A look at the years ahead:

In spring of 2006, the Bush Gang attacks Iran, a mountainous nation almost four times the size of Iraq with a much stronger military. No problem — they use nukes, and they don’t have to cover it up for the people at home, because Americans know “we” would never do that, so we didn’t. The rest of the world, though, is appalled. The EU imposes trivial sanctions. Tony Blair calls it “regrettable.” Venezuela threatens to cut off our oil again, and one or two countries start trading oil in Euros. Ordinary Americans see this as “rabid anti-Americanism,” and are horrified by Iran’s relatively tame counter-attack. Bush’s approval rating goes back up to 60%, and because our enemies are now attacking us, he dissolves congress and cancels the 2008 elections. The Democrats, afraid of seeming weak in a time of war, make mild objections.

…

In 2016 Dean steps down and the new president is an anarchist who spends eight years peacefully dismantling the federal government and building local systems that make central control irrelevant and impossible, including radically non-standardized education systems, and citizen militias with expert training in resisting occupiers, and no training in conquest.
…

The near future looks like a giant Burning Man or Rainbow Gathering or Renaissance Faire in which everyone is preoccupied with getting food. The people who can’t take it find a lot of ways to die, including deadly fighting. But people who like this world, and want to live in it, have a great survival advantage. By 2030 no one can count the number of independent city states, tribes, permaculture villages, cults, techno-communes, bandit gangs, or enclaves of surviving elites (actually, the last one can be counted).

The rest is here.