Look into Your Crystal Balls...

Yo, whaddup Hoomies...

My coworkers and I, in order to beguile the tedium of an otherwise very slow day,

played a little game of speculating what might happen in terms of world events over the next thirty years or so. We all have different opinions about politics, but somehow we all agreed that the following occurences could happen between 2004 and 2034:

1)The Republicans will unquestionably win the presidency and gain in the House and Senate both in 2008 and 2012.

2) The US will continue to be involved in armed conflict in the Mideast. Syria, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan are likely nations in which the US military will be deployed.

3) A civil war in Pakistan will not only involve the US, but also India.

4) The US will become a debtor nation, owing the EU and China billons to progress it's agenda of democracy in the middle east.

5) China, with it's rapidly expanding economy, and need for oil, will take more interest in Mideast events. It will happily loan the US money so that it stays militarily involved in the region. The heavy-handed quashing of a budding independence movement in Sinkiang, the moslem western-most provence of China, will be hailed by the US government as a strike against terrorism. (Meanwhile, the citizens of Berkeley will continue to buy "Free Tibet" bumperstickers.)

6) The deforestation of the Amazon basin will cause a dramatic climate change throughout Brazil. Given that the Amazon rainforest causes more than 40% of it's precipitation through it's own ability to disperse and recondense water, a balance will be upset through continual logging and slash-and-burn practises. The forest will no longer be able to humidify the air, causing a drought of massive proportions. This drought will cause unprecented social upheaval and civil conflict in South America, and a huge migration of people into North America.

7) China will continue to gain economically from the perpetual conflict in the middle east. It will exercise it's newly found power by resolving old border disputes with India by force. The US will refuse to take sides. India, weakened by conflict on two fronts, removes itself from the civil war in Pakistan.

8) The US, exhausted monetarily, begins to suffer losses and setbacks throughout the Mideast. China begins a reversal of policy, supporting anti-US forces.

9) The US, suffering from massive illegal immigration from drought-stricken South America and economic devastation due to perpetual military conflict in the Mideast suffers complete economic collapse and social chaos.

10) China forcibly re-unifies Taiwan with the mainland. The USA's inability to respond heralds the dawn of China's reign as the World's major economic and military superpower.

11) Star Trek is re-filmed, featuring an all Asian cast with a few white people in minor roles.

Ok, so what do you all think the next 30 years will bring? Hooville has such a great variety of people, there should be a lot of interesting takes on the future.

Madame Trix

What think tank did this come from?

All I know about the FUTURE is, that it turns out different from what we plan or think! So only God knows! And there is only silence from that direction at this time!

;(

My prediction is that the Capitol Building in Washington or some such symbol of power will be attacked by terrorists with the consequence that the government will suspend the normal functionning of the Congress. The President will assume dictatorial powers, suspend the Constitution in large part, and round up all dissidents. Conscription will be re-imposed.

In reaction, the rest of the world will form a new alliance, excluding the US, under the leadership of a Europe-Chinese axis. There will be a massive re-arming to counterbalance US military might. Canada and Mexico will become vassal states of the US, supplying cheap manpower and resources.

We will enter a new cold war era. Globalization will die, in its place a military-industrial web in both camps with very little contact with each other except as antagonists in the "third world", Africa, etc.

Remember, you read it here first. :-(

>Ok, so what do you all think the next 30 years will bring?

>Hooville has such a great variety of people, there should be a

>lot of interesting takes on the future.

Oh, great Trix - now look what you've done: you've given Trilingual, glutes, et al. yet another opportunity to share with us their deepest fantasies (oops, I mean fears) of how concentration camps are being built for gay people and how we are all just steps away from the trains were big, strapping, handsome, muscular White Christian Republican facists with guns and handcuffs will transport us there. Then again, since they view every thread as an excuse to spew these desires (sorry, I mean concerns), you haven't really done anything all that bad.

>My prediction is that the Capitol Building in Washington or

>some such symbol of power will be attacked by terrorists. . . .

