Keep the faith
J. R. Dunn has a wonderful antidote to political despair. I have some optimistic predictions of my own:
I think the current gas crisis, coupled with the holes being punctured into Global Warming, and China’s status as No. 1 C02 polluter, will create a popular ground swell that will force the Demos’ hands (1) on ANWR and offshore drilling, (2) on enabling oil refineries to go forward, and (3) on building nuclear power plants a la the French. The fact that the Saudis have promised more production is a harbinger of change.
I think that McCain will win.
I think the Democrats will continue to have a majority in Congress, but it won’t be the veto-proof blow-out the more pessimistic predict.
I think the Democratic convention will be an even better spectacle than the 1968 Democratic convention.
I think that England can no longer be saved, but that the rest of Europe is getting panicky and, in keeping with historic traditions, will ultimately react quite violently to the threat it perceives within it (meaning the rise of radical, as opposed to slightly secularized, Islam). This may actually not be an optimistic prediction, because the backlash could be horrific.
I think that, having converted my own home to a Capitalist economy, I’m going to have a better summer than usual.
I am keeping the faith.
By the way, my negative prediction is that Africa will actually be the next great bloody battlefield (as opposed to an ideological walk-over) in the War between Muslim and Christian. As Islam drops down from the North, and the rising tide of Christianity rises up from the South, they will meet in the middle with an Armageddon-like clash. It will be the Sudan played out on a very large scale.