I occasionally lecture about critical thinking. This is the skill we need to look past the nonsense that exists out there in the world. It works surprisingly well and is based on a few very simple precepts that pretty much seem to work in any given situation.

One of these is that you can't prove a negative. Someone could say, "I'll prove to you that unicorns don't exist." They could muster a great case for the creature's lack of existence, but the next day someone could turn one up and all that work would be for naught. The coelacanth is a type of fish long thought extinct until a scientist ran across the remains of one in some fisherman's net last century, making it something less than extinct.

Despite that warning, I'm going to list ten things you won't see in the second Bush Administration. I'll give you my reasons for them, and I'll stand by my predictions. As you look over the list, you'll realize I'd be happy to see all of them happen.

I'm willing to make these predictions because of another precept. In Latin it's qui bono and means, "Who benefits?" In short, no one does anything without benefit accruing of some sort. Mother Theresa might well have been the soul of charity, but her motivation was to glorify God. For most folks, that's a lot harder a motivation to quantify than realizing someone might be making a monetary profit at something. Regardless, she did something because of a benefit. Actions, as I will note below, might be of material benefit to some, but others might be nothing more than a way to maintain power in the future.

As we all know, there's no such thing as a free lunch-and no one making lunches does them for free. The danger in the next four years comes from feasting all the nonsense we'll hear from the government.

1) You will see no anti-Gay Marriage legislation enacted or signed into law. Gay marriage turned out to be a huge motivating factor for the reactionary rightist forces. It brought all sorts of folks out to vote for George Bush. It will be a valuable tool in the '06 and '08 elections.

Similarly, you will not see Mary Cheney during this administration. She poses a threat to the solidarity between the Fundamentalist Right and the Republican Party. In retrospect, had Dick Cheney stepped down and a likely successor to George Bush, like Asa Hutchenson or Rudy Guiliani been taken on as Vice President, there would not have been even a ripple in the ranks over this issue.

Why would I be happy to see such legislation enacted? Because it is inherently unfair and the injustice of it ought to alarm enough folks to get them off their duffs and politically active. That way we can get the votes to throw out all the small-minded bigots that would propose and pass such legislation. It would also remove it as an issue, weakening the power of reactionary forces.

2) You will see no universal healthcare legislation enacted or signed into law. There are two reasons for this. The first is because the most likely candidate, at this early date, for President on the Democratic ticket in 2008 is Hillary Clinton and "Hillary Care" was a valuable tool Rightistas used against John Kerry. It will be even more valuable against Hillary. Somehow everyone who has perished or suffered (including our veterans) from a lack of health care will be laid at the Democrats' door.

The second reason is the far more obvious one: the drug companies and insurance companies will not benefit from any universal plan. Such a plan would necessitate negotiated reductions in drug prices (and profits) to be workable. It would also have to include forcing private insurance companies to pick up people they previously categorized as uninsurable if they are going to participate in the program. (We know the Bush Admin will feed money to them, since they'd rather privatize health care than enact another welfare program. And if you like the way they've privatized the military, you'll love their health care.)

The drug and insurance industries spend a lot of money on lobbyists, so what we'll have are some bills that are so grotesque that Democrats will attach poison-pill amendments that somehow will pass. The President will then find himself forced to veto them (though he vetoed nothing in his first term). This will set the stage for using this issue against the Dems in '06 and '08.

3) You will see no end to the deficits. Ending deficits would require raising taxes and curbing spending, and neither will happen. The money being spent on the war against terror has two benefits. First, it enriches the corporations that have contracts for weapons or services, and those contracts are quite lucrative. Moreover, the folks who directly benefit from them are administration and Washington insiders. If you can't toss work to friends, who can you toss it to?

Second, deficits and the state of the economy are also going to be an election issue. Keeping things dicey, but having a plan which a change in congress or administration would disrupt, is a key reason folks will vote for the Republicans. As this election showed, people vote their fears. It's always easy to play to the fears of ignorant voters, and if you want to stay in power, that is exactly what you will do.

Third, and most important, the presence of our troops in the field does more than protect us against attack. By the government's own estimation, we have over 700 military installations in the world. Many of them are in nations which have strategic resources. It could be argued that it would be wrong for the government to let such supplies be put in jeopardy, but can we be satisfied with how they have taken care of our most strategic supply so far? While we have deposed a regime that posed a threat to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, providing them stability and safety, the price of oil has shot to record levels. While our troop deployments may stabilize other places so oil pipelines can be built, their effect on our supplies is rooted in the distant future. Could it be than a different focus and expenditure of money find another way to make oil a non-factor?

