permutations before its popularisation. There are other versions where Goldilocks is clearly a old woman who gets killed, another where she has platinum blonde hair instead, and even a fox appears in her place in yet another. The brown bear is pretty much Russia’s national animal, analogous to how the bald eagle stands in for the United States.

There’s actually a photograph of a she-bear and her offspring raiding a bald eagle’s nest, so if Russia (as symbolised by the bear) were to attack America (which is either symbolised by the bald eagle or at some point, a woman wherein America itself gets analogised to Mystery Babylon), then this is what America will get for what it does to others. There are others who ponder if certain songs like American Pie might be prophetic in nature, regarding America’s future downfall, that it’s possible God does use other means of getting the message across. Sometime ago when I prayed for certain musicians and bands, I ended up encountering posts eeriely similar to either one of them in some way or another. So this is how God answered these prayers, not just through prophecy, but also word choices.

The one time I read a devotional in the late afternoon, when I was praying something I encountered a post called ‘Prisoners of Hope’. This isn’t just part of the lyrics of an Ace of Base song called ‘Lucky Love’, but it’s also there in the Bible and one of the members is a Christian herself, despite her mishaps from time to time. She turned to God more after her sister got traumatised by a stalker, so this is one way my prayer for them got answered. An even more shocking one that I encountered months before was that one of the prophetesses on 444ProphecyNews shares the same surname as one member from the band The Prodigy, the one thing more shocking than this is that the root word for ‘prodigy’ is there in the Vulgate version of the Bible. So God did answer the prayers I have for them, in ways I’d never expect to show up.

So the idea that God gave this prophet a vision of Mikhail Gorbachev and the three bears as symbolic of what Russia will do to America, given the popular folktale having the leitmotif of the three bears and America is Mystery Babylon. If Babylon is assumed to be the daughter of another nation-state (Sumer in the Old Testament, Britain in the New Testament), let’s not forget that in French the word ‘fille’ doubles as both ‘daughter’ and ‘girl’. The old woman in Eleanor Mure’s story subsequently got younger in later stories, so it kind of fits in a way that America would steal something from Russia only to get attacked eventually. What’s more is that Russia might get back Alaska in years, that if America’s entitled to get more territories from ailing empires like what it did to Spain regarding both the Philippines and Guam, then it’s only fair that Russia would do the same towards all of Europe and half of the Americas.

Especially now that America’s in decline itself that it will be finished much sooner than expected, with nearly all its states getting destroyed by a decade later that America is over by then. America being such a double–minded country that it’s a house that’s divided, it can’t stand on its own for longer that civil war may come to it. It will actually get invaded by other countries like China even, it will be ruled over by a despot (though others argue it’s already happening) and it will even come to persecute Christians itself. An earthquake will even halve part of the North American continent (which America sits on), America and Europe might get overruled by Islamic law, America experiencing a nasty brownout because it loves spiritual darkness a lot, America getting judged for this is inevitable.

America will get a famine not just due to its evil nature, but that it will exacerbate pre-existing problems like recurring food insecurity for the poor. It assumes itself to be a queen that will not experience sadness, though ironically it will soon enough. For a country that has a lot, it’s truly disillusioned and ungrateful on the inside. Or that it’s really a failure in the making, turning out to be the ultimate failed state if there will be one at all. And one that makes you question a lot about the United States and its habit of corrupting the planet.

Unfinished Sympathy For Palestine

I said before that I was a Backstreet Boys fan and I did avidly listen to their music a lot, but I don’t think I’m this sympathetic to them anymore. Not to mention I’m more willing to give credit to Massive Attack (a British band by the way) for supporting Palestine, given my own sympathy to this country. It’s actually been said elsewhere that Political Israel is pretty much a US colonial outpost in West Asia but it’s even weirder still that Historial Israel (AKA Palestine) has the world’s oldest Christian community, yet most Christians around the world don’t care about them in any way. To be fair there are other people who don’t care about Palestine and still come off as decent people, including the Prodigy (who are close friends with Massive Attack and an adolescent favourite alongside Bauhaus).

But when it comes to speaking out about what’s been done to Palestine, then give credit to Massive Attack for bringing awareness to its plight. Considering that American influence is actually waning, which is already being undone to an extent in Canada and Europe, that I feel a band like Backstreet Boys would be a relic of a bygone era. Moreso if you believe some people that God’s out to revoke America due to it being Mystery Babylon, that if a thousand years is a day to him then America really is a flash in the pan then. Even if American influence doesn’t completely go away, it’s going to get reduced a lot anyways and it’s already happening around the world to some extent. Backstreet Boys wouldn’t just be a relic, but a very forgotten one at that.

