Okay. I am now ready to make some daring, wild-ass predictions.

hvn_nbr_2

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Jun-07-05 03:59 PM
Original message

Okay. I am now ready to make some daring, wild-ass predictions.

I almost did this two weeks ago but didn't have some of the details thought out and got cold feet because of the filibuster "compromise." But now I'm confident again, and I want to put it out there before I go on vacation.

The tide is turning. Cracks are appearing everywhere. The corporate media are starting to cover the Downing Street Minutes, and a few are even daring to say the I-word.

Even though I originally thought the filibuster "compromise" was just another sell-out, I have changed my mind and concluded that it's part of the turning tide. I now think it was actually an internal Republican revolt against total Rovian control and arm-twisting; by the content of the deal, it still seems like mostly a Republican victory; but in fact, the moderate Dems were only there for window-dressing anyway, a fig leaf to cover the internal Republican revolt. It stopped the neocon steamroller, once again, as has been happening lately. I expect that Bolton now won't be confirmed but that's really only a footnote in the real story.

1. Chimp/Cheney will not finish their term in office. They'll be gone before the 2006 elections, and there's a fair chance they'll be gone before the end of 2005.

There are cracks in the walls everywhere, particularly in the corporate media cartel. The DSM is increasing the pressure from outside and making the bias glaringly obvious to everyone. The Deep Throat hoopla is increasing the pressure from inside the cartel, from the many journalists who want to do real journalism but have been forbidden to. No one is fooled by the phony calls for new Deep Throats to come forward today. They all know there are dozens of Deep Throats ready and willing and already trying. There is no shortage of Woodwards or Bernsteins either. The missing pieces are Ben Bradlees and Katherine Grahams, and everyone in the cartel knows it. And for some reason, they're starting to let go a bit.

Here's what I think is happening: Either they've concluded that Chimpy is going down no matter what they do, or the corporate plutocrats are restless. They're thinking something like, "We bought and paid for every branch of government, we bought and paid for and controlled every significant media outlet, and we loyally suppressed all opposing information, and what did we get for it? Our investments in media are going south because everyone knows it's all bullshit and nobody's watching any more. None of us are getting anything except Chimp/Cheney's buddies in oil and gas. For the rest of us, the Dow is about where it was when Chimpy was selected four and a half years ago, the S&P 500 is down from then, the NASDAQ is down significantly; there's a worldwide de facto consumer boycott of our brands just because we're American; the budget deficit will cripple us for years to come; and the Bush-buddies' FERC-rape of California is costing the rest of us plutocrats billions. We want our share, and Chimp/Cheney won't give it to us, so they are now expendable." They think they can excise Chimp/Cheney and still keep control of everything, so they're starting to let media talk about DSM and the I-word.

However, there are two big flies in their ointment: Once they loosen the chains a little bit on real journalism, they're going to find a lot of resistance to tightening them again. Toothpaste out of the tube thing. And the corruption is so vast, so widespread, so depraved, and so pervasive that a cub reporter from the Outer Oshkosh Sentinel-Times-Recorder could come up with enough scandal in a couple hours to bring down several governments. Once they loosen a bit, it's going to take down a whole lot of people, quickly before they can adjust, and it's going to splash ugly on a lot more.

2. More people are going to jail than did from Nixon's adminstration. A lot more. This is going to be the biggest flameout in American history, by far.

And it's going to happen quickly once it gets started. In Watergate, the phrase was "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind." This time around, it will be flameout and blowback.

When real journalists start digging, we'll find out about corruption that even we at DU don't even suspect yet. And some of it will be at least comparable in depravity to LIHOP.

When the rampant corruption is known and Chimpy's approval ratings are really in the toilet, then people will finally be willing to listen to the evidence of election fraud and the stolen elections. And not just the last two presidential elections. Probably the Republican majority in the Senate was stolen; certainly at least three or four seats were stolen.

3. We'll have paper ballots for the 2006 elections. It will be too late to do anything else.

Maybe eventually they'll come up with computer systems, designed to industry standards, monitored by computer security experts, and trusted by the people, but there won't be time to do it for 2006. We'll do it the old-fashioned way, as an emergency response. When they finally tell people that their voting computers were programmed by convicted felon hackers, with multiple convictions for fraud by software, all the current voting machine companies will be put out of business.

4. Democrats will regain control of the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections. Maybe sooner for the Senate when election fraud becomes known and some are forced out.

It will be almost by default. The Republican party will be incredibly damaged by all the scandal. What we have now is far, far worse than Watergate, Teapot Dome, and Joe McCarthy all combined. Remember that after Joe McCarthy, they didn't control either house of Congress for forty years. This will be worse.

5. We will see the first major party re-alignment in the U.S. in 150 years.

Within 5-10 years, the Republican party will basically be gone, or possibly relegated to permanent minor status as the religious nuts party, if a multi-party system emerges.

6. That will be a perilous time for the Democratic party too, and the outcome is uncertain.

The corporate plutocrats will just automatically assume they can buy the Democrats as they bought the Pukes. To a large extent, they already own them anyway. Also, at least some Democrats will be caught in the scandals. And after the intitial shock and disgust of the scandals wear off, people will ask all the Democratic wimps, appeasers, enablers, and corporate tools, "Where were you? Why didn't you speak up about what was happening? Why did you go along with them? You spoke eloquently on January 6, 2005, and then voted to approve the fraud. Why should we follow you either?"

I think the outcome is uncertain. It depends on too many variables, such as how the Dems respond, how any unstained prominent Repubs respond, and just on many uncertainties. We could have a new party replace the Pukes, we could see both parties replaced by two or more parties, we could see multiple parties rise to replace the Pukes and in time establish a multi-party system.

7. No one will trust the corporate media again, even if they get back to real journalism.

They may re-gain viewers and readers, but they'll always be held in suspicion. Something will arise on the internet to counter them and compete effectively with them.

There will be large-scale divestment and dis-conglomeration of media control, possibly because their investments in media control went bad, but forced if necessary.

8. We get our country back.

Eventually we'll get universal health care, secure social security, a meaningful safety net, environmental protection, consumer protection, worker protection, and other things that the American people want but current politicians controlled by the plutocracy won't give us. We'll probably even get public financing of campaigns and re-regulation of some energy-related industries.

But then, maybe this is all just wishful thinking. Since I'm about to go on vacation, after a few hours from now, I won't see if anyone even notices this thread till next week. Hope some of you enjoy it.