Since there won't be a Revolution, what WILL happen to the U.S.?

[Philosoraptor]

Will everything just work itself out? Will we ever recover from the wonderful bush years? Will we conform and adapt to our new cages? Will we give ourselves a national cosmetic makeover?

Will we pull up our bootstraps and take back our government from them that stole it?

Will we just let the jungle overtake us and abandon the place like the Mayans?

Will there be exciting new movies and reality t.v. shows in the future?

Will Madonna re invent herself?

[hobbit709]

1. We will end up in

the dustbin of history with all the other failed empires.

[izzie]

2. I think we will just fade. More like England

and others will move up.

[The Deacon]

3. "Alas, Babylon!"

We'll end our days hiding behind walls while armed gangs wander the desolation & steal the last tattered remains of our previous wealth & power. One day people will point to our dams & Interstates as they do to the Roman aquaducts & roads - "once they were mighty, but an obscure Middle Eastern religious cult took them over & they declined to obscurity."
(I always loved the Moral Majority making comparisons between our "Godless" society & the Fall of Rome - they were so ignorant they never realized that Rome didn't decline until after Christianity became the Official Religion of the Empire.)

[Dhalgren]

4. What is coming will be a complete breakdown, across the board

Imagine the rage of the burning sixties coupled with the depression of the thirties. Then throw in the racist violence of the fifties south and you have a general picture of what's coming.

We have roughly 30% of this population who hate the other 70% - and I mean hate unto death. That 30% is a huge number and they are mean and violent and have no regard for the humanity of their "enemies" - Ann Coulter is their representative. A large number of them are Christianist Fundamentalists, with concentration camps behind their eyes.

Our only hope is that the rest of the world will try to ameliorate our suffering because we have such a huge nuclear arsenal. We will be dying violently while our blood-stained fingers rest on The Button...

Pretty picture, eh?

[rubberducky]

5. Love your post!

Somehow I think, the netroots will NOT take the * doctrine for too long. It amazes me how silent our youth are!! Why?? Maybe it`s just because thier lives have not been affected yet. What will it take?? The draft?? Maybe seeing thier parents taking to the streets?? Oh, yeah, maybe cutting thier credit cards, yeah, that might do it. OR maybe us old hippies, who happen to still love our countries ideals, will DEMAND our country back. Apathy seems to be the real problem.

[CrispyQ]

6. We will not have a Star Trek future.

I see our future in a combo of sci fi scenarios. Gibson's sprawl series has the ultra rich secluded in enclaves & the poor living in sprawling ghettos. In Max Headroom, it is not quite so bad, but it's illegal to turn off your tv. The Running Man was really ahead of it's time with it's portrayal of the type of entertainment we are going to. I love the man climbing the rope to reach the wad of cash, only to be sprayed in the face with some gas, & fall into the pit of ravenous dobermans. Yep, no more Wheel of Fortune for us. It's a dog-eat-dog world. There's not much pie left so it's every man for himself.

I do love the idea of a national makeover, though. :thumbsup: We need a Stacy/Clinton type team. I nominate Thom Hartmann to lead the team on how to restore our Constitution. We can call it "What Laws Not to Pass" or more accurately, "What Bad Laws That Did Pass & Need Revoking." ;)

[jerry611]

10. Star Wars would be more like it

[area51]

12. Star Trek future

But with this nazi administration, we might have this Star Trek future.

[raccoon]

27. "Gibson's sprawl series "--can you clarify that for me?

Sadly, it sounds like where we're headed, but I'd like to read that.

[CrispyQ]

29. Ohhhhhhh, it's a great read!

This guy's review is pretty good.

http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_gibson_sprawltrilogy.html

snip...

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." — from Neuromancer

The future world of the Sprawl series is a world of crumbling governments supplanted by multinational corporations, a world where horses are extinct, where money stratifies people into a global caste system. Artificial Intelligences (AI) are fully functional entities, acting on behalf of these corporate bodies. Personality constructs, taken from the living as a sort of template of personality, are owned and stored deep in the corporate heart of a media empire called Sense/Net. Cities have grown together along the east and west coasts of America, forming the Sprawl, a vast metropolis, yet not as extreme a place as Night City, near Ninsei and Japan's coast, or Chiba City, a relentless autonomous zone, where surgeons and augmentation specialists operate unregulated, and where the unlucky can easily wind up involuntary organ donors in a black market body modification clinic. Even in space itself the Zionist Rastafarians have assembled their own orbital archipelago out of abandoned satellites and way-stations, where Freeside, a space spa, provides luxury in lower gravity for the super-rich, and Straylight, a corporate merger and eccentric marriage, has created ... something.



=====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sprawl_trilogy

snip...

The Sprawl trilogy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

The Sprawl-trilogy, of which Neuromancer is the first part.The Sprawl trilogy is William Gibson's first set of novels. It is composed of:

Neuromancer (1984)
Count Zero (1986)
Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988)
They are all set in the same fictional future, and subtly interlinked by shared characters and themes (although this is not immediately obvious).

Gibson's short stories Johnny Mnemonic, New Rose Hotel and Burning Chrome are set in the same universe, and events and characters from the stories appear in or are mentioned at points in the Sprawl trilogy.