To make matters worse, it’s weird to think that despite calling himself a Christian, Brian Littrell never bothered making their fans go to church and worship God, preferring that they come to his band’s concerts and cruises a lot instead. If pride goes before the fall, which is something I also struggle with, then certainly the Backstreet Boys will have to go. And then there are some people who even say that many Ashkenazim aren’t the real Jews anyways, considering that Palestine’s the one that houses the earliest surviving Christian community to date then it’s going to be a weird case of identity theft. And also something that proves Palestinians’ indigenity and connection to their land that the Ashkenazim stole from, as if Massive Attack are in the right to support them, even if it’s not something they’re spiritually aware of.

Even without the spiritual angle involved, many Ashkenazim are so westernised that even if they do return to the Holy Land, their folkways are closer to Europe than to West Asia. Some people go on saying that Ashkenazim are the descendants of Judaised Caucasians, Turks, East Asians (but these could easily be Mongols as they have had relations with Turks for centuries), Slavs, Iranians and Greeks, though this has the baggage of invoking the Khazar ghost in some way. For those who don’t know, the Khazars were a Turkic people that inhabited parts of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, it’s also been documented that many of them converted to Judaism whilst the Bulgars (whom they’re closely related as they both come from the same stock) converted to Christianity instead.

But if the Ashkenazim are more closely related to the Khazar-Bulgars than they are to the ancient Israelites (whom the Palestinians descend from), this makes this identity theft all the more shockingly potent that they make these pretensions to Historical Israel all the more duplicitous as some of their folkways could have less in common with the Levant than they themselves realise. Somebody like Paul Wexler insisted that as the Ashkenazim are descended from Judaised Iranians and Slavs, so their folkways and some of their words come from these two instead. He also insisted that Yiddish is really a Slavic language to the extent that it even sounds like one, and modern Hebrew is really just reskinned Yiddish which makes sense that even if they’ve succeeded in reviving Hebrew a Yiddish influence will persist.

Because the Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish, Russian, Czech, Polish and Slovak for so long that even if they succeeded in reviving Hebrew, but the languages they spoke in for a long while are going to influence Hebrew in many unexpected ways. Hebrew may not technically nor formally be seen as a Slavic language the way Russian and Polish are, but there’s going to be a bigger Slavic influence than one realises. A language like Yiddish could have had Slavic adstrata since a good number of Ashkenazim resided in Eastern Europe for years that it would inevitably absorb Slavic influences anyways, moreso as many Ashkenazim were also fluent in any one or a number of Slavic languages.

Which makes the identity theft even more shocking than one realises because of how and why Ashkenazim resided in Europe for so long than once they arrive in or return to the Holy Land, they practically arrived as Europeans in culture and mindset. Most Palestinians and thus Palestinian Christians at the time never left the Holy Land and have a better claim to being the direct descendants of the Biblical Israelites, that their folkways would be a proper continuation of the latter. Palestinians could’ve easily revived Hebrew themselves but their version of Hebrew would have a stronger West Asian character to it, this is the case with the Judeo-Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic languages. Since both Aramaic and Arabic are Semitic languages, so these varieties would have a stronger claim to continuing Biblical Hebrew’s legacy in any way.

Even then it seems if Ashkenazim aren’t as closely related to the Israelites, but the Palestinians are then Palestinian Christians could truly be God’s people. They never left the Holy Land, they continue the faith that their early adopter ancestors had for centuries, and have the best claim for being the direct descendants of the Israelites. So both Massive Attack and Gorillaz are in the right to support and defend them to the death, even if they may not necessarily do it for reasons they’re actually aware of. But it does make for a painful irony that the Palestinians are the direct descendants of Israelites (Palestinian Christians moreso) but are ignored by other Christians who support the impostors more as to be abandoned by the people who should’ve had their backs. It’s true these two bands have members who aren’t saints.

