I have a feeling in my gut, too

[Throwing Stones]

This Chertoff thing has me wondering about the what happens if the US is hit by another "attack". Is that what's brewing? I'm neither committed to LIHOP or MIHOP, but I've reached a point in my thinking about this misadministration that these monsters are capable of anything. Even if these bastards are above MIHOP, I'm not convinced they'd be above LIHOP at this point; for the sole purposes of distracting attention and trying to rally support.

So, what happens to the (seemingly tiny) advances progressives have made in reigning in these madmen if something terrible happens INCONUS (military speak for "in the continental U.S")? Does the country tune in to Fux Noize and get all jingoistic again, or is there a more serious debate this time around?

I fucking worry that it'll be the former. Canceling a primary here or there in the interest of national insecurity could set both a pretext and a precedent for screwing with 11/4/08 in some way.

I hate feeling this pessimistic about whether someone or some group (mob) will do the right thing, but, man, these fuckers have almost completely sapped my belief that people, ultimately, will do the right thing.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. If something happens we should fire the employees that we have

hired to run things. It is as simple as that. Clinton had a much better track record, INCONUS.

[opihimoimoi]

2. The GOP who put Bushie Boy in POWER should be rounded up and made to eat Lutefisk Forever

[C_U_L8R]

3. the repukes are methodically ramping up the warnings

worked like a charm in 04.... brew that fear up slow and steep.
Just watch.

[Throwing Stones]

15. do you think it'll work again?

I watched '04 unfold like a horror story to which I already knew the ending; but will 'merikans be, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, won't get fooled again?

[C_U_L8R]

19. I don't know

there are a lot of gullible people out there.
All anyone can do is put bright spotlights
on every deception, make a shitload of noise,
and prosecute the bums whenever we can.

[rufus dog]

38. that is my thought too!

Can't manipulate the threat level, it has lost its effectiveness so have the director come out and have a gut feeling to get people worried.

[eleny]

4. I believe all hell wil break loose

[tridim]

5. Maybe that's why the WH isn't giving up the RNC emails.

They're hiding something that's big enough to risk breaking the law to conceal it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Two words: Martial Law

that is what these assholes have prepared the ground for

[Stinky The Clown]

7. I subscribe to neither LI not MIHOP, but they ARE capable of either.

[Mz Pip]

8. WHy would another terrorist attack

help the Republicans?

They have been playing the terror card for over 5 years. They run on the assumption that we are safer because they are in office. Another major terrorist attack would kick that one to the curb.

Maybe there will be another attack. I don't know. I'm not psychic and my gut reacts more to broccoli than it does to premonitions.

Marshall Law? I hear that bandied about on occasion. But with what? Our troops are in Iraq. We are an armed and dangerous citizenry and have a huge expanse of territory to keep in control.

At this point, I think they have shot their wad. They are losing the support of even their core supporters and a major terrorist attack won't be bringing back many people. They can play the fear card but we are dealing with people who never read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." There really was a wolf out there. He was bad and nasty but the "boy" yelled "wolF!" one too many times and everyone suffered because of it.

The wolf exists. There really are people out there who want to harm us. BushCo could have dealt with the real threat but chose to go off on some Don Quixote chase that would change the world and make him a hero in the eyes of history.

Maybe it's better to deal with the hand that history dealt you rather than try to create your own.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. You do not need troops for martial law

you need compliant police departmetns, and... Blackwater ahem, security experts

Katrina was a dress rehearsal for that

[rzemanfl]

11. Back in the sixties local police departments needed the

National Guard to cope with massive demonstrations.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Back in the sixties local police was broken up

by the national guard...

There was only one case where you might have a point (Kent State) and that was a tragic example

I will even point out to the 1930s when the Army broke the back of WW I veterans under the DIRECT command of Chief of Staff Douglass McCarthur. The reason why the police did not do that was the presidnet gave the order to the Chief of Staff, who said Yes Sir three bags full

[rzemanfl]

42. What are you trying to say here? I am not quite understanding

you. The local police was "broken up" how? The Madison, Wisconsin cops had a field day on students frequently, tear gassing everyone in sight. They tear gassed me repeatedly in broad daylight while I was walking alone to my car, which was in the middle of a large parking lot. Finally I just said fuck it and toughed it out, couldn't see very well though.

