Thursday, January 01, 2009

Predictions for 2009

Here's a few things I hope I'm wrong about but I expect to happen in 2009.

A major war in the Middle East, focused on Israel and Iran. The U.S. will, naturally, be caught in the middle of it, not just because we support Israel, but because of our presence literally in the middle of it, in Iraq.

A minimum of increased tensions with Russia, who just cut off natural gas to Ukraine -- and thus to the rest of Europe. They will also be supporting Iran with military aid.

India and Pakistan will go to war. If Obama has any sense at all, he will stay completely out of it. I also predict Obama doesn't have any sense at all.

Continued worldwide economic collapse, with the financial center of the world shifting to China.

An outbreak of madness in the U.S. as the U.S. switches from a 1st Tier to 2nd Tier society.

Well, the second half of the last one, I hope I'm not wrong about. We need the switch.

2 comments:

John said...

That last prediction sounds positively Lovecraftian. R'lyeh (which a trick of perspective might identify as Prospero's Island, or Job's land of Uz) arises out of the "sea," and the world briefly goes mad.

Alan Moore's Watchmen engages the same motif, identifying Lovecraft's Cthulhu with Hobbes' Leviathan--the last and most dangerous gasp of 1st tier social collectivist and apocalyptic consciousness.

This is only lit geek myth surfing, of course, but still scary stuff. Hopefully we'll get the Goddess and not the squid, although the uninitiated imagination might mistake one for the other.

Troy Camplin said...

I made the last one after I heard about a series of absolutely bizarre actions by people around here, including planned "random" shootings that seemed to be all about the shootings and nothing else.