I think so, which is why. . .

4) You will see no significant expenditure of money for scientific research and development on any frontier.

Yes, the President promised a mission to Mars, but it won't happen. No one benefits. The announcement of such a program was an interesting distraction from criticism about Iraq, but little more.

Stem-cell research won't receive any funding beyond current levels. The President had his wife as his stalking horse on this-her being a librarian and grade school teacher fulfilling the prime requisite for understanding the complexities and needs of stem-cell research, after all. Her reason why we should not pursue it was because there would be no benefit in the near term (a negative she can't prove, by the way). Mind you, this from the administration that defends drug companies charging a lot for their drugs because they need the profits for research and development.

That research and development, of course, is another reason why we won't see stem-cell research advancing. Drugs are great for rebalancing things that are out of balance, but when genetic therapies can kill the need for them, where will the drug companies be? What will happen when a little gene therapy puts the lead back in the pencil, as it were? Viagra sales, and profits, tank.

And alternate fuels research, will we see funding for something that could wean us off foreign oil? Not until or unless oil companies start backing it; and not while foreign, oil-exporting nations are using our dollars to buy up our debt. Because OPEC is a cartel, they can (and do) set any prices they want. Squeezing us on oil can wreck the economy, or at least slow it enough that investment capital dries up.

Between nations it's called diplomacy. In the real world, we call it extortion.

5) You will see no reduction in unemployment. There are two key reasons for this. The first is that corporations benefit from outsourcing jobs to third world nations. They profit and that profit funds lobbying efforts as well as expansion into the third world nations where they relocate their factories.

Second, a high unemployment rate is a key ingredient to busting unions. Employers can lock union members out and hire scabs. With white collar workers being out of work, and blue collar workers getting additional training, the scab pool suddenly is far more attractive than the union members. If a company invests in new infrastructure, they suddenly have a workforce they didn't have to train to make it all work.

6) You will see no stable government in Iraq. There are very good reasons for this and the Bush administration's refusal to acknowledge reality simply exacerbates a problem.

The basic fact is simple: Iraq was no more meant to be a nation than Yugoslavia was. When Tito died and the Soviet influence was removed from Yugoslavia, it fractured into a number of small nations that went to war with each other. Iraq is in a similar situation. It was created by diplomats and consists of three distinct cultures, none of whom want anything to do with each other. The Kurds want their own nation, but Turkey opposes that because they have a Kurdish minority they constantly have to fight. The Marsh Arabs in the south could easily form the nation of Basra, and everything else could go to the Sunni nation of Babylon.

Frankly, splitting the country up that way is a perfect solution. The folks on the ground would have some identity with their nation and could scheme about how to take everyone else over, as opposed to how to shoot our boys. Moreover, an international coalition could come in to rebuild each nation, which means everyone would profit. The United States could withdraw and the nightmare would be over for us. (Actually, we'd probably remain based in Basra to protect the oil and act as a brake on Iranian aggression, but that would work, too.)

Bush and his advisors would never go for this plan. Splitting Iraq would seem like a defeat and that's just not acceptable. In addition to that, the Middle East has an important role in their view of the future.

This is why. . .

7) You will not see peace in Israel. The reason for this is as simple as it is hideous in implication. In the 1830s a British preacher named John Nelson Darby heard about the visions of a fifteen year old Scottish girl, Margaret MacDonald. Her vision suggested Jesus would return in two stages. In the first He would take away the faithful (The Rapture) and in the second He would return to vanquish the Antichrist and begin His thousand year reign on Earth.

This all sounds good, and certainly is familiar. It's even popular, as judged by the sales of books like The Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series. The problem is, as Barbara Rossing points out in her excellent book, The Rapture Exposed, it's all nonsense which has zero Biblical support.

The Darbyites are not even slowed down by the lack of Biblical support for their idea. In their fantasy, the founding of the State of Israel is a sign of the coming apocalypse. The final battle of Armageddon between the forces of the Antichrist and the Lord will take place in Israel after billions of people have been slaughtered by famine, war, natural disasters, diseases and everything else. (For folks who hate Hollywood values, they write up their future fantasy in terms of big budget disaster films.) God will destroy the world so Jesus can come again to save the survivors (despite the fact that, after the flood, God said He was done with that destroying thing).

