There's a scene in the 1970 film "Little Big Man" that is forever etched in my memory. Our hero, Jack Crabb (played by Dustin Hoffman), has just spent a night making love to, if memory serves, three nubile Native American women. Nothing scary about that. The next day, however, he awakens, wanders to the edge of the encampment to pee and sees, in the distance, a cloud of dust. To his horror, Crabb realizes that this signals the arrival of the U.S. Cavalry come to slaughter the natives. He valiantly attempts, to no avail, to intercede in the ensuing massacre.

It's an old story; the powerful inflicting misery on the innocent, often with no more warning than a vague unease due to some unknown disturbance on the horizon.

Well, that's how I've been feeling pretty much all this (miserably hot) summer. Part of this malaise is personal, involving possible major changes in career, habitat, etc. Which, in the grand cosmic chaos we all inhabit, is not that big a deal. But most of the reason for my sense of desperation and impending doom (a tad dramatic perhaps, but there's a point to be made here) has to do with the utter paucity of people in positions of so-called leadership who are willing to acknowledge the truth: cataclysmic social change is on the way and we're not preparing for it.

[To clarify: by "we" I mean those of us who labor not under the delusion that Jesus is coming soon to "rapture" us into the arms of Jehovah, leaving approximately, oh, 5 billion non-believers to simmer in the toxic stew that we have collectively helped create. Many Talibangelicals and their followers doubtlessly relish the prospect of global misery, seeing as how that would signal the "end of days," from which they've already got their ticket out. Which conveniently absolves them of, like, actually addressing real problems. Can I get an "amen?"]

The signs are everywhere and you can have your pick of calamities: the rise of an American fascist empire; the lack of a decent health care system to deal with tens of millions of aging "Boomers;" the prospect of an endless, hideously expensive and recently renamed "Global Struggle Against Extremism." (Nice one, guys - better leadership through re-branding. By the way, does that include American extremists, too? Just asking.) But these are comparatively provincial concerns, troubling though they may be. Let's talk real global.

The news is not good. The human race has finally become a "carbon-based infestation" (courtesy: "Star Trek-The Motion Picture") that is inexorably destroying its own habitat. We are literally pillaging the planet, exterminating species by the thousands while merrily plundering non-renewable natural resources. Marine food stocks are dwindling, ice caps are melting and the oil our economies are addicted to will likely be gone by the end of this century. Put quite simply, we are shitting where we eat (paraphrase, courtesy: "Moonstruck"). OK, no more movie references.

And what's the best response that the Bush Junta and the Congress of the U.S. of A., the world leader in resource use and abuse, can come up with? That would be the 2005 Energy Bill; a 1,700+ page corporate lobbyists' wet dream that boldly provides... well, no help at all really.

[www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/energybill/2005/]

Funds for developing alternative energy sources? A relative pittance. Higher fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles? Not happening. A call for energy conservation initiatives? Just joking. Try this instead: obscene subsidies/tax breaks for energy companies that already have more money than God, as well as revival of the nuclear power industry, even though we still don't know what to do with radioactive waste. (I suggest stashing it in Colorado Springs; most everybody there is going to rapture out anyway.)

Oh yes, let's not overlook the $ 1.5 billion Tom DeLay (R-Greedy MF) managed to score for his own personal slush fund to dole out to his oily pals in Texas. That's the ticket - better leadership through larceny.

Clearly most of our elected representatives are (a) totally clueless, (b) totally corrupt or (c) totally both in the face of potential global catastrophe. The good news is that none of this is secret knowledge or comes as a surprise. We may even have time to turn it around, but it will take real determination, real leadership (yeah, right) and - dare I say it - real shared sacrifice to head off disaster. I could be overreacting, but given the current level of collective human stupidity on display daily in the halls of government, I don't think our prospects are all that swift.

One thing, however, is certain: we have no excuse - we can't say we didn't see it coming. Sometimes a cloud of dust is all the warning you get. We've had ours.