Political Predictions - Welcome to Rome
The economy will not get better. It will stabilize before the election (possibly), but it will remain shitty.
NDAA will be signed. And we will officially be more authoritarian than China (China at least has time limit on how long they can hold you!). Expect the authoritarian trend to continue in the next few years, as quietly as Congress and the President can manage.
Previous post on legalized assassination of American citizens aboard without trial. I'll be at my city's courthouse November 5, 2012. Will you?
An Imperator has been selected for us and by us. Welcome to Rome.
Mercenaries will continue to have the only recession proof jobs (followed by the military, perhaps, because we live in a state of perpetual war. I don't think there's been a year when we weren't involved in someplace in my lifetime).
If either of these two groups cease to be paid, expect a coup in the next decade. Expect one anyway in at least three first world countries (Greece will probably be among them) and several more in second and third world countries.
SOPA will be signed. The internet as we know it will come to an end. Hollywood, et al. will have shot themselves in the foot and three generations will remember this (X, Y, and Z). It will not be forgiven.
London's Summer Olympics are going to be a fucking warzone, and if it's not actively so, the atmosphere will be nevertheless be scary. 13,500 British troops will be sent to London for "security", and I hear tell the US will be providing some more, plus a warship at a discrete distance off the coast (shh, this is evidently top secret, but the friend I heard it from knows people in Gold Command and that's what they've told him). That sounds like a great idea. Let's throw some trigger happy PTSD-suffering vets in a city that had riots last year and the problems that cause them in the first place have not yet been solved (it's quite funny; a Londoner friend of mine was very focused on punishing the perpetrators harshly as an example instead of solving the problems that caused them and she's generally so sensible. I suspect it's because the riot happened in her city, instead of someplace far away).
There may be a bombing. I don't know enough to tell you who would be responsible.
Speaking of riots, expect them here in the US within the next few years.
Despite my earlier thoughts on the matter, Romney will be the GOP candidate (who'll be his VP? Huntsman? Gingrich? I'm hoping Huntsman, since he's the most sensible but probably not). Obama will beat him still but by a narrower margin than I predicted in August.
Obama, et al. will use Republican insistence in protecting corporations at the expense of everyone else against them and it will be just enough. Even though they're just as bad.
About half of all Congressmen up for election will loose.
Republicans will continue their war on minority/poor voting.
The Conservative war on women will continue. And it will get worse.
At least two scandals will erupt before election. Both will be sexual and one will be a closeted gay Republican who supports DOMA. Because the American public at large doesn't care about corruption. It doesn't care about its own fate. It cares about enforcing social norms.
Occupy will survive the winter. Expect the media to continue metaphorical hippy punching and expect the poor to continue to be blamed for the collapse of the global economy. Expect the police to beat several people to death and expect the cops to get all sorts of new toys (here in the US, it will be from the military). Occupy will split in two. One half will stay peaceful (fewer of them will die. Possibly) the other will respond in kind to the police (many of them will die). And no one who matters will care about the deaths.
Expect more back patting articles like The Worst Thing You Can Do to an Employee (the worst thing you can do is pay them a competitive wage because it gets their hopes unreasonably up).
Expect the establishment and the sheep to continue to extoll the virtues of the modern interpretation of capitalism on a macroeconomic scale. Because it's the American way, you know. It's how we've always done business. It's always served us well. What's that you say? Hay Market Massacre? Lowell Riots? The Jungle? Pshaw, I say! Anomalies!
There will be more and louder talk about a rebellion/civil war here in the US and it will uptick when Obama wins. There will be two competing narratives as to why it's necessary. The Republican one will be totally, utterly made up and the liberal one will be somewhat correct, but still more lie than truth.
Before I heard about SOPA, I would have said that the establishment would have done its best to make sure "basics" we require (TV, electricity, the internet, gas, supermarkets well stocked (we're only ever two days away from chaos, you know)) would remain uninterrupted (god help us all if Dancing with the Stars doesn't come on) in order to convince people nothing was wrong, but now I don't know. I'm sure most of it will stay, but we're so connected and feel like we have to be through the internet and SOPA will end it as we know it that I'm not sure exactly what will happen.
They've always depended on A Brave New World distractions to keep us quiet. The internet is both that distraction and a subversive's tool. A dangerous double edge for all involved.
As society gets more unstable, expect more religious extremism.
How did we get here? Blindly accepting story-book narratives ("they hate our freedom?" lolno. they hate us occupying and killing them and interfering with their politics), turning a blind eye to oppression when it doesn't touch us because we fear the Other, and expecting someone to come and save us. We expect not to have to face the bottom of the rabbit hole. But we will and we will go splat. It will be left to my generation, the next, and probably two or three more after that to fix what the three above mine hath wrought.
Because we weren't even twinkles in our daddy's eye when this shit started. This is what we were given and what they will be given.