But neither are the Backstreet Boys whom one member has been the subject of rape allegations for years (and also watched porn, if you believe Kaya Jones) and another cheated on his wife with his fans, that the Backstreet Boys aren’t any better either. Robert del Naja watched porn but so did Nick Carter, I even said elsewhere that if Nick Carter never joined the Backstreet Boys and was a twentysomething in the 2010s he would’ve gone trolling feminists a lot given the many rape allegations around him and his love of gaming. He would’ve easily trolled Anita Sarkeesian often and be more openly misogynistic in this scenario, not helped by that video games have had problems with misogyny and sexism for years.

Even if Massive Attack aren’t saints and so are the Backstreet Boys but the former seems to be the sort of band who’d stand up for bigger issues like Palestinian sovereignty and minimising global warming, though you could say that the Backstreet Boys also do something similar but with other things in mind. Even if the Backstreet Boys could still have some likable things going on for themselves, if you have a band member who’s the subject of many rape allegations that it’s really going to tarnish the band’s reputation for some. They still appeal to new and old fans, but given the growing awareness of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry that it’s doubtful more people would sympathise with them this time.

This may not always be the case but in a world where there’s growing awareness of things like sexual harassment, Palestinian sovereignty and also a declining United States that the Backstreet Boys as they are would easily risk irrelevancy and even if they’re still relevant, it’s only to some extent not helped by America becoming less powerful over time. The Backstreet Boys emerged at a time when America had real sole dominance over the world, a hyperpower in this case (a step above a superpower) but if they came out this year when America’s in real decline, then there’s practically no way they’d actually become this popular because by then they’d just be appealing to certain markets and not all over the world.

Massive Attack’s from a country that’s already no longer a superpower when the Backstreet Boys got popular around the world, but if America’s doomed to not only decline in stature but also disappear for good, then Britain and the rest of the world will remain and so will Massive Attack in some other way (especially should their own members pass away in the future). If American influence is due for reversal or undoing, then ultimately it’s not going to be felt in the future. A band like the Backstreet Boys would be completely forgotten, American possessions and allies would end up being in the hands of its enemies instead. Many more Palestinians will go back to the Holy Land, especially Palestinian Christians as they turn out to be the Israelites all along.

America sympathises a lot with Political Israel in that the former uses the latter to reinforce American dominance in West Asia, also both of them are settler-colonies as they’re countries superimposed on pre-existing sovereign territories and countries. The Backstreet Boys formally emerged a few years after the Gulf War, a war fought against Iraq by America and its allies, assuming if a version of the band existed at the same time the Gulf War started. It’s kind of weird to think that Backstreet Boys emerged shortly after the Gulf War but it’s not hard to see how and why America will always find a way to assert its dominance over otherwise noncomplacent regions like West Asia, just as it finds a way to popularise and impose its culture onto the world.

This also makes sense that as soon as both the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc got dismantled in the late 1980s and early 1990s that America would become a hyperpower and a serious hegemon to end all hegemons, meanwhile Massive Attack came from the Wild Bunch a British collective that was around during the Cold War’s twilight years. It sounds weird to put both the Backstreet Boys and Massive Attack together but the former came from an era where America was the sole superpower in the world to be called a hyperpower, the former came shortly after the Gulf War and it’s not coincidental that the Backstreet Boys grew in stature the more America continued to reinforce its dominance all over the world.

With US hyperpower hegemony comes a popularisation of not only its music but also technologies like the Internet in the form we clearly recognise it as, modern day computing and so on, so it continued to be the case in the 2000s and even onto the 2010s. It should be noted that the Radio Disney network in Latin America has its roots in America itself in the 1990s when the Disney company started to seriously enter the radio broadcasting industry, the earliest Radio Disney station outside of America is in Argentina but from a reformatted radio station. It’s not hard to see how and why Radio Disney Latin America can be seen as an extension of US imperialism in that region, but similar things have been said of Disney comics.

There’s a book called How To Read Donald Duck which talks about how Disney, as an agent of US imperialism, inculcates American views onto unsuspecting non-American readers with its rather condescending portrayals of non-American citizens. If How To Read Donald Duck was written today, it would’ve easily included Radio Disney. It seems whether if it’s Radio Disney, Political Israel or Backstreet Boys, US imperialism will always find a way to impose itself onto countries. It may not look outright evil but there’s the risk of buying into American worldviews and preferences, the more a country grows complacent with US hegemony. Israel by large is very complacent with US imperialism that it’s practically an extension of it.