Uh, that's already happened. Ever heard of 9/11?

with

>the consequence that the government will suspend the normal

>functionning of the Congress. The President will assume

>dictatorial powers, suspend the Constitution in large part,

>and round up all dissidents. Conscription will be re-imposed.

How did I know that whatever the future held, it was going to be something really, really awful caused by . . .

Islamic terrorists? no. . . . . .

An insane dictator with nuclear weapons? no. . . .

A vicious war between two regional powers with a history of hatred and hostility? no. . . .

The democratically elected President of the United States? YES!!!!

>In reaction, the rest of the world will form a new alliance,

>excluding the US, under the leadership of a Europe-Chinese

>axis.

LOL!!!!!!!!! Well, I will say one thing: I can definitely see the governments of Europe getting along very well with Communist China. It's good to see leftists like you finally admitting the true nature of European socialism.

>Canada and Mexico will become vassal states of

>the US. . .

A prediction is something that will happen in the future - not something that is already a fact.

>We will enter a new cold war era. Globalization will die, in

>its place a military-industrial web in both camps with very

>little contact with each other except as antagonists in the

>"third world", Africa, etc.

What about the concentration camps that Bush is building for gays? How could you have forgotten those?

It's not an original scenario (science-fiction writers in the 60s foresaw it) but if it keeps heading in its current direction, the U.S. could become an extreme-conservative fundamentalist theocracy, isolated from much of the rest of the world. The lead-up to such a theocracy could cause a civil war, although I think it's more likely that the U.S. will just apathetically and ignorantly slide into being an ayatollah state.

China is on the rise, and the 21st Century could easily turn out to be the Chinese century in the way the past century was the American century.

The Israel-Palestinian situation will be resolved with the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. The Middle East will be less tense, but no Garden of Eden for at least another 50 years. Too much blood has been spilled and too much hatred sown for either side to live comfortably with each other except in a very cold peace. Elsewhere in the Middle East, though, some of the rotten regimes will collapse and more democratic forms of government will emerge in at least a few of the Arab countries.

In spite of all the ignorance and hatred, treatment of gay people will improve in most developed countries and equality of rights will be achieved. Probably not in the U.S. if it sinks into being a fundamentalist theocracy.

The icecaps will continue to melt, the seas will rise, and I'll have to park a gondola outside the 9th floor window of my Copacabana apartment. As a small consolation, Houston (the home of the Bushes) will also be underwater. Unfortunately, so will many other cities around the world that I love much better. The upside is that my beachfront property in Kansas City will increase in value. . .

A cure for AIDS will be found. Ditto for many other devastating diseases, including cancer and diabetes. If the U.S. becomes a theocracy, the remedies may not be available there (although you can be sure they'll be available to the ayatollahs running the place).

>Uh, that's already happened. Ever heard of 9/11?

I don't know about you Doug, but I can't remember one name of anyone who died on 9/11, apart from Ted Hughes wife (can't recall her name tho). Had that fourth plane hit the Capitol Building or the White House, however, and taken out, say, Dick Cheney, or half the senators and two thirds of the Congressmen, perhaps I wouldn't have so much trouble recalling specific names. That's what I'm talking about, a direct hit on the symbols of power, not the souls who will be largely forgotten to history (not their deaths tho).

>

>The democratically elected President of the United States?

>YES!!!!

Well Hitler was democratically elected too until the Reichstag was burned down.

Europe getting along very well with

>Communist China.

Oh Doug, your views of "Communist" China are positively quaint. Sorta takes me back to the days before Nixon went there. LOL

>What about the concentration camps that Bush is building for

>gays? How could you have forgotten those?

Gee Doug, I guess GT-MO could have a wing added.

>I don't know about you Doug, but I can't remember one name of

>anyone who died on 9/11, apart from Ted Hughes wife (can't

>recall her name tho).

Her name was Barbara Olsen, and she was the wife of Ted Olsen, not Ted Hughes. He is, and at the time was, the Solicitor General of the United States - the lawyer who represents the Federal Government in all matters before the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to being his wife, she was a best-selling conservative author and frequent television commentator.

