I saw this on Raw Story
And it made me think about trends.
Trends
What do we know is happening now that we can extrapolate for the future?
We can say with certainty that if the MSM Wurlitzer continues unabated with its vitriol against democrats that:
- Republicans will be fearful of their base. We are already seeing that with the resignations of some GOP officials in AZ. They will not be able, because of that fear, to push back against that tide of hate and meanness. They will not be able to "refudiate" the biggies like Beck, O’Reilly and Limbaugh. And they will be increasingly belligerent and hostile towards the dems, so as to placate their "base".
- Democrats will be increasingly marginalized by the media. This has already begun for some time especially since the HCR town halls and the funding of those "grass roots" by the Koch brothers. They will be targeted more and more as the craziness gets ratcheted up by the "successes" just as the anti abortion folks were successful in targeting abortion providers. The noise level provided by the Dick Armies and the Tea Partiers will drown out a lot of the messaging that the dems might want to do.
- The media will be increasingly fearful as well. We’ve noticed that their fair and balanced seems to come out heavily weighted on the Republican side. Some of that is because of the corporate attack on the middle class, but now less and less ability for the other side to get ANY hearing will be difficult. We see this happening more and more anyway but it will accelerate.
- As the Tea party thinks it has successes, it will be more vocal, more thuggish and even less agreeable to come to terms with reality. Why should it. These are folks who cannot create good boundaries for themselves and others. They want to run other people’s lives and with success will come hubris.
We can say with certainty that with no checks on the vitriol and with lack of any real control on who gets arms and how much fire power they can buy that the random crazies will intensify and we will get copy cats as well. It will be no secret as to who their targets will be. Those targets will be the target of the day by Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly or now, Palin. While Palin doesn’t have the audience that the first three have, she has a unique following.
We can say that the mortgage crisis will continue into the foreseeable future. The wages are going down which will make it harder to make payments, a good 20% or better do not have jobs or good jobs, and there is lack of real job creation as yet.
We can say with certainty that local and state government’s budgets will continue to be pinched. The Rethuglicans have no interest in improving the economy or helping their fellows in State governorships.
We know the enormous pressure by the Koch Brothers and others on the safety nets. They will not be happy until they are completely eradicated. But they are willing to carve off pieces if they cannot gut the whole. So Social Security cuts are damn near inevitable but those cuts will not staunch the bleeding of the budget for that is a total illusionary gambit. Social Security has been propping up the budget for many many years. You cannot cut taxes and start global warfare and not expect a budget crunch. But the people that are advocating all of this are totally incapable of caring and refuse to take any responsibility for their actions and there is no coherent media to hold them to account.
Our ability to get information will become more and more difficult:
- The media has become more and more incestuous with the people it reports upon. You cannot imagine that any of them will ever get aggressive with follow up questions or will ask any of the questions that you and I would ask. They feel they cannot have credibility unless they can get the movers and shakers come talk to them and so access is a chip that the people in power have used very successfully.
- The government has already shown it has no interest in protecting whistle blowers and will go out into the world very forcefully trying shut down any information about its works and abuse and misuse of things in the world.
- The so called net neutrality will give us all grief as it rewards the big players with more options to get money from us without giving US anything in return. We, the people, have no lobbyists.
- The intertubes will be increasingly choked off as a way to organize. We see this in other countries and we will not be far behind. The corporate hacks don’t really care about us as a threat but they will increasingly call for higher profits on the parts of the internet we care about.
- Fear of the cyberwars, like the retaliation for the jailing of Julian Assange will prompt our government to move much faster on dealing with hackers and such. And, since every time the government does something that is supposed to make us safer, it takes away some of our freedoms, I predict that is exactly what will happen.
The environmental crisis will worsen. More and more species will be gone from this planet for good. The US is in no position to provide leadership on this issue because we are now stymied in that area by the science deniers. It does present some interesting problems for those of us who are somewhat practical. How do WE and our children survive?
The US leadership, in fact, is diminishing in most every area. Health, infant mortality, education are all going down relative to other countries. Since all of our resources are going towards fighting terror in perpetuity, the only area in which we put our efforts and focus in on the wars and the munitions. We will leave a legacy of death and destruction that is much greater than that of the actual terrorists. And, due to the extraordinary printing of paper by the fed, our dollar is worth less. We are seeing rises in food prices as well as fuel prices. A trend that most certainly will continue.
However, since we created the drone I predict we will see more and more use of it until some hacker takes over one. The perfect weapon for those raised with computer games.
The Chinese are now the preeminent power in the world. They are having a great economy at the moment. They always have problems of course, but they are able to get things done at the moment, while the US is stalled. People who go an visit are amazed at what they have accomplished.
Our "side", like the EU is suffering from our excesses and those haven’t worked their way out of that system. We are seeing problems pop up all over. While they have been hurt, they haven’t been as clobbered as we were, but nonetheless this is a global recession.
Crime
From Nation Master
Crime Statistics > Murders with firearms (most recent) by country
VIEW DATA: Totals Per capita
Showing latest available data.
Rank Countries
Amount
# 1 South Africa:
31,918
# 2 Colombia:
21,898
# 3 Thailand:
20,032
# 4 United States:
9,369
# 5 Philippines:
7,708
# 6 Mexico:
2,606
# 7 Slovakia:
2,356
# 8 El Salvador:
1,441
# 9 Zimbabwe:
598
# 10 Peru:
442
# 11 Germany:
269
# 12 Czech Republic:
181
# 13 Ukraine:
173
# 14 Canada:
144
# 15 Albania:
135
# 16 Costa Rica:
131
# 17 Azerbaijan:
120
# 18 Poland:
111
# 19 Uruguay:
109
# 20 Spain:
97
# 21 Portugal:
90
# 22 Croatia:
76
# 23 Switzerland:
68
# 24 Bulgaria:
63
# 25 Australia:
59
# 26 Sweden:
58
# 27 Bolivia:
52
# 28 Japan:
47
# 29 Slovenia:
39
= 30 Hungary:
38
= 30 Belarus:
38
# 32 Latvia:
28
# 33 Burma:
27
# 34 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of:
26
# 35 Austria:
25
# 36 Estonia:
21
# 37 Moldova:
20
# 38 Lithuania:
16
= 39 United Kingdom:
14
= 39 Denmark:
14
# 41 Ireland:
12
# 42 New Zealand:
10
# 43 Chile:
9
# 44 Cyprus:
4
# 45 Morocco:
1
= 46 Iceland:
0
= 46 Luxembourg:
0
= 46 Oman:
0
Total: 100,693
Weighted average: 2,097.8
We are not as bad as Thailand. However, our standing on this list has no real hope of changing with current gun laws. And before you 2nd amendment folks flame me, remember we do not even require knowledge of handguns before purchase. With poisons, we at least have people sign a register IIRC.
With over 20% unemployed or underemployed, more and more people will turn to other ways of augmenting their income. I predict drug pushing will go up and petty theft as well.
Are there any happy trends?
I think that face book has an answer. We have an overwhelming desire to connect and be connected. I think we yearn to be supported and supportive of one another.
I feel that eating less meat for various reasons will contribute to our good health and improve the environment.
I think that buying locally is a meme that is taking hold. Especially in the food department.
What trends do you see?