Can anyone imagine what the world will be like in 2008

[Ironpost]

I say WARS, WARS and more WARS. People suffering and dying. Medicare and medicaid gone, social security gone, no HOPE. If you would have tried to tell me this 6 years ago I would have thought you were NUTS, now I'm not so sure.

[wtmusic]

1. Prediction: a smuggled-in nuke

detonated in a major US metropolitan area will cause social distortion yet unknown in this country

[Beam Me Up]

12. Yes, this is my prediction too:

Half a million dead (more or less). It will be blamed on bin Laden's fatwa. This will give the right everything it wants:

• Free reign to use tactical nuclear weapons -- first strike
  
• Military conscription with virtually no protest
  
• Descent in any form will no longer be tollerated
  

Beyond that the US will look more and more like a third world country. We will begin to see real poverty WHITE POVERTY as has not been seen in this country for over half a century.

The internet as a vehicle for free speech, descent and political organizing will be a thing of the past.

The necessary Constitutional amendment having been passed, the Gropenator will be running for president.

[autorank]

2. Someone will be in their second year as President with Bush

and Cheney having left the White House (Bush for "health" reasons, Cheney after the energy report with maps of Iraq is leaked). That someone will be one interesting person. Count on it.

[Ironpost]

3. Please tell me it isn't true

[autorank]

4. It isn't true...but it is.

Bush and Cheney are becoming inconvenient, a nuisance. They're not really supposed to run things and now they are. They will be removed by a suddenly awakened and alert CM (Corporate Media) and outraged elders. We will all rejoice and the 'kinder, gentler' screwing of America, the one the public likes so much, will continue.

[Turn CO Blue]

5. By 2008

The hole in the Ozone layer will be the size of the f'ing United States (honey, don't go out without your SPF 145!)

Little old people will be shoved out of their senior homes onto the street, because their f'ing social security checks will stop coming (should've invested in blue chips, Grandma!)

All the trees will have been clear-cut to make more room for all the f'ing Walmarts with the requisite acre of parking lot - and the pulp used to make glossy paper for celebrity magazines.

All the kids will be "Pioneers" or "Rangers" in the Brownshirt Scouts of Murika - earning patches for their little vests.

The Fortune 500 will have all merged to become the Fortune Five (motto: You buy from us because there's no one else - we run your governments because we can)

Someone will finally notice that Cheney's lips are moving whenever Bush speaks - but no one will care.

There will be 1,457 channels on cable - and there STILL won't be anything good on!

[izzie]

6. EU and Asia will go up and we will go down all a little at a time.

Oil will cost more and more people will wonder why the govt. did not get behind doing something about not using so much as EU does.More and more others in the world will become the people the rest of world wish to be like and we will move to the side lines. More and more people will not believe the 'rulers' in this country. The Far Right will become more and more in demand of what they want.

[Ironpost]

7. It sure isn't going to be a pretty picture.

[masaka___]

8. An Alternate Reality

People start awakening...

USians start realizing that they can still love their country while simultaneously being against its government.

More and more people start resisting to the point that it becomes mainstream.

The Bush Family Evil Empire is neutralized and brought to justice.

World-wide celebrations ensue.

And we live happily ever after in harmony with the rest of the world.

There is no end.

You gotta think positively.

:)

[gorbal]

9. Here yah go, the answers all here-

The entire novel on-line for your amusement-

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/

[Freebird12004]

10. way back in high school

1984 worried me then ...

[Ironpost]

11. Hello and welcome to DU

The Cuban missle crises worried me most until whats happening now

[Freebird12004]

16. thanks

We all need to remember to 'act' not 'react'

[newyawker99]

13. Hi Freebird12004!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Freebird12004]

17. * smiles *

nice to be wanted :hi:

[nostamj]

14. the coming dystopia.....

This was written for a 'dystopia' thread in the new Writing forum. Thought it might be of interest here. It's a nightmare scenerio, to be sure. But, if the fundamentalists are allowed and even encouraged to continue their agenda, it is a nightmare we could see coming to pass here.

The Diary of Dan Frank

Outside Ithaca, NY. In the year of our Bush 2007

I know. Terrible joke. Black and bleak. How dare a queer compare his plight to innocent Anne. Truth? Never read it. Remember Shelly Winters in the movie. Right? It's been years. Never went for those black and bleak pictures.

But I'm a furious, frustrated, and frightened old fag. We say flip things like that when we're furious, frustrated, and frightened. Should I sing you the score to Jerry Herman's DEAR WORLD or amuse you with my Bette Davis impression?

Sorry. Can't.
Days without a cigarette: 107.
Days without a cocktail: 126.
Sorry. Can't.
A proper Bette Davis impression requires both a cigarette and a cocktail.

Imagine it. There are no gay bars left by now, surely. Nothing in the open. No piano bars where a bearded baritone belts out the Judy Garland songbook. No go-go boys with g-strings stuffed with singles. No gentlemen of a certain age surveying the working boys in the bleary hours.

I watched them remove the gay statues from Sheridan Square on the NewsChannel. Two couples in white plaster. No one could even show up and cry. You'd think that one, one last drag queen with visions of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion–(which happened just across the street)–would have shown up to toss a symbolic trash can or epitaph... (It's a prayer park now.)

But no. The 'lists' had been instituted. We had been out and proud. We had enlisted, marched, joined, donated and subscribed. And, we had been listed. New names crossed off every day. It's impossible to get a good haircut. Those who could, fled. Those who could not flee, hid. Or, were caught. Send to 'compassion camps' for healing.

I should be in Costa Rica (where everyone thinks I am). But, I hate to travel. Shouldn't I be pleased? Now, I can't travel at all. Legally. Can't even leave these rooms. My sister is too generous. Her husband is kind to a fault but his eyes betray his fears for their children.

My 'gentle' nephew must be coarsened, protected. He will never inherit my collection of show music. That was abandoned with the books and videos and... My entire gay life.

This morning I sat in the dark and tried to recall the original cast recording of HOW NOW DOW JONES straight through. Who can resist a Brenda Vaccaro musical? But I stopped at the suicide song. Oops. Forgot about that one.

For the record, I am not suicidal. For reasons somewhere between cowardice and curiosity, I'm not going that route.

Staying here is not possible. There are rewards, great and small, for those who assist in outing anyone from the 'lists.' Witch hunts for fun and profit! Hunting an endangered species! It's the new Lotto!

Oh, they laughed when I warned them. Mary! What are they going to do? Nuke San Franciso?

Of course, the nuke came to South Florida. By boat. In the frenzy that followed, any opposition to the 'lists' was seen as un-American. After film of the first protests, where it was reported that NG troops were fired on by the 'militants,' organized opposition became a deadly gamble that very few were willing to take.

Soon. My brother-in-law knows why I asked for the maps. Soon I will leave by night and try to find the underground. I hope they appreciate show tunes.

[catmandu57]

15. If we make it through 2005

then there's hope. I look to next year as being a watershed year, bringing wholsale changes.

I don't believe anything will ever be the same, but if we can holdout until the country wakes up and the calvary arrives we'll have a chance. Otherwise, I can't see us making it, myself and many others who post here probablly will gone in the first round, but, beware cornered animals is all I can say on that.