Have you thought about what America will be like two years into the next administration?
The following offers four scenarios:
First scenario -- McCain:
It is 2010. President McCain has fired the head of the SEC, FEC, FCC, SIPC (note spelling)... and has formed the M.F.I. Commission to study the collapsed economy under Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm, while Saudi Arabia and Dubai (where Dick Cheney is living out his retirement) have matched China, India and Iraq in owning our over 33 trillion dollar national debt.
We're in proxy wars with Russia and in a bomb, bomb, bomb war with Iran.
Out-of-work parents say goodbye to their enlisted sons and daughters.
President McCain adds more cars to the thirteen(?) he currently owns.
Ditto on the houses.
A safe education is available only for the home-schooled or vouchered.
Health care becomes more out of reach to those who can't afford it.
Drilling is everywhere but ANWR and, yet, oil is over $200 a barrel.
Alternative fuels legislation receives lip-service but little effective support.
There are no salmon.
Tucker Bounds becomes Press Secretary. Doug Holtz-Eakin is the new CEO of Blackberry.
Questions about policies are met with blame and obfuscation.
Sound far-fetched? Perhaps.
But what if it's not?
Second scenario -- McCain:
It is 2010. President John McCain defies his right wing and lobbyist backers and tries to do the right thing, but receives no support from a partisan congress or from the right wingers and lobbyists he's betrayed.
See above for the rest.
Sound far-fetched? Perhaps.
But what if it's not?
Third scenario -- Palin:
It is 2010. Out-of-work parents say goodbye to their sons and daughters on their way to the trenches of Iran and Russia, while President Palin (sworn into office in 2009 after President McCain's untimely demise) and President Ahmadinejad rave about their respective end-times.
Social Security and Medicare are discontinued. Health care is unattainable.
Tent cities spring up in city parks. National parks are buzzed by aerial hunters.
Hurricanes wipe out the Gulf coast, the oceans have become one big dead zone with only lionfish and jellyfish, America's beaches are covered with garbage; the Midwest is a permanent flood zone (between tornadoes), cities, chokingly polluted, are filled with paranoid citizens with gun permits, new prisons are the only new home construction, twenty-five percent of endangered species have passed the tipping point to extinction, though not on any government list, and Saudi Arabia and Dubai (where Dick Cheney is living out his retirement) have matched China, India and Iraq in owning our over thirty-three trillion dollar national debt.
Sound far-fetched? Perhaps.
But what if it's not?
Fourth scenario -- Obama:
It is 2010. President Barack Obama has formed a coalition with our (once again) allies to put pressure on Iran to belly up to the diplomacy bar. Joe Biden and Bill Clinton are dispatched to speak with world leaders who respect them. A worldwide coalition has formed to combat the root causes of terrorism and shore up failing states.
Bipartisan government programs, pushed through by a Democratic majority in both houses, are instituted to forestall foreclosures while forcing corporate responsibility. Wall Street and Main Street (slowly) recover. The homeless, rather than being beaten up by unattended teens, are ushered into community programs, as are unattended teens.
President Obama, who still owns only one car and one house of his own, tells the American people how they are expected to sacrifice, where they must lower their expectations to pay off the eleven plus trillion dollar debt left by the last administration, and where and when they can expect things to improve.
After several missteps that require American intervention, Iraq uses its eighty billion dollar surplus to shore up its own security.
A transfer of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan leads to the focus on one war supported by Americans, with shared cost by NATO and allies, rather than two overstretched wars -- one of which is our majority responsibility.
U.S. Military recruitment goes up. Everyone plants a victory garden (which leads to less salmonella from imported vegetables -- side benefit).
Dick Cheney is extradited from Dubai (okay, that's a stretch).
Hillary Clinton becomes Senate Majority Leader (not a stretch).
Green jobs lead to renewed employment, a strengthening U.S. and worldwide economy, and a lessening of dependence on foreign oil. The price of oil falls.
The governments of Russia and Iran, dependent on high oil prices for their influence, lose influence.
The climate tipping point, while likely too late to be averted, is mediated by a competent government response to the ongoing, albeit (sometime in the future) lessening, natural disasters.
Taxes fall for the middle-class; go up for the wealthy and corporations -- but the wealthy and corporations, who make their money off the middle-class, are wealthier and can afford it.
The cost of health care for both business and individuals is within reach and reason.
Teachers are given the tools and support needed to effectively teach.
Students trade public service for education.
G.I.'s come home to support and gratitude.
Sound far-fetched? Perhaps.
But what if it's not?
More on this topic at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST