i hope your right, but ive heard the dam break too many times in this line of activism. im a very cynical person but this is a pleasant surprise. though the trolls are already out in full force in the comments section.

After watching the 2004 election cycle, my interpretation of it went like this:
A lot of effort has been made to uncover the basis for the neo-cons' efforts to get into power in 2000, then use the "9-11 revolution" to both sieze control of domestic power, plus conquer enough of SW Asia to control the oil/gas fields and the attendant export routes. What hasn't been as well discussed is which non-neocon groupings were necessary for peripheral support at each step (well, the mainstream media have gotten their share of abuse).

I suspect a fair fraction of "mainstream" elite-folks got their fair warning that something was up; they didn't get a full report with opportunity to sign-off, they got some sort of wink-and-nudge. Depending on the degree of foreknowledge, and the usual presumptions within investor-class subculture, the tendency was to either give the "bad boys" the benefit of the doubt -- maybe they have a workable idea, let 'em have their chance to re-invigorate the empire "that dare not speak its name," -- or, give them wide berth as a seamy bunch that everyone knows is up to no good, but no one in the neighborhood is willing to go up against, since there's little reward and much risk at that level with rocking the boat, no matter what the issue. That's what I've gathered from well-off conservatives -- they really would rather stick with the devils they know than risk dealing with new people. And that may be the key -- they're nowhere near as afraid of new ideas as they are of having to learn to deal with new people.

So they let the neo-cons have their chance at running the ranch... after all, they talked a good game. They sounded like a bunch of guys that were sure they were tougher, closer to the street, that understood "the real world" better. Well, now after two POTUS admins, half-a-dozen false-flag set-ups, two major wars/occupations, who knows how many skewed elections... what have they accomplished? For anybody?

What the neo-cons have really done is show that they are incompetent at the real job they were applying for, which is top-level management of the Anglo-American Empire.

The military's spearpoint is badly blunted, and its reputation among the middle-level powers it might be called to discipline is severely reduced. The continuing occupation has them tied down so badly they are incapable of fulfilling their most important imperial job, which is to be ready to take on China. The military personnel themselves are questioning their top leadership, from their competence, to their intentions. If the downward spiral continues, the real question won't be whether the brave 9-11 truthers finally speak truth to power, but whether the Pentagon will stand down when ordered to attack Iran... or to defend the White House.

The Baker-led Iraq Study Group, the outings of pedophile Republican congressmen... these were a combination of career intelligence and military and corporate-types all taking the neocons, spinning around in the detritus of their own illusions, back behind the woodshed for a little talk. One by one, they're picking off Cabinet members (Gonzales is Target of the Week) to weaken the position of the Original Cheney administration. If Bush & Cheney don't back down on Iran, there's no telling what interesting fireworks could happen. At least one British paper reported several top US generals are threatening to quit if ordered to attack Iran. Given how they have had a front-row seat to seeing how this crew really cares for the military personnel and their professional recommendations, how many would be willing to stand by if martial law were actually attempted at home?

As for the Democrats, many of them have probably not forgotten the attacks that came after 9-11: the anthrax (which Muslims only sent to Democrats, remember?), plus the plane-crash of Senator Wellstone's family. That was a very clear, real, and brutal shot-across-the-bow of Congress and the media to fall in line, or else.

The guys at top that you and I would like to see come out of the closet on 9-11 aren't stupid. They got it a long time ago, perhaps when they saw the dark end of the sniper's rifle-barrel slowly graze past their own position. They know that this group is brutal and fascist. What they've wondered is whether they were smart. Now they know, just as we know, that they're not.

The neocons can't wrap up this occupation, and they can't admit they failed. The proof is in the US military's current deployment pattern and readiness status. By standing in place for so long, they've broken not just one, but two of the fundamental rules of the American Empire:
1. don't commit your own forces too long in one spot, because they're not designed for it;
2. don't admit that you really are an empire, the folks back home are specifically dis-prepared for that reality.
Everything about our empire is specifically designed to deny that it is an empire. And when its machinery works, it's pretty good at avoiding that reality, at least back home. It's when the machinery of management and enforcement breaks down that its very existence becomes most evident. And the longer it stays broken down, the more people (even, indeed especially, back home) notice that "hey, that looks like an empire over there. What's it doing just sittin' there, with that flat tire?"

