Two Thousand Seventeen in the rearview mirror.

It is a new(ish) year and it is time for the annual humiliation of seeing how badly I've predicted the future once again.  Is prediction futility?  Can one get better at it?  Does it only work if you never go back and revisit the specifics of what you actually predicted?  (I strongly suspect that that last one is nearest the truth.)

Let's resume this after visiting those last year's predictions . . .

• There will be a crackdown after Black Lives Matter is classified as a terrorist organization.

Half-credit on this one, as the FBI was caught laying the groundwork, by inventing a new kind of terrorism, "black identity extremism".  But so far, I haven't heard of any actual crackdown, behind the normal, state-sanctioned terrorism that minority communities face on a day to day basis.

• There will be an attempted crackdown against McClatchy News, which will mostly backfire, giving investigative journalism a much-needed shot in the arm.

Nope, the Right's railing against "fake news" has continued, as they try to insulate their supporters from any confusing contact with real journalism, but so far nothing concrete and nothing aimed at McClatchy.  More subtle strategies of neutering journalism may be sufficient.

• 2017 will turn out to be second hottest year on record, right behind 2016.

Right!  And the hottest non El Niño year on record.

• The Republican leadership will allow Democrats (and a few Republicans) to impeach Donald Trump on charges of corruption and self-dealing, but he is not removed from office.

Trump turned out to have no interest in maintaining his populist bone fides, so he has been a useful - if disruptive - tool for the Republicans to use in their effort to serve their billionaire masters.  The low-information base hears rumblings of outrage from liberals and the media and is satisfied with that.  (See fake news, above.)

• Serious unrest in Turkey enables Russia to intervene militarily.

Nope, nothing there.  Erdogan's authoritarian moves haven't elicited any widespread unrest, nor has Russia seen fit to pick a fight here.

• The real estate market of south Florida collapses due to the threat of sea level rise.

Nope, real estate is still booming.  Head's remain buried in the increasingly damp sand.

• Overtly political songs begin to surface more in popular music - but not on the radio.

Hmmmm.  Nothing leaking into my Spotify playlists anyway, and no "political" category to explore, yet.  I'll resist the temptation to play the "everything is political" for partial credit.

• Thousands of people will be poisoned by water contaminated by fracking.

No one apparently dying yet, not this year anyway. 

• Brazil's government falls in a coup d'etat.

Nope, the previous year's legislative coup was as far as things have gone, and Brazil's deathly ill democracy staggers forward toward elections.

• For my tenth prediction, I might as well recycle the one from last year that proved most prescient:

• Americans won't take back their democracy from the wealthy interests that have hijacked it; and corporations will continue to write regulations to suit themselves.  
• Assault weapons will remain legal despite more mass shootings.  
• Militarization of police forces, systematic use of homicide and excessive force, as well as officers' de facto immunity from prosecution will continue unabated despite the mounting financial and social costs.  
• We will not develop a constructive or effective plan for dealing with Islamic fundamentalism.

OK,well that one holds up for another year.

So to sum up, 2.5 out of 10 - not exactly a stellar showing, and that only because I banked on climate change and our nation's inertia. I will have to reflect upon this, and decide, as I think forward into 2018, what are the kinds of things that I can predict, and what are the kinds of things that I cannot.

Now I turn my thoughts to predictions for the coming year.  What shall we see in 2018?

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