Reply #9: i know you've been seeing it too [View All]

I think we passed the point of no return when Congress capitulated on the war funding bill. That was a lot more than a bad vote: it was the point when hope that the situation could be resolved through normal channels died. If that wasn't clear enough the first time, Congress capitulated a few more times and spit in the face of the public with the MoveOn vote.

We've now got an angry anti-administration populace who feels that they are not represented by either party and that the system is perhaps irreparably broken. Progressives are becoming radicalized before one's eyes. People no longer talk about fascism as a danger so much as they talk about it as having arrived. People everywhere begin to discuss what actions outside normal political channels need to be taken to put pressure on the government, and mainstream magazines discuss general strikes.

Add to that the smaller but dangerous pro-administration element that, more and more, is calling for killing liberals, and whose "intellectuals" are beginning to publish writing arguing that democracy isn't all that good an idea after all.

The right fears losing power to the masses, the masses fear they've lost power altogether, and neither side can bear the victory of the other.

I'll hold out hope till no hope is possible, but at this point my hope is fading fast that this can be resolved short of chaos and, quite possibly, violence. I just wish I knew how to be an effective wheelchair-user "survivalist".