It’s more than willing to see itself as an example of western culture in West Asia, despite the fact that Lebanon could’ve easily made that claim just by being a former French colony. Turkey could also do the same thing just by being this close to Europe, but since both Turkey and Lebanon are Muslim-majority and that many Ashkenazim are very westernised people, Israel will be entitled to this claim and is more than willing to go with America anywhere and anytime. Israel is practically incremental to US imperialism and hegemony in West Asia, just as the Philippines and South Korea are incremental to US imperialism and hegemony in East Asia. South Korea was practically created to curb the spread of communism in the Korean peninsula by America.

South Korea has even successfully absorbed and imitated American showbiz culture, where it becomes particularly evident when it comes to K-Pop. Though K-Pop’s also influenced by Japanese music but the earliest K-Pop bands have one foot in US-imported hip hop (well the Japanese idol industry was founded by a Japanese American, so), most notably Seo Taiji and the Boys because one of its members wouldn’t just found YG Entertainment himself but was also into hip hop at some point. Another, JY Park, even called himself Asian Diddy, Diddy being this rapper who got charged with human trafficking. Though K-Pop is not the only Korean genre to take its cues from America, since similar things can be said of K-Rap and K-Rock.

But these two aren’t popularised outside of South Korea the way K-Pop is that most people would never learn of bands like Drunken Tiger and Sanullim, whereas with America a lot of people have heard of bands like Backstreet Boys, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, The Killers, Nsync, New Kids On The Block, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Jane’s Addiction, Talking Heads and Devo. American influence is so pervasive that it practically goes undetected for most of the part, American pop is just known as pop but K-Pop is specifically called as such due to its origins in South Korea. American imperialism will always find a way to (re)assert itself in the world, even if it’s on the wane these days.

And the more its influence is getting undone in places like Canada and by large, West Asia, the more it’s never going to last this long if it’s due to be undone for good. A nuclear war could emerge any time soon, it’s going to burn and irradiate everything and anything whilst the Backstreet Boys fiddle. America could get invaded by its enemies and may even lose sight of its allies over time, even more shocking if they betray it in favour of its enemies. America might even lose sight of Israel when it reverts to being Historical Israel/Palestine, if God’s chosen people were to return there as soon as the poseurs get out. America could lose sight of both South Korea and the Philippines to China and these two will betray it in kind for not saving them in time.

If America’s really going to lose its allies and possessions, along with an increasingly sovereign Palestine, then its claim to power is really going to get undone anyways. America was already a massive hegemon in the 2000s, but with both Russia and China on the rise that it has to share with these two at the least. At worst it will lose to these two, ultimately becoming a footnote in the future.

Can’t do it entirely on its own

I feel if Canada can’t entirely support itself, it might as well turn to alternative powers instead, though it probably already is to some extent by now. One doable alternative power would be Russia, since it’s pretty comparable to it in terms of geography and climate, even if it’s not identical. One could wonder if Canada does ally itself with Russia in earnest, now that the former resents America a lot for strongarming it, it might lead to changes in not just the economy but also the culture. At present and for a long time, Canada was the country that’s the most heavily influenced by America. It’s not just that they share a history and language, but also because they’re so close to one another and when coupled with America’s superpower status, this is bound to strongly influence the former a lot.

So they don’t just sound similar (despite Canadians using the British spelling a lot), they also share similar holidays and games or sports like Thanksgiving and gridiron football. But the undoing of American influence in other areas would be tough to replace without a viable alternative from another country, so Canada having to substitute American products with Russian products is doable. It may not be immediately seen for now, but in the future this could be viable. Admittedly this is something that I prayed for but mainly to spare Canada from the fate that awaits America, since there are others who say that America may even disappear from the planet altogether. Even if Canada does sin and get judged for it, there’s this part of me that wants God to spare it from what’ll await America.

So praying to him to have it join Russia would be a fate better than death in this sense, that if America’s out to be revoked for its many apostacies and never repenting of it, perhaps joining Russia whilst keeping its sovereignty would be the more preferable of the two. Consider what became of the original Babylon, whilst God did allow Babylon to take over Judah due to its sins, but since God is merciful enough to listen to people’s pleas to be freed from it, so eventually even Babylon got judged before disappearing altogether. Although the territories that were part of Babylon didn’t exactly disappear from the earth per say, Babylonian culture got substantially replaced by a substantial Arabian influence.

