Help me dream of the perfect storm. Here are some ideas.

[swag]

Gas prices stay high and Bush does nothing, until outcry grows, then he does something really rash and stupid that doesn't bring down gas prices. Real inflation grows at the same time, and the economy doesn't grow as much as expected. Corporate earnings estimates and the stock market get just a little depressed. Stagflation, malaise on the right, energy on the left.

Real unemployment gradually grows or stays steady until the end of June. Murmerings grow louder about this jobless recovery, Colin Powell's outsourcing trip to India, and so on. Will any Americans be able to get good jobs in a few years? Is the game over? Have the rich taken it all?

Iraq continues to be a shameful calamity of epic proportions. Public suspicion of Bush reaches all-time highs.

Reports of environmental deterioration accelerate. Bush still in denial. More boneheaded moves favoring polluters. Severe weather patterns reinforce feeling of crisis amongst us.

More flee administration.

Medicare scandal and deception enrage older voters - law is repealed. Rage at Bush, big pharma, Congressional supporters, AARP.

John Kerry puts forth an affirmative agenda for pulling America out of this horrible sludgepit.

http://contribute.johnkerry.com

[mmonk]

1. the perfect storm

would be for people lost in the republican cult finally breaking out of it and educating themselves.

[swag]

3. How do you un-superglue them from their TV sets?

They never read anything except the Stall Seat Journal or the Washington Times.

[swag]

2. I'm sorry - that post is kind of wishing ill upon America, isn't it?

I didn't mean it to be that way. I want my friends and families to have jobs, and I would like us to be able to have an earth for a while longer, etc.

Nevertheless, I think everything in the top post will likely happen.

[aquart]

4. Oh.

I was thinking Pandemic Flu, Yellowstone volcano explodes, asteroid hits.

[swag]

5. Bring 'em on!

[sweetheart]

6. storm brewing

As OPEC oil is sold in dollars, and much of the proceeds are spent in
euro's, the OPEC nations are taking a bath with the dollar tanking.
Look to them upping the price of crude bigtime, to compensate for
the fiscal irresponsibility of the incompetent bush admin.

8th time lucky, and a assassin's bomb kills Perves Musharraf,
plunging Pakistan in to a turmoil. An islamic fundamentalist regime
takes his place, invoking Sharia, and opening a nuclear defense
cooperation with Iran and Afganistan.

The USA attacks preemptively to seize the nuclear weapons of pakistan.
Iran and pakistan, formalize their military cooperation
and our bases in the persian gulf get nuked by improbable sources...
(a speed boat suicide bomber nuke) car-nukes, and a fighter jet
kamikaze nuke. Our armed forces experience serious defeat on the
battlefields of south asia.

Israel enters the war, by attacking syria (alleging WMD's) and syria
joins the alliance against the imperialists. Soon the war has
widened to alliances across the middle east, as the american military
asks congress for an additional 500 billion dollars for fighting in
the middle east.

Finally, after a couple of years of this bush-crap, the US treasury
can't sell a new bond issue, for lack of buyers. Credit agencies
downgrade the US government to "BB+". A worldwide financial market
selloff of US government assets plunges the dollar to its lowest
levels in over 100 years.

Japan and China float their currencies, and american buying power
plunges to 4 dollars per euro, 10 yen per dollar. 8 dollars per
pound. The downgrade and currency collapse cause the government to
declare bankruptcy, and issue new war-bonds collateralized by
federal land. This, combined with the bankruptcy of the Social
security programmes, and the reinstratement of the draft, and 1000's
of bush-dead... leads the nation to stop all federal funding except
military.

Then the big bankruptcy comes, and the dollar plunges to yen parity.
1/100th of its current value. The stock market crashes and martial
law is introduced to keep the public fed, as whole supply chains
collapse, including food and other critical supplies. The new
martial law system is extended military socialism and lasts for
decades forming the new basis for american socialism.

After this period, the remaining americans not killed in the nuclear
wars, come together and write a new constitution, one with more
serious checkpoints on abuse of power, money, and public media.
One where only the congress can declare war, wage war or make any
decisions about war.

[Sliverofhope]

7. the 1, 2, 3 punch

March: Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies

April: Joseph Wilson, Politics of Truth
in which he names the Plame leakers

May: John Dean, Worse than Watergate