I admit that I sound a little paranoid. But I don't think it's disproportional to the threat.
NDAA will be signed. And we will officially be more authoritarian than China (China at least has time limit on how long they can hold you!). Expect the authoritarian trend to continue in the next few years, as quietly as Congress and the President can manage.
Click to viewPrevious post on legalized assassination of American citizens aboard without trial. I'll be at my city's courthouse November 5, 2012. Will you?
An Imperator has been selected for us and by us. Welcome to Rome.
Mercenaries will continue to have the only recession proof jobs (followed by the military, perhaps, because we live in a state of perpetual war. I don't think there's been a year when we weren't involved in someplace in my lifetime).
If either of these two groups cease to be paid, expect a coup in the next decade. Expect one anyway in at least three first world countries (Greece will probably be among them) and several more in second and third world countries.
SOPA will be signed. The internet as we know it will come to an end. Hollywood, et al. will have shot themselves in the foot and three generations will remember this (X, Y, and Z). It will not be forgiven.
London's Summer Olympics are going to be a fucking warzone, and if it's not actively so, the atmosphere will be nevertheless be scary. 13,500 British troops will be sent to London for "security", and I hear tell the US will be providing some more, plus a warship at a discrete distance off the coast (shh, this is evidently top secret, but the friend I heard it from knows people in Gold Command and that's what they've told him). That sounds like a great idea. Let's throw some trigger happy PTSD-suffering vets in a city that had riots last year and the problems that cause them in the first place have not yet been solved (it's quite funny; a Londoner friend of mine was very focused on punishing the perpetrators harshly as an example instead of solving the problems that caused them and she's generally so sensible. I suspect it's because the riot happened in her city, instead of someplace far away).
There may be a bombing. I don't know enough to tell you who would be responsible.
Speaking of riots, expect them here in the US within the next few years.
Despite my earlier thoughts on the matter, Romney will be the GOP candidate (who'll be his VP? Huntsman? Gingrich? I'm hoping Huntsman, since he's the most sensible but probably not). Obama will beat him still but by a narrower margin than I predicted in August.
Obama, et al. will use Republican insistence in protecting corporations at the expense of everyone else against them and it will be just enough. Even though they're just as bad.
About half of all Congressmen up for election will loose.
Republicans will continue their war on minority/poor voting.
The Conservative war on women will continue. And it will get worse.
At least two scandals will erupt before election. Both will be sexual and one will be a closeted gay Republican who supports DOMA. Because the American public at large doesn't care about corruption. It doesn't care about its own fate. It cares about enforcing social norms.
Occupy will survive the winter. Expect the media to continue metaphorical hippy punching and expect the poor to continue to be blamed for the collapse of the global economy. Expect the police to beat several people to death and expect the cops to get all sorts of new toys (here in the US, it will be from the military). Occupy will split in two. One half will stay peaceful (fewer of them will die. Possibly) the other will respond in kind to the police (many of them will die). And no one who matters will care about the deaths.
Expect more back patting articles like The Worst Thing You Can Do to an Employee (the worst thing you can do is pay them a competitive wage because it gets their hopes unreasonably up).
Expect the establishment and the sheep to continue to extoll the virtues of the modern interpretation of capitalism on a macroeconomic scale. Because it's the American way, you know. It's how we've always done business. It's always served us well. What's that you say? Hay Market Massacre? Lowell Riots? The Jungle? Pshaw, I say! Anomalies!
There will be more and louder talk about a rebellion/civil war here in the US and it will uptick when Obama wins. There will be two competing narratives as to why it's necessary. The Republican one will be totally, utterly made up and the liberal one will be somewhat correct, but still more lie than truth.
Before I heard about SOPA, I would have said that the establishment would have done its best to make sure "basics" we require (TV, electricity, the internet, gas, supermarkets well stocked (we're only ever two days away from chaos, you know)) would remain uninterrupted (god help us all if Dancing with the Stars doesn't come on) in order to convince people nothing was wrong, but now I don't know. I'm sure most of it will stay, but we're so connected and feel like we have to be through the internet and SOPA will end it as we know it that I'm not sure exactly what will happen.
They've always depended on A Brave New World distractions to keep us quiet. The internet is both that distraction and a subversive's tool. A dangerous double edge for all involved.
As society gets more unstable, expect more religious extremism.
How did we get here? Blindly accepting story-book narratives ("they hate our freedom?" lolno. they hate us occupying and killing them and interfering with their politics), turning a blind eye to oppression when it doesn't touch us because we fear the Other, and expecting someone to come and save us. We expect not to have to face the bottom of the rabbit hole. But we will and we will go splat. It will be left to my generation, the next, and probably two or three more after that to fix what the three above mine hath wrought.
Because we weren't even twinkles in our daddy's eye when this shit started. This is what we were given and what they will be given.
I admit that I sound a little paranoid. But I don't think it's disproportional to the threat.