To the extent that the Babylonian’s descendants don’t speak Akkadian anymore, but Arabic instead. Somebody like Celestial and others say that once America falls under Russian occupation, the lower 48 states will be Russianised by then, Americans will no longer be speaking in English but Russian instead. It should be noted as Alaska is a former Russian colony, it used to be spoken in much of Alaska until the mid-1960s. One might wonder if Alaska was further deRussianised not just because it became an American state, but also due to America’s beef with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. If Canada does become a Russian protectorate the same way France will be getting, then both of them will be Russianised to a possible extent as well.

If Alaska ever joins Canada and that Alaska is fairly close to Russia, then there’s a chance that Canada will be Russianised over time. Maybe not entirely so Russianised but it’s through Alaska that Canada will experience an outpouring of Russian influence, not that American influence will completely go away in Canada. But at present it’s being reduced and it will be substantially reduced once Russian influence creeps into Canada when it does become a Russian protectorate in the future.

End of American influence

I remember saying this before that American influence will be undone the world over and it’s already being undone in the west, though it remains to be seen if it were to spread to countries like the Philippines. There are actually some Christians who say that America is Mystery Babylon, the prophesised nation-state said to corrupt the entire world. If God’s out to undo American influence, that’s because much of it’s no good. Even if porn did exist in countries like France, Britain and Japan, but America is the nation-state that popularises porn media. Despite the fact that it boasts of its Christian heritage a lot, which is more grievous if it doesn’t act the part, it talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. Lukewarm in other words.

A very doubleminded country that’s on the verge of civil instability, a country that alternates between profound piety and outright depravity. A country without this much spiritual integrity, a new Israel that became a new Babylon in a short time. Any nation that highly allies itself with Babylon/America will also be judged that the Philippines is no exception, whether if we like it or not but this is what God will do to us for our own sins. For following Babylon more than him, that he’ll let China take over us for good. Much like how God allow the original Babylon to take over Judah for its own sins, it’s no different if he made China do the same thing to us really. It’s a matter of him using evil to deal with evil as what somebody else said. Not only that, he’ll permanently undo most American influence here.

Filipinos will no longer be fluent in English, but rather Mandarin in its place. Chinese customs and holidays will replace their American counterparts in the Philippines, there will be no trace of most American franchises left in the Philippines. American music will no longer be played on Philippine playlists and radio stations anymore, perhaps save for Christian music as God keeps a remnant. But that’s all that will remain, only American Christian media will be kept for a long time. American-initiated churches will remain here, but there will be almost no trace of American cultural influence left in the Philippines anymore in the future. But at present, America has the world’s largest music and publishing industries, so if these are undone these will leave a big gap.

To fill in such a big gap, the Philippines would have to be more open to being more strongly influenced by its closest neighbours. Not just those in Southeast Asia, but also China (though this is my personal preference), but even then this is more than necessary with American influence getting undone in many more places to come. Something like the popularisation of Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malaysian foods here, but also Philippine publishers publishing their book counterparts and so on. If American influence turns out to be temporary, given how a thousand years is just a day to God, perhaps American influence was never really going to last the more it gets undone the world over due to being the prophesised Mystery Babylon in the Bible.

It would be more shocking to think that cartoon characters like Jean Grey and Mickey Mouse will be largely forgotten in the future, the more God makes people forget about the United States. But even if they’re not immediately forgotten for now, brands like Disney and Marvel will get less popular over time. The more the world boycotts American products, the less popular American brands get. Their best chance of survival is to be bought by non-American companies, Italy’s Ferrero Rocher bought Kelloggs, Russia’s Sup Media bought Livejournal and China’s Shein bought Forever 21. If a Chinese company buys Alphabet or a Russian one buys Meta, it would be more of the same thing really. A real best case scenario for such companies if they were to remain viable in the future, but also a sign that America’s increasingly less powerful these days.

America might not remain in its current form, whether if it becomes Russianised over time or if it disappears from the face of the earth, it’s never going to last long in its current appearance. To the point where if the Philippines were to realise this, it would be far better off building stronger ties to the rest of the East instead of being reliant on America a lot. I even said that Korean influence in the Philippines isn’t that strong compared to its American counterpart, considering that Philippine publishers don’t even bother translating Korean books, despite dubbers being so fluent in Korean as to practically understand Korean texts real well. Many Korean animations don’t get dubbed here in the Philippines, as opposed to KDramas, thus depriving Philippine children of programmes like Fly Superboard and Dooly the Dinosaur.

