Tightening Screws and Raising the Heat

[Stinky The Clown]

There's a theory that the rate of change for mankind is accelerating at a geometric rate. One of the corollaries to this theory is that 90% on mankind's technological advancement has occurred in the last 10 (or 20, or whatever it was) years.

Fashion cycles are faster now. Fads rise and fall faster. Our attention spans are shorter. Our tolerance is less. Our need for instant gratification is insatiable. Small is too big and we make make the same things smaller still. Big houses are suddenly small and we build ever bigger ones. Everything is escalating in one direction or another.

And so, too, is the political landscape. A quick look back at the final third of the last century shows us:

The relative peace and tranquility of the Eisenhower era gave way to the hope of the Kennedy era which was dashed by the abrupt change to the Johnson era, all the good of which was undermined by an unpopular war, which gave us Nixon, which ended in resignation-in-lieu-of-impeachment which begot Ford and Carter, the yin and the yang of troubled times, and on to Reagan, the sunshine giving way to a real darkness of the growing shadows of corporate office towers, then to Bush I with more of the same but less and then to Clinton, Eisenhower-like in the peace-and-prosperity arena, but oh-so-baby-boomer in outlook, a blowjob leads to impeachment that leads to Bush-the-lesser, that leads to today.

Some say Clinton's impeachment was payback for Nixon. Maybe so. Clinton, for all his failings, gave us eight great years. Some bad decisions, but on balance, eight great years. Dubbed by some, the best Republican president we never had, the tilt to the right was growing. Bush-identical-to-Gore was stolen in favor of Bush-the-Lesser.

"We will NOT get over it" we cried, even as the hoards of staffers-posed-as-outraged-citizens stormed the vote count Bastille. Politics all the way. Real blood and guts street fighting. Swiftboaters to the call. Bands of Brothers now stepping up. To enter the fray. To debate and discuss. But also to fight. Physically, if need be?

The coarsening of the process is at all time high levels. What's next? No longer a land of the genteel. No longer a time for 'please' and 'thank you'. No longer a time for fairness. Politics is, indeed, a nearly (actually?) blood sport. What's next? Campaigns to the literal death?

The process is out of control. An escalation here and an escalation there. Fight a little dirty here and a little more dirty there. Dirty is the norm. Then what? Zip guns and bicycle chains? M16s? Smart bombs? Where does this end? Will the heat get turned up more? Will the frog simply boil himself to death?

Or will the screws be tightened to an excruciating level of pain for all of us? Living frogs in constant pain.

Imagine if we impeach Bush-the-Small. What follows that? Assassination of our guy?

Where does this horror story end?

[grasswire]

1. watch "24" for clues

That was a joke.

Seriously, I think we're going to go straight from the gutterball politics such as swiftboating and rathering directly to some direct form of repression at the hands of the thugs who are in power. Why? Because there is a faction on the right that is beginning to also oppose the thugs who are in power. And so the usual techniques of pitting the right against the left -- the "let's you and him fight" --won't work if the right and the left are united in their opposition to the thugs.

The canary in the mine for my thinking is the guns owned by citizens. In order to really stomp on American citizens, the powers that be would have to grab the guns. And I don't see how that could happen. Yet.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Good god may it never come down to guns in the streets

that said .... I can see where that could be the next step, or the next, or the one after that.

[grasswire]

3. Did I say what I meant?

I meant to say that grabbing guns is not imminent, IMO. I believe the first overt step would be some form of martial law in response to some sort of "incident" or provoked "unrest." There certainly are plenty of precedents in world history for them to model after. We ought to know this stuff. I hope we all know never to enter the showers, never to get on the trains, never to allow them a toehold. We all know that stuff. But apparently some of us have forgotten that before the showers and the trains and the toeholds come persecution of journalists and whistleblowers and manufactured chaos.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I saw a yakking head on teevee earlier today .... a journalist .....

... who was talking about the famous line about the nazis .. "first they came for .... "

We're not the only ones with this sense of the current state of the country.

And isn't it funny ...... not long ago, the fear of citizens with guns was aimed at those on the far right. Now they're thinking the left could be the armed camp.

[BeFree]

5. No, no, no

Howard Dean is gonna save us all.

Just kidding.^^^^

With the current status of the environment and the end of the age of oil, a crushing economic disaster is right around the corner. And lets not forget the multitude of nukes ready to fly at a moments notice.

Had not Gore been burgalled, we would still be in the garden of the great Clinton years but also moving toward deflating the environmental crisis bubble.

But ripped off he was, and since most folks have gotten over it, the real alternative has all but been extinguished.

It looks like an overwhelming is knocking at the door, for the people's voice has been locked down and the cries of a culture of Love and Peace have been denied its right to write history.

Damn, it sure would have been nice.

[grasswire]

6. I still have some hope...

....that a massive landslide at the polls in 2008 could reverse the despotic tilt of the government. Yes, I know that's assuming there will be an election, and yes, it's assuming that the economy won't have collapsed or a race war broken out or some other irreversible necessity for martial law taken place.

But then today on Lou Dobbs I heard a radio talk show host blurt out his feelings. He said "They (Bushco and the globalists) just don't care." They don't care about the economy, they don't care about the effects of the war, they don't care about what they claim to care about. Their intention is a unified North and South America, with a common language and common trade. Everything is seen through the lens of opportunity to profiteer off the backs of others. They are the new pirates.

Oboy. I have to start examining their actions in light of their intentions for the Americas.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. First I've heard of that notion ... but it *does* follow

Wasn't there a study not long ago that every time Poppy went on a South American 'fishing trip' some paradigm shifting political event followed. The pattern was broken with Chavez' having overcome the coup attempt?