Cassandra Blackdogred

We are one terrorist attack - it doesn't have to be gigantic, just bloody - from a police state.

Consider this, Yglesias in Tapped:

I walked through the door yesterday and my roommate already had Hardball on. There were two people debating the issue of . . . whether or not The New York Times should be brought up on charges of treason. Seriously. Treason. For publishing an article in a newspaper. Treason. And there was Chris Matthews happily presiding over the whole thing as if this was a serious conversation that people should be having. This all taking place on a network that, allegedly, does journalism.

Consider this, Glen Greenwald on Unclaimed Territory:

The clear rationale underlying the arguments of Bush supporters needs to be highlighted. They believe that the Bush administration ought to be allowed to act in complete secrecy, with no oversight of any kind. George Bush is Good and the administration wants nothing other than to stop The Terrorists from killing us. There is no need for oversight over what they are doing because we can trust our political officials to do good on their own. We don't need any courts or any Congress or any media serving as a "watchdog" over the Bush administration. There is no reason to distrust what they do. We should -- and must -- let them act in total secrecy for our own good, for our protection. And anyone who prevents them from acting in total secrecy is not merely an enemy of the Bush administration, but of the United States, i.e., is a traitor.

Consider this, solicited in a contest for posters by the always repugnant Malkin (no, I will not link):

Consider this, Froomkin writing over at Nieman:

Cooper wrote that the Bush White House “has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress.”

In fact, many of the objections the White House has raised in signing statements seem to be less about the specific legislation at issue and more about consistently resisting any limitations on executive power. For instance, any bill that requires a report to Congress sets off a signing-statement tripwire.

Consider Frist and Hatch and Cornyn and all the Republicans, un-American bastards all in a non-election year, mutant un-Americans in an election year in which they lead in the polls, rabidly un-American when behind, circle-jerking the flag. Jingoism is always distasteful, but we left distasteful behind long ago. Contemporary jingoism is like a plague, a contagion, and the disease's symptoms have rendered once decent Americans hankering for authoritarianism's disciplinary whip.

And there's an administration in place not only drooling for authoritarian power but actively seeking it.

I rarely agonize over a post, trusting that readers will either like or dislike and move on as they will. I understand the fate of Cassandra and keep my most dire prophesies to myself, usually. And I don't particularly care to post predictions that I dearly hope will be proved embarrassingly wrong. But.....

Ask yourself: What will America look like two months after a U-Haul filled with explosives detonates on the Delaware Memorial Bridge? It won't be America.

I do hope I'm wrong. I hope the attack never happens, I hope if it does happen the aftermath is not what I fear. I also have faith in America, and remind myself that the United States survived the Civil War and survived the Vietnam War - the National Guard has not, as yet, massacred war protesters, the moans of the Right's wetdreams notwithstanding.

And if I am wrong, and an attack happens and a police state doesn't result, it won't be because the un-American Right didn't try to make it happen. They're trying before the attack.