Maybe some Korean animations have been dubbed in Tagalog, but numbers wise it pales in comparison to KDramas. Philippine publishers don’t really bother translating Korean comics as well as those from our closest neighbours like China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia, but don’t hesitate to republish American comics. Most Filipinos also aren’t that exposed to other Korean musical genres like Trot, KRock, KRap and KBallads, but many more of them are exposed to the full spectrum of American music. Not just US pop, but also US rock, US rap, US jazz, US Christian music and US orchestral music. We get books and comics directly imported from America, but Philippine publishers don’t bother translating Korean books and comics into the Philippine vernacular.

They don’t even do the same for Japan, China and the rest of ASEAN, even when it could’ve done so. Maybe in the future, they will get around to it, since this is something that I prayed for and prayed for others to cope with. Even then I feel the Philippines is far too westernised for its own good, never particularly this close to any East Asian country despite being geographically closer to them than we are to America. I don’t think Philippine dubbers bother dubbing the rest of Japanese television programmes either, since this is mainly restricted to animation and to a lesser extent, the special effects hero school (tokusatsu). Tagalog-dubbed versions of Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian programmes would’ve been nice, considering that three of them are written in the same script as Tagalog does.

Both Malaysian and Indonesian are relatively closer to Tagalog than both Vietnamese and Thai are, speaking from my experience learning Indonesian and Vietnamese, the learning curve for Indonesian is relatively less difficult. So it shouldn’t present this big a challenge for Philippine dubbers and translators to translate Indonesian media into Tagalog, but I suppose the loss of American influence in the Philippine should force the nation and its peoples into considering viable alternatives. I personally believe the Philippines is better off becoming closer to its neighbours, not just economically but also culturally, since we’re too westernised for our own good. It should even be noted that Indonesia, Vietnam and China actually have fairly sizable Christian communities.

Sizable enough to justify the existence of ministries and their associated websites, speaking from personal experience going there. Some Indonesian newspapers like Tribun News even have Bible readings, there’s a good number of Catholic ministries in Vietnam even. China has a handful of Christian ministries enough to justify the existence of Christian websites there, so this is something the Philippines has to reconsider and if the Philippines is East Asia’s number one Christian-majority country, then it should act as a kind of role model to these three and the rest of East Asia. But since it doesn’t generally bother acting like one, it will be judged for its sins and for being too close to Babylon for its own good. As God offers second chances, perhaps losing America’s a blessing in disguise.

Not only will the Philippines get to be truly dewesternised in the future, it will act as a proper role model to East Asian countries with growing Christian populations like those in Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Or even to those with negligble Christian communities like Japan, Thailand and Cambodia, so this is something the Philippines needs to do to not only get redeemed by God, but to evangelise to its neighbours a lot more than it does at present. This is much more preferable to imitating and following the worst America has to offer, given how and why some say that the US is Mystery Babylon. It remains to be seen if the Philippines were to stop following America at any point, but it’s necessary because America’s not a good influence to it.

It’s better off evangelising a lot more to its neighbours than caving into America’s whims, given how countries like Vietnam and China actually have growing Christian populations whilst Thailand and Japan are in great need of God, so they really need the Philippines to act as a mediator and role model of sorts. Building stronger ties to the rest of East Asia is what it should’ve been doing, but for as long as we ally more with America we suffer not just culturally and economically, but also spiritually.

The sign of the prodigy

I wrote somewhere that around the time I encountered somebody named Shannan Howlett on the website 444ProphecyNews, it rang a bell because she has the same surname as a certain member of the band The Prodigy (i.e. Liam Howlett). I had been praying to God to save both members of the Prodigy and Ace of Base, another band that I’m into, that a prophetess with the surname Howlett means something. Or rather what the words prodigy, sign, wonder and omen meant, especially in earlier times, wherein they had a lot of semantic overlap. Also the word prodigy had a lot of semantic overlap with the word monster and at some point, miracle in their original Latin forms, as they all denoted things out of the blue that are sent by the gods. Whilst the association of Ace of Base with prophecy might not be immediately obvious, especially in the band’s name, unlike that of the Prodigy, but the connection’s there in some of their songs.