She died when the plane she was on was flown into the United States Pentagon, at which time the Secretary of Defense was in the building working. Hundreds of military and civilian Pentagon employeess were slaughtered.

On the same day, two of the largest office towers in the world collapsed in the middle of Wall Street, the heart of American economic power, killing thousands.

If you don't think that 9/11 constituted a "hit on the symbols of U.S. power," then that phrase has no meaning.

The reality is - you have to deny that it did, because no "dictatorship" arose after that (except in the "minds" of the lunatic fringe of the paranoid Left) and you can't maintain hope that your paranoid fantasies come true unless you deny that 9/11 was a "hit on American symbols of power."

>>The democratically elected President of the United States?

>>YES!!!!

>

>Well Hitler was democratically elected too until the Reichstag

>was burned down.

Do liberals these days have any "argument" other than "GEORGE BUSH = HITLER"?

>Europe getting along very well with

>>Communist China.

>

>Oh Doug, your views of "Communist" China are positively

>quaint. Sorta takes me back to the days before Nixon went

>there. LOL

You should share your oh-so-sophisticated and worldly laughter with the 3 Chinese dissidents who were arrested just today for engaging in the heinous crime of criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. Then again, you're from a country where it's acceptable for people to be criminally punished for expressing views which the Government has forbidden, and that's also common in the European countries which you worship.

So it's hardly a surprise that you think such things are no big deal.

>>What about the concentration camps that Bush is building for

>>gays? How could you have forgotten those?

>

>Gee Doug, I guess GT-MO could have a wing added.

Oh yeah - libearls DO have another argument besides "BUSH = HITLER." It's "The US = NAZI GERMANY." Sorry for overlooking that one.

>

>Her name was Barbara Olsen, and she was the wife of Ted Olsen,

>not Ted Hughes. He is, and at the time was, the Solicitor

>General of the United States - the lawyer who represents the

>Federal Government in all matters before the U.S. Supreme

>Court. In addition to being his wife, she was a best-selling

>conservative author and frequent television commentator.

>

>She died when the plane she was on was flown into the United

>States Pentagon, at which time the Secretary of Defense was in

>the building working. Hundreds of military and civilian

>Pentagon employeess were slaughtered.

No big surprise that Doogie would remember Barbara Olsen's name since she was a conservative. The rest of the victims remain nameless, because surely their lives couldn't be as important as that of a conservative.

>

>

>Oh yeah - libearls DO have another argument besides "BUSH =

>HITLER." It's "The US = NAZI GERMANY." Sorry for overlooking

>that one.

>

I couldn't find the word "libearls" in my dictionary. Since your penchant for making shit up is legendary here, I guess it's a fair conclusion that you've decided to create your own vocabulary. Maybe we can call it "Dougonics".

Ted Hughes' wife, on the other hand, killed herself in 1963 by sticking her head in an oven.

She put peanut butter sandwiches in the kids' bedroom first, so they'd have a good breakfast before finding her body.

Four wolves, foretold of in the Book of the Moon, will embark on a journey. At the end of this journey, all humans will die, the world will be destroyed, and Paradise will be opened. So says the Book of the Moon... So let it be done. *howls*

Oh Doug! Can you promise me they'll be handsome???

Trix

WooHoo!! Democrats will get the presidency and Congress back in 2016!! :+

Don't know why but I always think Ted Olsen is Ted Hughes. Same yesterday and a few minutes after I typed that message, I thought, "oh wait, Ted Hughes was that nasty guy who drove Sylvia Plath to suicide (now, have I got her name right?). Oh well, I meant Barbara Olsen, whom I had never heard of until 9/11.

Actually, I could think of one other person who was on one of those planes and that was the ex or former wife of actor Tony Perkins, and she was a sister of Merissa Berenson. Sorta on the edge of celebrity I suppose.

Oh yes, Barbara Olsen, a real power symbol. And lets see, now who died in the World Trade Center, David Rockefeller, oh no, wait, he WATCHED as the towers collapsed. Now why don't you give me a name of someone who represented the economic power of the United States who died that day? Frankly, I can't think of any. But I'm sure you will come up with one, at least.