Reply #53: I no longer certain of that at all.

[tom_paine]

I hope you are correct with you steadfast belief that what are are living through is not analogous to the face-offs the early Caesers had with the Imperial Senate until they reduced it to an essentially decorative branch of government, or Hitler's escalating quarrels with the Reichstag prior to burning it on "German 9/11".

I hope you are correct that we DUers are just a bunch of Chicken Littles, but it makes me laugh that you think there is ANY circumstance, that would cause his handpicked loyalists to do any such thing.

Or that, even if he appeared on the steps of the White House with the severed head of Howard Dean (yes, I am exaggerating for effect, but only a tiny bit), anyone would dare to tell our Emperor backed up by the might of his many Praetorian Guards and Loyal Bushies, that he has no clothes.

He has already pushed and broken every barrier of Checks and Balances the Founders designed, either eliminated them or neutralized them, and no one has dared stand up.

Maybe the circumstances you describe ARE extreme enough to turn his Loyal Bushies against him, but there is a fair chance (30%) at least that, based on their previous hundreds of examples of Bushevik loyalty to Leader and Party over Country, they would fall right the fuck in line for these "temporary measures" to "root out disloyalty".

I hope you are correct, and I try to remind myself daily that there is a 50% and perhaps even as high as 70% likelihood it will be as you say.

However, at no time in my life prior to 12/12/2000 (the REAL day everything changed), did the probability of ANY range of totalitarian doom such as we read about in Farenheit 451 and 1984, raise above 2%.

But what IS clear is that the precursors are in place, the only question is will they be pushed to the next logical level, eventually, be it in 5, 10, or even 50 years, or will we return to basically what we were pre-2000, someday.

I hope you are right.