They tear gassed my brother-in-law and I and our two visibly pregnant wives for no reason.

Are you trying to say the guard got between the two sides, or what?

[Mz Pip]

13. Katrina was one tiny

section of the country.

Compliant police departments? Good luck. Considering the grief Giuliani is getting from the first responders in NYC, I doubt going out and rounding up citizens who don't fall in line will be high on their priorities.

I can't see the Police Department of San Francisco at all capable or will to take part in any form of Martial Law situation. OR really in any major metropolitan area. Most of these people are of strong union/democratic persuasion.

Besides, we are a Nation with citizens armewd to the teeth. 2nd Amendment was devised to protect the citizenry from it's government (not the other citizens). Some of us take that seriously. :-)

Mz Pip
:dem:

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. 1.- you can make any police department compliant

some will be easier than others... LAPD piece of cake, SFPD or San Diego, not that easy, but can be done

2.- Yep second ammendement and all of that, good luck... if they decide to bring out the heavy artillery... unless you want to go guerrilla.

3.- The National Guard in the South did not go in to ahem reinformce the local police but to break their backs...

Damn that history degree... which also tells me... even in states with everybody armed to the teeth establishing a distartorship is damn easy (Iraq under Sadamn if you are wondering as one of many examples)

[Mz Pip]

22. Won't happen

This country is too diverse, too big goegraphically and too armed to have to government take it over. BushCo is at what? 29% on a good day?

Won't happen.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. 2000 shouldn't have happened

2002 shouldn't have happened

2004 shouldn't have happened

Everything they are doing shouldn't have happened

One thing I learned over the last seven years is not to say it won't happen.

Unfortunately people who have lived through other dictatorial take overs have seen this movie before...

And as the book title says, they thought they were free...

[Mz Pip]

32. 2006 happened

Wasn't supposed to, but it did. Have a little faith!

Mz Pip
:dem:

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Yes I have faith, thath they will correct their mistakes

what do you think them caging lists are for?

I also have faith that someday a historian will ask the same question I used to ask about Germany....

How could it happen in the US of A?

[Mz Pip]

36. Germany was

a small and not at all diverse country. Hitler created a scapeegoat for the economic woes the country was enduring.

If anyone will be scapegoated for our economic woes, it will be illegal immigrants and they don't vote.

The last 6 years have sucked but this isn't Germany in 1939. Hitler could inspire stadiums filled with people cheering. BushCo has to have hand picked audiences and can barely speak in coherant sentences.

No, I think we're in the last throes of the conservative agenda. They'll rant and rave, but they will not win.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. This is the germany of the 1930s, not 1939

and most Jews did not vote either, as they were immigrants from Poland

Look... I hope for the best, but don't count on it, not by a wide margin.

Oh and your first mistake, these folks are not, I REPEAT THEY ARE NOT conservatives. They are radicals... a very different animal and in fact a more dangerous one

Oh I wish they were conservatives... I truly do... but these folks are so far from a conservative it is not even funny.

Oh and they have ignored the law so far, what tells you they will respect all of a sudden?

[Throwing Stones]

21. I so hope that you're right

Since 11/7/2000, I've been betting that people eventually do the right thing; but I've been so wrong over the past six and a half years that I've lost (1) all faith in my ability to predict political events and (2) all faith that a * administration might be, at the very least, reversible.

Although "conventional" wisdom would dictate that another attack would simply prove how effed up current policies are on combating terrorism (which I believe is a credible threat, regardless of LIHOP or MIHOP), I'm not convinced that "joe six pack" wouldn't buy some bullshit from the WH that they "could" have prevented such an attack were it not for the "weak on terra Defeatocrats".

I hope you're right that any attack would be a wake up call, but I've lost almost all faith that the US can even have serious dialogue about any issues anymore. Christ, it was only this past Sunday that the "paper of record" went on record supporting immediate plan for withdrawal from Iraq!

[The Gunslinger]

10. If it is MIHOP or LIHOP.......

It won't happen until there is a Democratic President. This is just a higher level of fear mongering to take the attention away from the higher than normal level of scandal in the White House.

