I wonder if they will enjoy their meagre apogee.

[Taxloss]

The hard right now has total control of the American political system - total unchallenged control. On top of that, they have a brilliant double-whammy of media dominance: not only is the media compliant or approving, rightists have been trained to consider it "liberal" and thus disregard any critical stories!

And now they have the last piece of the jigsaw, the Supreme Court. Their opposition is scattered and divided. They can do whatever they like.

So this is it - the miserable apogee of the American right. This is the political system that has inspired freedom around the world sinking into a mire of militarism, rampant Randian free-market economics, and evaporating civil liberties.

I wonder if they will enjoy this moment. Maybe until next week they'll be glad. But they need their hated totems. What do they have left? Nothing. Surely, with total control, and hyperpower status, they can achieve everything? They can be happy?

Maybe.

Maybe. But 10 or 20 years from now, they'll be stuck in a 45-minute queue for security clearance before their domestic flight, and they'll have time to think. They'll wonder why it's soldiers doing it, not police or airport staff. They'll wonder if they'll be late, because they can be fired at any time for no reason. And A lot of people are being fired. Even though real wages are falling, it seems that Thai lawyers and South African insurers are better educated and cheaper. Outsourcing didn't stop at manufacturing and basic services.

They'll wonder why there are still abortions - either poor kids dying from septicaemia after botched back-alley operations, or the rumours on Euro websites about the booming trade in abortion vacations among the children of the new elite.

Prices are rising. So are the casualty figures on the evening news, if they're reported. America didn't even invade anywhere else, it just got sort of entangled. Now it's losing soldiers in five Middle-Eastern countries.

They're free. Government's ears have been pinned back. Hey, there are a lot of poor and homeless, but the latest army recruitment drive is the biggest ever.

Why are they rioting? Why are the cities burning every night? Aren't they enjoying the apogee?

[classof56]

1. I think it won't take nearly that long for the righties to rue this day.

The PNAC agenda is now fully on track and their deadline rapidly accelerating. If it does take 10-20 years for those now basking in the glory of their "victories" to realize what they've wrought, I doubt I'll be around to see it. But I think we need to bump up the schedule a bit--say tne next 4-5 years--in which case I might still be around and lucid and I dread the awful consequences soon to be unleashed upon us all. In my opinion, Congress is just about to vote itself out of a job and perhaps they should do some studying about the Roman Senate under the rule of Nero, et al. As I once heard many long years ago, a dictatorship is fine as long as you agree with the dictator. Today, I say...God help us all!

Tired Old Cynic

[Taxloss]

2. I think they may lack the insight.

They will reflect, they will wonder where it all went wrong, and the right-wing conditioning will tell them it was the liberals destroying the country and the liberal media and activist judges, and they'll wonder why they aren't content, why they worry about their decreasing security, why they worry about losing their home, why they worry about losing their job, why they worry about getting sick, why they worry about driving through parts of their city they used to walk through, but they won't join the dots. Apathy will set in. They'll become what they were always intended to be: obedient drones.

[warrior1]

3. Clinton and democrats

will get blamed for not stopping them.

[Taxloss]

4. Inevitably.

"Why didn't anyone do anything?"