And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer....
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword....
And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.... A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.....
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
Revelation 6:2-8, KJV
The historical evils were the evils for society from without, Conquest, War, Famine (Want), Death (the untimely sort).
Don Hazen, Alternet, has created a new quartet for the New Millennium, The Four Plagues: Getting a Handle on the Coming Apocalypse, and these are the plagues from within, a society committing suicide.
Hazen's quartet are: Privatization, Financialization, Militarization and Criminalization. I'm putting out my definition of the terms, partially taken from Wikipedia and other sources but I'd say that the definition of the words are still in flux.
Privatization: changing (as a business or industry) from public to private control or ownership
Financialization: reducing all value that is exchanged ( tangible, intangible, future or present promises, etc.) either into a financial instrument or a derivative of a financial instrument
Militarization: morphing into a military state, glorification of the military, glorification of war as foreign policy
Criminalization: the process by which behaviors and individuals are transformed into crime and criminals – previously legal acts may be transformed into crimes by legislation or judicial decision
Hazen points out the dangers of privatization:
Schools, highways, parks, many things we hold dear are being taken away from public stewardship. Perhaps the privatization of water, where the huge multinational Nestle is leading the way globally, is the most daunting.
Quotes author David Graeber on financialization:
… casino capitalism, speculation… they are making money out of thin air. … It is based on getting everyone in debt.
Cites the increasing evidence of militarization:
The signs of militarization are increasingly visible in the nation’s police forces, especially with drug raids, as well as the escalated capture of undocumented immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the point where far more immigrants have been deported during the Obama administration than during George W. Bush’s tenure. There is also now a massive private prison operation mainly to handle those immigrants arrested.
And criminalization:
In our world of mass incarceration, we see students, poor people, the homeless, debtors, drug users, and whole neighborhoods being criminalized in huge numbers. One powerful example is in the efforts by the New York Police Department known as “stop-and-frisk.” Since Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York City in 2002, stop-and-frisk increased by 600%, from 100,000 New Yorkers targeted to almost 685,000 in 2011. Nearly 90% of those stopped are black or Latino.
Of course, Hazen offers solutions. Read his stuff. He closes with a promise of future revelations, the Century 21 Book of Revelation perhaps?
I am personally frustrated, that some of our biggest thinkers and experts are not investing much of their brain power or political capital in the bigger picture of strategy and tactics—the battles to gaining more political clout to confront the power centers. The ability to build to a point where millions of people are in the streets is currently not on the horizon. So there is much work to be done in that regard. An assessment of the possibilities to change, and a range of the options is beyond the scope of this article, but will be forthcoming.