[madfloridian]

12. Just about every time I glanced at TV today...it was fear terror fear terror

Even Demccrats. No one will really speak up about it.

[lonestarnot]

14. I didn't feel any fear or terror, but I did get a "gut" feeling.

It was only a shat coming on... hmmmf.

[madfloridian]

20. I didn't feel fear, but I felt they wanted me to feel lots of fear.

The right wing has us in a bind. No one speaks up and says this is BS, because we have had the fear factor so long we are afraid.

[lonestarnot]

23. Speak for yourself. I spoke up! Didn't you hear me? And some

are cowards yes, therefore they are easily scared up into cats on the ceiling.

[Mz Pip]

26. I watched Countdown

and Wes Clark was on talking about the latest terror fears - pointing out rightly that BuschCo blew it. If Al Qaeda is regrouping and as strong as it once was, it's because BushCo didnt' go after them in Afghanistan like they should have.

There are people speaking out. And judging by the polls, people are stating to listen.

Terror, terror, terror. It just doesn't pack the punch that it used to. And if we get hit again, it won't be the Democrats who pay.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[razors edge]

16. Martial law. Dictator for life,

however long that would be.

[Throwing Stones]

24. not long, and I'd be proud to be the name 7th graders have to memorize

50 years from now, if our republic lasts that long (and it will, only if, under your scenario, someone takes a stand).

[razors edge]

28. I'm not making sugestions,

I actually think one would have to take a number and get in line if it came to that.

[Zucca]

25. Riots in the streets, assasination attempts and angry mobs rushing congress....

I doubt even Bush is stupid enough to try to stop elections. These are after all the guys who claimed to bring free elections to Iraq....How do you think they could justify not holding ours then? I mean the Iraq elections went on,,,even during a war. There is absolutely no way Americans would let this silly theory happen. NOT A CHANCE! It is people who bark out these oddball theory/accusations that give democrats a bad name. It is perhaps best describe as "Limbaugh of the left disease" I do not think you should spout out Rushisms in some odd and misguided attempt to defeat the right and Limbaugh types...You by acting as they do, become one in the same....It is foolish, not credible and can be used as fodder by smart conservatives to show that liberals or democrats are all nutjobs and theres no alternative but to vote for Repukes. Stop feeding the neo cons please!

TY!

[Richard Steele]

27. Uh huh.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. they don't have to stop them

they can always steal them

Caging lists anyone?

[WCGreen]

31. If you remember Rudy wanted to cancel the elections in NYC...

And the people said NO!!!!!!!

[Kablooie]

34. The closer we get to the next election, the more they will want to stop it.

I really do expect they will do something extreme in order to postpone, (eliminate), the election.
It might be a new war starting that Bush uses as an excuse to 'postpone' the election or if they are more desparate, a terrorist attack that allows him to declare martial law.

Either way I believe, and have believed for a long time, that we won't be rid of them until there is bloodshed over here. If we Americans are too timid and it doesn't come to that, the democracy known as America will disappear from the world forever.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. Or the country will be invaded

what you think the rest of the world will have patience for this shit?

There will be blood, either way

On the plus side, (if you can call that a plus side) Americans will finally learn that war is no game

[radfringe]

39. heh

Sign up for a FREE SUBSCRIPTION and get the toons e-mailed to you at Radical Fringe on Comics Sherpa

[eridani]

40. MIHOP is too complicated

LIHOP is certainly possible. 2001 was a wonderful year for George and Laura--said so on their website, even.

[Perry Logan]

41. The Bush gang is way too inept and far too cowardly to engineer any terror attacks.

This administration can barely run an elevator.

If they could have faked a terror attack, they would most certainly have done it before the 2006 elections. They would not have let the Democrats win if they could have helped it.

[tom_paine]

43. Yes, the chatter from the Loyal and Royal Busheis indicates a high likelihood

That they will have their friends hit us again, as they did on 9-11.

Look how well that worked for them.

"All in all, it's been a fabulous year."
--Chimpler, speaking in December 2001 about the year 2001.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011221-2.html

Yeah, I'll just BET it was wonderful, you murderer. These criminals sure do love rubbing our noses in it when they know we can't do anything about it.