As you look ahead to the 12 months of 2016, how would you describe your impression of what is ahead?
I for one visualize a year of struggle and sacrifice for America under a more active and decisive leadership no matter who wins the presidency; but let's see if we can have some kind of consensus from our body of Hubbers across this troubled world of ours.
Personally, 2016 starts right now, being a year of 1st: hard work, 2nd: achievements. A lot of positive vibes going on right now worldwide, hope you guys have also felt it so far!
I think the power of popular opinion via the growing influence of the Internet will very gradually make for an even better world. There must be an awful lot of 'old fashioned' power feeling the pressure now as empires so methodically set up over generations begin to crumble. I heard a quote recently, "Organizations are obsessive about authority," and this is so. But as more and more completely independent voices are heard - and they are being heard - authority is gradually being undermined. Sayings such as "My country, right or wrong," are treated with the skepticism they deserve.
Turn back the clock thirty years and the two or three dozen international news editors who headed up the world's leading news media wielded enormous influence due to what they allowed and did not allow to be published. Today, it's a different story. Just take a look at You Tube. People can - and do - make video's on just about anything they feel like...and that's the way it should be.
Yes, 2016 will move the world to a better self-understanding and, in the long term, a more peaceful world.
I think what happened behind the scenes last year will seem like a slumbering giant that awakens this year. There are imminent and immense change(s) ahead. The new laws enacted some offering great contrast between bellwether states is a consideration. El Nino is knocking on many doors both nationally and worldwide. Everything leading toward Nov. 8th this New Year is another. We will be faced with the fruit of 2015, while know not of the crop.
Note before I start - lest anyone be confused, I am not American.
I am 67 years old now. I survived a heart attack in 2008 and I am once again extremely healthy, but having been that close to death, I am aware just how precious life is and how each moment has to be enjoyed. You also are aware that you could die any time - in April 2008 I could not have predicted what would happen the following month, there were no signs that anything could go wrong.
Anyway, I wish that I could be optimistic. The world economy is in better shape than it was at the end of 2008, but there is a very long way to go - ask the unemployed in Greece and Spain if you want a reality check some time.
Getting back to the sort of economy that many of us had in the 1950s and 1960s when living standards were rising across the board and unemployment (and the related stigma and the related poverty) was extremely low?
That should be the ideal, but we are nowhere near.
And resolving the issues in the Middle East .... Well it will help if people start getting real as to what is happening in Syria in particular where it is not a straight fight between the "good guys" and "the bad guys", but rather a whole series of different conflicts with all sorts of groups fighting each other (the evil Al Qaeda affiliate is fighting its evil jihadist brother, ISIS, for one thing) and it will very likely be a question of picking whom you least dislike
But when you live in my adopted country (Germany) and you see the tensions that are ensuing from the mass influx of refugees (surely somebody else apart from Austria and Canada ought to be able to help?), the need to get the Syrian situation sorted out sooner rather than later is evident. The chances of a solution in 2016? Not high IMHO.
From my own perspective I would like to see religion (whatever brand) become a matter of personal belief and not be apparent in the public sphere. I particularly share the concerns of many people in Europe about increasing Islamisation - an an open-minded liberal atheist I can see nothing at all liberal about Islam - but the consequent rise of Neo-Nazism as an alternative? No thank you.
This is though going to be the issue for Europe for the next 30-40 years. Quite what the solution is?
Not much hope then on the horizon? Not really, and nothing much coming out of the US to inspire us either. All slogans and slurs, and little by way of a positive agenda with solutions. I hope though that I am wrong.
Why should 2016 be any different, at best it will stay the same, otherwise it will get worse?
As long as the political parties have divergent goals, as they have since they were formed, how can there be any worthwhile decisions.
Final answer, more of the same.
by Brett Foster 8 years ago
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