10 Years After: 2006 -- A Future Predicted

In the service of fundraising and nostalgia, I am using the occasion of my 10th blogiversary to bring some stuff out of the archives -- probably a few representational samples from each year. 

And so, on we go to 2006 -- a year during which my Photoshop skills improved -- and a year in which  I predict exactly how the last nine years would go with depressing accuracy (excerpted):

Anatomy of a fuckup.

...

Because the Stupid Men at the top cannot admit failure and, oh, say, fire Don Fucking Rumsfeld without loss of face. They can take no corrective action because to do so they would have to confront the fact that everything their critics and opponents said was true, and everything their allies and friends have told them has been a lie.

And the dread of copping to that level of incompetence and cupidity -- of having to own up to being every inch the dribbling, inept idiot that the rest of the world outside his bubble already knows he is -- is a thing no Stupid Man with Power will ever, ever do.

They would rather die first. Or, more accurately, they would let the world die first.

So instead they redouble the bet, pour more money down the rat-hole, and fire the last, few, honest men within the organization who still dare to speak the truth and who still might be able to salvage the situation if given half a chance.

I have seen, up close, whole companies go under because of this scam. And, in the end, the parasites survive and scuttle on to leech the life out of yet another fat, dumb CEO and leave behind bankrupt pensions and ruined lives.

But of course, there is no bigger Hunny Pot than the United States Government, which is why the Bill Kristols of the world are calling for ever wilder, more insanely reckless action: They're going All In, because they know that after they're burned off of the flesh of this nation like the tics that they are, there is no place left for them to go.

For a long time there will be no more rich, bloated dimwits Preznits on which they can safely prey after the subpoenas start flying and George Bush and Neoconservativism vanish under weight of the blood-dimmed tide they created. Cast down, down, down into eternal infamy as the twin pillars of the worst Administration in American history.

This is the dawning realization that is scaring the fucktard rank-and-file of the GOP into ever more hysterical public behavior.

This is the sinking ship from which George Will and Tom Friedman are desperately trying to flee.

This is the existential kill-box of their own making that the Republican Party is now frantically trying to weasel out of, because of fucked projects and politics I know these six things to be true:

First, a fucked project at a bank for 100K, at the DMV for $5 million, at the FBI for $170 million, and in Iraq for $2 trillion are all depressingly similar in every characteristic except for order of magnitude of the costs and the scale of the consequences of failure.

Second, the oiliest “process reengineering consultant” or “visioneer” is no different from Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, because there will always be Big Cake to be made pouring comforting lies into the ears of stupid, hateful people.

Third, these disasters take wing because Stupid Men with Power will always listen to flatterers and liars who tell them what they wish were true, and will always scream “Traitor!” at those who try to tell then what is actually true and stop the division/company/country from being stampeded into the abyss.

Fourth, as the project collapses, the criminals who created it will strive mightily to blame their failure on those who tried to warn them that this was a bad idea from the start. On badthinkfulness and a lack of sufficient corporate piety and prayer. God knows if they’re actually stupid enough to believe that a deficit of Tinkerbell Clapping is what’s driving their organization into the grave, but other than immediately admitting their error and atoning, this is the only card they have left to play.

Fifth, eventually they fall. They always fall, and they take lives and treasure down with them in an arc that was as predictable as the sunrise from the first moment they decided they could bribe Reality into changing the rules just for them.

Sixth, the funding that will be available to clean up the GOPs rubble and ruin will be vastly less than the cost of the original misadventure.

And the same people who broke the bank and spared no expense on hooch and hookers for the Big Iraqi Cakewalk Party, will be the first to bitch and whine over pennies and taxes when it comes to cleaning up the ocean of blood and vomit, debt and tragedy their short and despicable reign will leave behind.