Watched an interesting discussion on CSPAN yesterday --

of an event that happened mid-week, I gathered, though I tuned in after it started and missed the introductions. The words weren't particularly new. I've been getting them in bits and pieces but the hysteria was simply too strong to allow them into my cortex. This time I heard both the words and the meanings. By the time I'd watched for a fair amount of time I could feel myself relaxing ... feeling as if someone had placed a hand on my chest and held me back from I know not what.

They were discussing the nation's gradual slide into Fascism (though no one used the word). They were doing a retrospective on the past years. What was different was that these were not the conspiracy theorists; the usual suspects. This was the honored mainstream "establishment." Their names were recognizable as members of wellknown think tanks, foundations, study groups -- and from both sides of the Atlantic. A number of speakers agreed that our present world-dominating stance had not happened yesterday or the day before, or even ten years ago, but had been a slow but steady meticulously planned takeover that started at least forty years ago. That was the point where I felt myself exhale. Of course. This critical debate has finally risen to prominence in the national consciousness. Surely this is the beginning.

The point was made that it took many years for Spain to come back from Franco and that the Soviet Union was still recovering from a succession of takeovers. Italy and Germany had been different in that their military losses had forced change almost overnight.

Seeing ourselves in this context was both frightening and sobering in that it removed the expection of having to restore our systems between now and the next election cycle. There is some small relief in that. I surely will not live to see how it all turns out. We'll need to re-educate our population before that restoration can even begin. The task is enormous and turning the juggernaut of Democracy is far more difficult than any other form of government, I'm sure. There's not yet enough recognition among our citizens that a change of course is needed at this point, and probably won't be until after we've suffered through the coming economic and ecological collapse that heads wiser than mine have forecast.

Though disturbing, the good thing about that discussion was that I finally could accept the fact that sharp minds with power were grappling with these issues, and that the corrective course is surely being designed even as we speak. These analyses helped me to see that the chaos is not total, and that we are not yet powerless. Progressive think tanks are pouring over the developments of the last administration and are preparing for the next. The wheels are turning and the pendulum has already begun to trace the arc toward the Left.

It will be hair-raising, I'm sure, but when the program ended I felt better -- at least in the moment. I can only pray now, that those flawed but wise old dead white men of vision who designed our Constitution and Bill of Rights will have placed enough "give" in them to rein us in one more time, and that by the end of the next decade, at least, recovery will be well on its way to restoring our freedoms -- and will have removed the threat of a nuclear holocaust from the rest of the world.

But, it's not a good sign that Camilla and Charles have now relegated stories on the Middle East to page seven!