[Oak2004]

7. I would not rule out revolution (or secessions)

When the post-peak oil world makes it impossible to hold this continent-wide nation together, I expect that various states and regions will, either overtly or de facto, go their own way. I'm at this point, sadly, looking forward to a new Vermont Republic. It will be a better place to live than the US.

But, also, take the temperature of Americans, and you will see that the citizens are seething with anger at the corporate and political rulers of America. Historically, revolutions surprise even their leaders. One or two trigering events, and you might well see an explosion. Given what our Dear Leader has done to the military, the loyalty of the troops to the government is in doubt. I would be very unsurprised to see some units walk away rather than fire on citizens, and other units join the revolutionists, just as we saw in the fall of the Soviet Union. Without the support of the military, the government will collapse.

So while I'm not certain that revolution will occur, I'm equally uncertain that it will not occur. I am certain we are actually closer to revolution than at any time since the Great Depression.

[The2ndWheel]

8. Consume, consume, consume

We'll slowly consume everything. In that same way, the NSA will slowly consume all of our private indentities. It may take a century, but they'll try it. We won't care, because you can't stop information. If it works for humans, it works for the entities which we depend on for life.

[Sinti]

9. Strikes me that on the current trajectory we will be "attacked"

by some other large nation/nations who feel they are protecting themselves (maybe China and Russia together). Barring that incident, if energy prices continue to rise, and I see no reason for them not to, much of our population will find themselves starving and/or freezing. Unable to run their cars, with the lack of public trans they won't be able to work - I see scads of Wal-Marts full of useless crap with no one able to buy it. The really rich will try to hide, but when people get really hungry they lose their good manners, and fear of authority, know what I mean.

All the family farms that were once the pride of our nation are now being covered with strip malls and McMansions, while we import food from South of the Border. Being the nation with the largest mass of arable land on the planet it seems absolutely incomprehensible, but - bad management happens.

Did you notice the drought hitting the middle states again? Reminds a lot of folks of the dust bowl.

[treestar]

16. Via Bush we've made the excuse for offensive attacks in the

name of "protecting ourselves." The preemptive strike thing could come back to haunt us.

[malaise]

11. Since the Soviet Union broke up

and the planet's dominant leaders are hell-bent on breaking up states, my question is which state of the Union will secede first. As W continues to trample on states' rights, and there is a significant ideological divide between states, I think the fight to keep the US as one country will be a major struggle this century.

[sevenleagueboots]

13. A police state devided against itself

And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end (Mark 3:24–26).

[malaise]

15. Not sure about your point n/t

[sevenleagueboots]

20. The irony of the religious rights' viewpoint vs secular solutions

The irony of the religious rights' viewpoint vs secular solutions pose unifying problems given our
separation of church/state past.

[malaise]

22. Got yah

The problem for those promoting this pseudo-christian fundamentalism is that they are violating the constitution.

[IntravenousDemilo]

14. Who says there won't be a revolution?

You Murcans are like that. Argumentative. Bellicose. And a lot of you own guns or, oddly, see nothing wrong with owning guns. The government should be very worried. And, deep down, I think they are.

[sevenleagueboots]

17. .......correction..all of us own guns...most of us have never picked shit

.with the chicken's, and in addition, we have been leaderless for decades, while mumbling the mantra: 'just give me my piece of the pie.'
Revolution? Over what? Being sold out and down the river by the family owned business of bought out political sons-a-bitches? No.
America is still a fool's Paradise.

[newportdadde]

18. I agree we are long ways from a revolution

at least in the classical sense, the invention of the TV helps a lot in this also our mobile society, the constant moves due to offshoring etc, breakup of community.

I don't see given our current course we can avoid another war over oil as it starts to get even more scarce. I also see a terrorist attack in our future, possibly very deadly, a draft would ensue. This could be parlayed into a war for those oil resources I mention... Iran is a prime candidate.

I actually see 'some' hope in the future for offshoring at least for manufacturing.. if we really are nearing peak oil products will eventually become to expensive to ship, from that I could see factories reopening here, I'm way out in the future here though.

Great civilizations collapse, happened many times in the past, nothing new today. Check out Jarred Diamonds. "Collapse"

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. You are in the midst of one

just becuase it is not violent does not mean the RW is not winning one.

The US died in 2000, we are just waiting for the death certificate and its successor.

[Greyhound]

23. All true, but it died in 1980. n/t

:kick:

[bryant69]

21. Things will continue getting better and worse alternatively

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[AngryAmish]

24. We will destroy the Rethuglicans

Root and branch. Man, woman and child. All of them must go.

[BuhByeChimp]

25. Until the "blame bush" mantra is replaced with ideas...

I don't think much will change, even if we take over both houses and the Presidency.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. A rev'd up disintegration of the American Empire.

A revolution is taking place. All over the world, people have become weary of living their lives supplying our needs. BushCo is continuing the policy of trying to hold on to "our vital interests" by the use of force.

All one has to do is look around outside of our borders to see it isn't working. And is, in fact, speeding up the process of collapse by bankrupting us, economically, politically, morally.

Books will be written about how America overextended itself in defense of it's empire and collapsed like all of it's forebears.

[leftofthedial]

28. a giant peasant theo-fascist state

not unlike Russia in the 19th century

[CJCRANE]

30. Sold to the UAE in secret by Bushco...nt