Interesting times, interesting times

Interesting times lie ahead in 2004, all based on the countless lies the Bush people told in the previous three years and the teetering pillar of the ideologically appointed presidency.

First offl, there's the presidential campaigns to keep is in a lather. There'll be the primaries and general election dust-ups. Look for manipulated fear, red alerts, trumped up threats and shows of military forces on the streets as this delusionary bunch maneuvers to hold onto power.

Expect many surprises along the way, but none at the end of the road.

The Busheviks, the Christian fundamentalists, the neocons and hard men way out there on the far right wing of both parties will not give up power. They are fanatics. This is not yet quite the dictatorship of class they long for. The New World Order fantacists yet have miles to go and things to do.

More here must be dismantled and destroyed or sold off before they can return to the pretexts of "sharing power" with the opposing party. They world has not yet been yoked with the "democracy" they advocate.

The poor aren't poor enough, the hungry not hungry enough and the people aren't abject enough for the rich to parade the city boulevards with total impunity.

But that time will come. Soon enough, Maybe.

If 2004 is to be interesting, just think about the chaos that is sure to follow in 2005.

But rather than end on such a sour note, let itbe said that there hope. Oh, sure. There's hope, for there is always hope.

There is the hope of winning the Megazillion Lottery and retiring to Belize. There's the hope that Mother Nature will step in, deus ex machina, with some devastating turn of events -- a colliding comet, a flip-flop of the Earth's magnetic field, or a pandemic of fatal flu -- tol distract humakind from it's greedy puruits.

Yes, we can always hope for something like that.

But place no hope in the good intentions and abilities of the people, for they are hopelessly selfish and stupid.

The socialists -- the Trotsky brand, anyway -- insist that world revolution and a better day can only come by deligently raising the awareness of the working classes and educating them to action. But, as any politician who has actually run for office can tell you, voters can not be educated. Education, awareness and action are beyond their ken.

The public can be manipulated, it can be pranged with electric cattle prods and made to react in primeval, repitlian wayst, but that is about it.

Hence, Bush will be re-elected, even if it takes a fabricated terrorist attack and rigged touch-screen voting machines to do it. But he will be re-elected, for people are that stupid.

And then comes 2005, and even more interesting times.

Plus, centennials in 2004

If 2004 is to be interesting, consider what it was like in 1904.

The first radio transmission of music went out in Graz, Austria in 1904. Clear Channel did not own the station and no evidence of payola was peserved.

In world events, the Russo-Japanese War broke out with Japanese victorious with the destruction of most of the Russian Pacific Fleet and occupation of Seoul, Koirea.

Theodore Roosevelt was elected U.S. president. Big game the world over ran for cover.

Born in 1904 were novelist Graham Greene, surrealist painter Salvadore Dali and film star Marlene Dietrich. On the other hand, Russian playwright Anton Checkhov died.

English playwright James Barrie published "Peter Pan," which explains why so many Peter Pan movies and musicals are coming out this year.

Also published were "Sea Wolf" by Jack London, and "Green Mansions," by W.H. Hudson. And Sigmund Freud wrote "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life."

Digging began on the Panama Canal. The Broadway subway opened in New York. The first telegraph transmission of photographs went out -- the first fax, as it were.

Foreign shipping lines dropped steerage tickets to America to $10, one-way. Cheap labor has always been the chief capitalist goal.