Jo Ann Simon - 04:37 pm Pacific Time - Dec 9, 2004
The Bush administration's lies and failures will catch up with them. Disgruntled CIA agents, former Bush administration employees, angry U.S. vets from Iraq, who are treated like shit by the Pentagon while they serve in Iraq, and ignored when they return home badly injured.
It will all explode (I hope) in a big-time backlash against the G.W. Bush policies.
Some reporters (probably the younger ones) are going to get the guts to stop being Bush administration "yes" men/women, and seriously start investigating the lies and failures of this administration. Reporters have to stop fearing being typecast as a liberal news establishment, because they are far from being that, when their coverage of the news is based on press releases from the White House. Journalists have to stop trying so desperately at being "objective" by always presenting the other side, when too often the "other side" is a bunch of liars and crooks.
It won't be easy, but if our democracy is going to continue to exist, it has to be done.
warlock - 08:53 am Pacific Time - Dec 10, 2004
The United States of America will continue its dive into oblivion as a symbol of justice and freedom.
As we continue to increase the size of our national underclass, the rest of the world will prosper. Prosper not only financially, but medically, materially.
They will be the ones who find the solutions to energy depletion and reduce the accelerating destruction of our planet via pollution.
Media management of public thought and perceptions will grow ever larger. We have surrendered control of our minds to the corporate media. We no longer think for ourselves, but rely on polls comprised of cleverly composed manipulative language to stir our emotions while dulling our brains.
We will become simple, emotional sock puppets for the purveyors of various religious prevarications.
Members of our society will die more frequently from hunger and disease. Only the financially privileged will survive to be isolated.
The hatred by more and more of the civilized world currently being directed at this nation will grow in volume and intensity.
But the biggest collapse of all will be the reduction of our credibility, our decency ... and our ability to dominate through nuclear-induced fear.
We shall be consumed by our pathological need for instant emotional gratification.
We've never learned to lose.
We've never learned to overcome our anxiety-driven hatred of diversity.
We've never learned to cope with the varied realities of sexual manifestations.
We are about ready to accept total control of our minds, our spirits, our health, our individuality.
Freedom is only a word that will no longer apply.
The Ox - 11:23 am Pacific Time - Dec 10, 2004
Top five. (You didn't say they all had to be good!) 5. The U.S. Supreme Court, with two new Bush-appointed justices on the bench, takes on a new abortion case and uses it to overturn Roe vs. Wade in the court's fall term.
5a. In a footnote to the above decision the court mentions that the "right to privacy" is not spelled out anywhere within the Constitution and basically invites a challenge to Griswold vs. Connecticut.
4. Iraq continues to slide into chaos and the number of U.S. casualties escalates dramatically. By the end of 2005, more than 3,000 total U.S. service members are dead.
3. The Bush administration begins the push in earnest for preemptive war against Iran.
2. Dick Cheney suffers a massive coronary and dies. Half the country mourns.
1. A massive explosion in a major U.S. port which kills thousands is traced back to an uninspected container. Within hours, Bush asks Rumsfeld to find a way to use this as an excuse to attack North Korea and Iran. The Constitution is suspended. Citizen, where are your papers?
Julius Civitatus - 08:17 am Pacific Time - Dec 13, 2004
I have a very specific prediction for 2005, and it relates to the world of culture and entertainment. You can put your money on this one, and remember you heard it here first. It goes like this:
Sometime at the end of 2005 Ron Howard releases the film version of "The Da Vinci Code." Every fundamentalist Christian whack-job, every two-bit preacher from Falwell to Dobson to Robertson, will show up on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and every morning talk show to cry and whine about this "anti-Christian" movie. They'll call it an "attack on Christianity," "Hollywood elitists (code word for 'Jews') attacking the essence of X-tian red-state Murka," and I bet at least one of these "radical clerics" will compare it to 9/11 and Osama. I can see it already.
They will mobilize their devoted masses of brain-dead acolytes to boycott the movie, picket every theater exhibiting the film, and will perform mass "pray-ins" at multiplexes all over America. Many distributors will be cowed into not showing the film. Some will pull out of the deal.
In the end, it will be one of the most successful movies of the year in the box office.
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