The Dems were given their shot at post-2006 leadership because they promised not to rock the boat: "impeachment is off the table." Unless these idiots cannot be dissuaded from further pursuance of their mad fantasies by any other way. Does the executive class really trust the long, drawn-out fight of impeachment, including the preliminary investigations that even now are starting to lay the groundwork (if necessary)? No. Why? After 9-11, this is one more thing that REALLY changed. All these messy investigations, if they're not very carefully handled, can give rise to all sorts of opportunities for someone whose tired of it all to just blow it all. I don't think this part is something that the non-neocons who signed off, or stood-aside, really thought through:
1. Some of the people who got slapped around very hard in the 9-11 covert-coup are now being asked to please clean up this mess. Some of them may play ball, some may not.
2. Once you've trashed those pesky due process and civil liberties and loyalty ideas, it may be hard to invoke them in your own defense. Everyone you're tossing them at knows what you really think, and knows how the tables would be turned if the imperial venture had actually turned out successfully.
3. The biggest problem with their design of the 9-11 attacks may very well be their sheer scope. In trying to plan a "new Pearl Harbor", they probably overplayed their hand. For too many of us, it became apparent that there really is a vicious enemy of our freedom out there, and we knew, and still know, that this is truly a fight to the death. I knew that the moment we saw the second plane hit, and knew that the first hit was no accident. The only question in my mind from that moment on was: who? Finding out the perps speak good English didn't lessen the deadliness or the seriousness of the war. It simply changed the venue from a "war of civilizations" to a civil war: an Empire attacking its own Republic. The attacks really did change us and everything, just not in a single direction they could control. Oh, we're changed alright. And we're gonna stay changed. And the fact that most of what Bush said early on about those "evil-doers" actually applied to his own administration, didn't make any of it less true. They do need to be smoked out of whatever holes they crawl into, no matter where in the world they flee.

One point about repression of 9-11 truth and the potential for martial law, etc in the near future: it has its greatest power only until it is exposed via deployment. As with the Iraq invasion, the powers that be will lose much of their power once they use it. Iraqis are now very familiar with the difference between destruction and control. If widespread repression or official martial law is ever declared, they will lose the power of the fear of the unknown once people see it actually played out in US streets. And those who have refused to believe such could happen here will lose their last shred of hope-thru-denial. At that point, they will learn, too late, the difference between living in a sea of people who offer their allegiance -- and living in a sea of sullen faces, whose "allegiance" merely means they haven't yet openly resisted.

This is the final limit of power that the American Empire may finally be facing up to: the allegiance, or willingness to further cower, of the "American people" (the citizens of the original Republic at the heart of the Empire). Now that we have had just a taste of what life has been like in the rest of the Empire, how willing are we to continue defending it? For the last few years, how much of this "silence" has been agreement -- and how much mere acquiescence? Are we willing to face the question, is the only way to defend both our Republic and our Democracy, to do away with "our" Empire?

This is why the neocons are so shrill about Rosie. The usual second-tier shut-em-ups of character-assassination (see Sheen) won't work with her. And if they go to the standard third-tier move of suicide or fatal accident, well, since 9-11 a lot of us have been doing our homework. Too many good Americans would recognize that for the murder it really would be.

The real question then will be, what next? The neocons have been playing games of brinksmanship:
1. They push farther than the other side is willing to go, beyond any previous "rules of the game";
2. They keep piling event upon event, so quickly that the opposition is exhausted and confused with too many insults to deal with coherently;
3. If they win one battle, they immediately come up with one more, to push for more just when the opposition thinks they're about to get a break.
Don't be surprised if those plays finally work their way into our playbook too.

This is not an annual debating season, but a political war, a war in which one side has already committed mass murder. Ultimately, it will have to be fought on many fronts: legal, to be sure; but we will also need to link up with other countries and other movements:
1. Before they murdered innocent Afghans and Iraqis in the name of 9-11, they murdered Americans on 9-11.
2. False-flag attacks have murdered Americans, but also British, Spanish and Australians/Indonesians in their own "9-11s" (who am I leaving out?).
3. Through incompetence, US land forces have been abused to near-collapse. And we haven't even seen the tip of the casualty-iceberg, once you realize the use of depleted uranium munitions poisons not only soldiers who shoot it, but their families when they get home. US veterans and their families face illness and premature death because of the type of munitions now used in combat.
4. Of course, the deaths of 9-11 still continue, since so many now face respiratory illness.

I suspect there are many who have held back out of fear. But we're now at a point where multiple points of failure can show: failure to repress, failure to embarrass, but more than anything else -- a colossal failure on the part of the neocons to perform. They were given the chance to commit the warcrime of the century, in order to get the job of the century. And they screwed it up.
1. They screwed up by calling attention to themselves. Too big a false-flag op. OKC and the original WTC bombing in 1993 didn't generate this much attention. Now the cover's blown on all of these.
2. They didn't cover their tracks as well as they thought, or we wouldn't be here.
3. They got all the toys they asked for, and still couldn't conquer Iraq and Afghanistan. They've made the US military look beatable, and that may be "unforgivable."
4. After proving their mortal incompetence, they refuse to leave the stage gracefully, which is making it impossible for the Dems to "move on" with the next act, or Plan B. This is starting to look like a split in the upper classes, which is all the worse for its visibility.

The neocons never respected free people, and since they didn't want respect in return, they settled for fear. Now that they've been shown to be incompetent, there will be fewer people finding any reason to fear them. After all, what's the point in helping them win control of the ship, when they keep indicating they want to steer the boat straight into the shoals? As more Americans see their plans beaten in other venues, more people will find less reason to fear them, and those who originally backed them.