The bright side of a crappy economic outlook??

[Cats Against Frist]

As much as I don't like to see starving people, or the failure of the broad middle class in America -- is there a bright side to a crashing stock market, sky-high gas prices, a decimated manufacturing base, large-scale unemployment, a raided Social Security trust fund, an empty federal bank account, spent up at the Iraqi Department Store, Chinese loan sharks, a possible alliance of oil rich nations (BART) working against the U.S. and a broken health care system that only the rich can afford?

Why yes, there is. And it's not as simple as "the GOP sucks." It's quite literally that the GOP has FAILED to do the things that, for what seems like my goddamn entire lifetime (I'm 30) that they've been promising, if they could get those nasty big-government liberals out of power.

They've had the best chance, I think, to enact their "trickle-down-the-crack-of-my-ass," plan (as I like to call it) by raiding Social Security to give a tax cut to the rich -- and not only that, but ramp up the military-industrial complex to Mach 20 -- and despite their best effort, and most cherished tactics -- they can't hold it together.

I guess the first excuse out of the lie squad would be that because Herr Chimpy didn't get his full $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy that it wasn't enough to provide the "economic stimulus" that making a clusterfuck-times-two could have provided. Other than that -- I'm sure they'd find a way to blame Clinton -- but, friends -- they've had absolute power for a long time, with majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the Executive Branch, for some time.

I'm just curious -- at what point can we finally lay the Republican's hail mary of war + tax cuts to rest? Or, how long do we have to give it? Am I crazy, and in some 20 years, we're all going to be eating gold-plated chocolates off of diamond plates because of the brilliant foresight of people like Junior and Tom Delay?

When does Grover Norquist shut the fuck up? How bad does it have to get? And when it does -- what do we do?

[Hello_Kitty]

1. I am re-reading Orwell's 1984 right now

And I'm just afraid what he foretold in that book will be more the case. The fascists will just seize all the books and purge the intellectuals and dissidents until they completely control all the information. The people will be held in line through relentless propaganda and fear and most will be far too busy trying to eke out an existence to even ponder why things are the way they are. There will likely be resistance, as there was in the book but the reign will last a long time. Sorry for the pessimism but that's just the mood I'm in right now. I sure hope I'm wrong.