World stocks register double digit losses as worries grow that Greece may exit the single currency union. The escalating eurozone debt crisis and deepening economic slowdown in China are crashing commodity prices. After promising it would not bail out anymore banks, depression ravaged Spain is bailing out Bankia, it’s fourth largest lender. Day after day, week after week, massive citizen protests erupt in depression/recession ravaged cities across Europe. On the geopolitical front, America expands its military involvement and drone strikes in Yemen. The civil war in Syria rages as “rebels” terrorize Damascus, killing scores and wounding hundreds. Rhetoric between China and the Philippines heats up over the tense territorial standoff in the South China Sea. Afghan troops kill more US/NATO troops. War in the Sudan, Iran/Israel nuclear standoff, more bombs blasting Baghdad … Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, all in turmoil.
On the economic front, we have forecast each and every one of these trends: The Greek bailout would not work, the eurozone would splinter, banks would get more bailouts, austerity measures would inflame the masses, class warfare would escalate and China would falter.
Meanwhile, back in Dumbfukistan
Economic turmoil and the devastating effect it would have on lives and livelihoods, geopolitical unrest, raging wars and wars in the making were put on the back burner as Barack Obama “made history” as the first President to support gay marriage.
Commandeering the headlines and the breaking news was his history-making declaration: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Day after day, hour after hour, the US press reported the story with the level of gravitas associated with sending a man to the moon, the fall of the Berlin Wall … and the death of Michael Jackson.
Splashed across the cover of Newsweek, under a glowing rainbow halo, was President Obama and the bold headline, “The First Gay President.” In editorials, on radio talk shows, cable TV, and in all the news that was fit to print, “experts,” “strategists,” pundits and media personalities waxed on, and on, debating why he did it, what it would mean, and how it would impact the November election.
There was Obama making the TV circuit, chatting up gay marriage with the women on “The View.” There he was, the President of the United States of America, the world Superpower, revealing how his decision had been, in part, shaped by his 14- and 11-year-old daughters, who went to school with children who had gay parents. Who cared what Obama’s kids thought, or what the cast of politicians, preachers and “celebrities” endlessly interviewed by the media thought? (Click here for a typically stupid celebrity interview.)
It was just another inane episode on “The Presidential Reality Show:” the issue of gay marriage had become a major national issue, in fact, it was the issue!
And yet it worked! Each moment spent on gay marriage deflected the nation’s attention from everything that was consequential: US soldiers sacrificing life and limbs in futile ongoing wars while new futile wars were in the making; tens of millions of homes foreclosed, millions jobless and homeless; the nation in debt, consumers in debt and college grads drowning in debt … as the global economy comes under renewed attack. These are the real issues.
Real issues will shape and determine the future – not gay marriage, abortion, contraception nor the personhood of sperm – and they are identified and analyzed in the Trends Journal.