Key to all this Armageddon stuff is the rebuilding of the Temple. Unfortunately, it has to be rebuilt on the site of the Dome of the Rock, Islam's third most holy site. It was the visit there by Ariel Sharon (with a thousand Israeli troops) that started the latest round of violence in 2000. If the Temple is not rebuilt, Jesus won't return, therefore, any peaceful settlement that would preclude such a thing simply can't be allowed to happen.

Ugly, but true, so expect to see Israel's streets running with blood for a very long time. And who benefits? The evangelical vote has been very good to the Republican Party. As long as Bush policy keeps the Lord's return coming closer, they'll back him to the hilt.

8) You will not see George W. Bush admit he was wrong. As he has showed all the way along, he's not a man given to deep thought or introspection. As he has said, he tends to go with gut feelings. I can certainly understand that, as I do it all the time, too. The difference is that I read a lot so my gut decisions are informed decisions. I also consider whether or not they were right later on, so I can learn from my mistakes. That, however, takes introspection and since our President is not given to that, my prediction stands.

The problem with that is obvious when you look at how stubborn he is. If he does not think he was wrong, if he feels God Himself is backing him, he has zero impetus to change his mind about anything. Now it is true that he has changed his mind-backing the 911 Commission is a prime case-but he never admits it (mainly because that would be admitting he flip-flopped on an issue). Without admitting errors, he doesn't have a chance to learn from his mistakes.

Who benefits? The President is doing this one for himself.

9) You will not see any significant move to implement realistic security measures in the United States. While I've had my sneakers X-rayed more than a patient with tuberculosis, 95% of the shipping containers coming into our ports, being loaded onto semi-trailer trucks and hauled to every town in America, have not been inspected. Think about it. Those things are a lot bigger than a bread-basket and could be full of all sorts of nasty stuff. I mean, the Trojans let just one container that size through their gates and look what it got them!

Who benefits from lax security? The people who are in charge of security do. Here in Phoenix we had an official issue a memo asking inspectors to slow things down so the government would give them more personnel. That's a minor example of things, but that attitude is built into the system. The more folks you have under you, the more power comes to you, the more you're worth and more likely you are to be promoted. We see it in the private sector as well, but here we're paying for it, and the sense of security we get is just false.

Security is definitely a means of social control. Look at how alerts have been used in the last two years. The alert following the Democratic National Convention killed the usual post-convention opinion bounce for Kerry. Since that time we've learned that the source for the warning has been judged highly unreliable. (And I will go into the paradoxical nonsense concerning that warning in a later essay.) The simple fact was and is: Al Qaeda had no plan to disrupt the elections and none of the security precautions our government has put into place could have disrupted it if they did.

The other reason that no improvements in security will be made is that any reforms would dilute the power of the agencies already in place. Read Intelligence Matters by Bob Graham or Pretext for War by James Bamford along with the 911 Commission report and some things will be made painfully clear. Primary among them is this: no one gives up power in DC, so there is no way to force our agencies to work together. The regulations we had in place, the mechanisms we had in place in 2001 would have thwarted the 911 plot had folks just done their jobs and actually cooperated between agencies.

10) You will not see our military remain "all volunteer." Okay, so this one is shooting fish in a barrel since enforced enlistment extensions is already removing the voluntary part of participation for folks already in the system. Moreover, the President maintained, during the debates, that to fight terrorism "you have to have a plan." He added that we'd done Afghanistan and Iraq, then reiterated "you have to have a plan."

In the next four years there will be more wars. Our troop strength in Iraq is insufficient to stabilize the country. Somalia and Yemen were on General Tommy Franks' hit list before Iraq, so they're still viable targets. Central Asian instability will also demand troops. I'd not be surprised to see the United States inserting troops into Kashmir to keep the peace there-though we'd be inserted under the cover of fighting Al Qaeda troops there. And then we have the Philippines and Sudan to worry about.

I don't think it will be a draft per se, as much as an imposition of national service. Those who have the qualifications for domestic service will do that. Those who cannot will be looking at the armed forces. It'll be touted as a jobs program, or an educational program, which is really a jobs program, if you recall the debates. (That this was coming from a C average student who has never really held a job in his life was a delicious bit of irony.)

Who benefits on this one? No one, I'm afraid, save for the morticians.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I will be.

© 2004 Michael A. Stackpole