The most obvious one is the song ‘The Sign’ which contains lyrics like ‘under the pale moon’ and ‘where I see a lot of stars’, which becomes more obvious that keywords relating to both bands’ bodies of work may relate to not only God answering this prayer, but also how they show up in Livy’s list of prodigies. By prodigy, Livy meant both extraordinary and ominous events, anomalies and deformities alike, which include things like sun and moon eclipses, plurality of suns and moons (the sun is a star by the way), frequent mentions of light appearing inappropriately, a burning sky, a sky getting torn, rainy earth (Liam Howlett had a studio called Earthbound and the song Thunder has the word ‘rain’ in it), appearance of wolves, repeat references to fire, an inflamed palm (Maxim’s real name is Keith Palmer), the sun struggling with the moon and the moon falling in rain.

The songs relevant to Prodigy fans with the same keywords (as well as their extracanonical synonyms) found in Livy’s list of prodigies are ‘Light Up The Sky’, ‘Run With The Wolves’, ‘Fire’, ‘Firestarter’, ‘Baby’s Got A Temper’, ‘Weather Experience’, ‘Out Of Space’, ‘Omen’ and ‘Thunder’, the songs relevant to Ace of Base fans with the same keywords and synonyms found in Livy’s list of prodigies are ‘Doctor Sun’, ‘Everytime It Rains’, ‘Wonderful Life’, ‘The Sign’, ‘Dancer In A Daydream’, ‘Lucky Love’, ‘All That She Wants’, ‘Into The Night Of Blue’ and ‘Living In Danger’. This becomes more telling if you look into the lyrics of these songs. Interestingly, some of these keywords also show up in Shannan Howlett’s prophecies*, which kind of proves that God really did answer my prayer and in a way that made me realise what these words meant. This semantic overlap also shows up in some Biblical passages.

Most notably Hebrews 2:4 (God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will), Acts 6:8 (Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people), Exodus 7:3 (But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt), Daniel 4:3 (How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; his dominion endures from generation to generation), Acts 14:3 (So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders),Romans 15:19 (by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ) and Acts 4:30 (Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus).

It should be noted that just as the Prodigy released an album called ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’, as parts of the Bible are written in an earlier version of the Greek language, the word for wonder is teras, which is also the word for monster and deformity. The word sign speaks for itself, but it was also the synonym for omen. The word miracle is derived from the word miraculum, which is the synonym for the words prodigium (prodigy) and monstrum (monster). To relay what I said before, I had a dream of the Prodigy in church, Jenny Berggren is a practising Christian herself and Liam Howlett’s something of a monster movie fan himself. Because I prayed for these two bands together, so there’s really a semantic link between otherwise somewhat unrelated things. But it’s also God’s way of answering this prayer, albeit in a way that kind of shocked and fascinates me. This becomes even more obvious what these words meant centuries ago, where the words prodigy and monster were as much as synonymous with wonder, sign and omen as they are to anomaly, miracle and deformity.

So it’s appropriate that a woman named Shannan Howlett gets these prophecies from God, as prodigies were thought to be portents sent by the gods. Last year when I prayed for this writer Antonia Fraser to have one of her characters stop cheating and get married, I often received a series of dreams featuring her in another book, solving cases and getting a new surname, as well as her having strawberry blonde hair. There’s also the time I prayed and then read a devotional that mentioned the word ‘shore’, which is part of that character’s name (Jemima Shore), so this is one way he answered this prayer along with recurring dreams of her. God does answer prayers, though not always in a way one expects. In the case with both the Prodigy and Ace of Base, it had more to do with both semantics, etymology and Shannon Howlett having the same surname as a certain Prodigy member.

Biblical writers know that words have power and in some cases, they may be connected in a way that reveals something. One prophecy by somebody else said that God told her to look up on the word genius in an old dictionary where it meant a spirit presiding over a person’s fate, guarding them and directing their actions, when it referred to the Genius Act meant to do something with cryptocurrency. So in this same dictionary, the word prodigy also meant monster and omen. Recall how the Prodigy released a song called ‘Omen’, so when coupled with Liam’s love of monster movies, that this is actually very appropriate. It’s just as appropriate for somebody like Shannan Howlett that God used to portend something, as prodigies were just as associated with prophecy as signs and wonders are (recall Ace of Base’s ‘The Sign’ and ‘Wonderful Life’).

The latter two words are often mentioned together in the Bible, with another mentioning a generation witnessing signs and wonders. Recall how the Prodigy released an album called ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’, it’s kind of there in a way if God answers prayers in a surprising fashion. Liam Howlett’s wife is named Natalie Appleton, the name Natalie means ‘birthday’ and by extension ‘the Lord’s birthday’, her daughter’s named Rachel (Ewe) whilst the apple is the fruit commonly thought to be eaten by Eve (Adam’s wife). Paul is also the name of a certain apostle, Jonas is the Portuguese form of Jonah (a prophet in the Old Testament), the name Ulf is obviously based on an archaic Swedish word for wolf, Andrew is another New Testament apostle as is Peter (the Swedish form is Petter), the name Sofia comes from the word for wisdom.

Liam Howlett’s full name is Liam Paul Paris Howlett, Maxim’s real name is Keith Andrew Palmer, Linn Berggren’s real name is Malin Sofia Katarina Berggren, Joker’s real name is Jonas Petter Berggren and Ulf Ekberg’s own name is an archaic Swedish word that means wolf (the current version is varg), wolves are frequently mentioned in the Bible just as Livy’s list of prodigies also includes a pack of wolves and the Prodigy has a song called ‘Run With The Wolves’, so it’s really God answering this prayer mostly through names and words. So the connection’s there in the Bible, in this case this has a lot to do with names. So God kind of confirmed this, not through dreams as it is with Antonia Fraser and her creation, but through words and names that are found in a variety of written sources.

Well most of the time but it does make one realise that God does answer prayers, whether in dreams as it is with the heroine Jemima Shore or in keywords like this one. It took a prophetess named Shannan Howlett on 444ProphecyNews to make me realise that God did answer this prayer, though in a way that was initially really surprising. So it’s really surprising to realise that God answered this prayer not through dreams, but mostly through words and names, that the connections are always there but one that made me realise this. There’s another prophetess on 444ProphecyNews known as Cassandra and like her mythological counterpart, she has the gift of prophecy from God. So God can make connections and answers through words and names, so the answer to my prayer to get both the Prodigy and Ace of Base members saved is present in not just extrabiblical texts like those of Livy but also in the Bible itself. Actually Jemima is also the name of one of Job’s daughters, this was mentioned in one sermon I listened to before, so it’s really another way of God answering that previous prayer.

Another radio station that I listen to for the sermons has the preachers mention somebody named Jemima from time to time. If God can answer prayers, he’ll answer them in an unexpected way. Because the dreams involving Jemima Shore were so recurrent that sermons and devotionals mentioning her name in some way is also God confirming things, a prophetess with the surname Howlett is also God’s way of confirming this. But one that made me deeply realise what the word prodigy historically meant and why it was synonymous with wonder, sign, omen, prophecy, monster and portent, to the extent that after praying for both members of the Prodigy and Ace of Base to get saved that this is kind of connected in not just etymology, polysemy and semantics, but also in the Bible itself regarding their Biblical namesakes and certain keywords in their songs.

The Bible also calls God a consuming fire, the light and the rock (Peter’s name means rock and the French name Pierre also doubles as the word for rock), so this is how my prayer for these two bands to get saved is answered mostly through words. Let’s not also forget that Queen, one of the bands the Prodigy sampled from, had an album or song called ‘The Miracle’, miracle being a word that also appears in the Bible and the root word miraculum being the synonym for both monstrum and prodigium. In the Vulgate, the word used in some passages is prodigium, which means wonder or portent in this case. Since Ace of Base put out a song called ‘Wonderful Life’, being the other band I prayed for its salvation alongside the Prodigy, so that’s pretty much killing two birds with one stone.

Considering that Eve is Adam’s wife and her name either means ‘to breathe‘ or ‘to live‘, there’s a Prodigy song called ‘Breathe‘ and Ace of Base has three life-related songs called “Living in Danger’, ‘Beautiful Life‘ and ‘Wonderful Life‘ as well as the song ‘Lucky Love’ containing the phrase ‘life is a paradise’ (heaven?). Since I also prayed for another band called Tokio Hotel to get saved, it should be noted that Thomas means twin, so appropriately Tom Kaulitz is the twin brother of Bill Kaulitz. This is a way that God answered this prayer, but through names and this epiphany about them. So God did answer this prayer, not so much with recurring dreams, but rather through semantics and etymology. So it took the prophecies written by somebody bearing Liam Howlett’s namesake to realise this really.

*The word hound is related to the German word for dog, that is ‘hund’, Shannan Howlett has a Rottweiler dog and the Prodigy released a track called Rok-Weiler.