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"October Surprise - With A Twist"
Posted July 22, 2004 thepeoplesvoice.org

By: Kerry Tomasi

It's extremely tempting, for those of us trying to thwart the downfall of our democracy, to see some serious rays of hope right now. But for me the harsh reality of who and what we're dealing with tends to cloud that hope.

Yes, Bush/Cheney and the GOP are floundering a bit, and the Kerry/Edwards ticket looks promising, but none of this is going to matter unless the average American citizen develops more nerve and a better sense of discernment prior to the highly anticipated "2004 October Surprise Terror Attack". 

Virtually everything I've been reading from those trying to anticipate what might happen revolves around the "Bush-postpones-the-election-due-to-the-attack" hypothesis. But I have a unique suspicion of my own about the way it might go down. 

You heard it here first: 

• Repeat over and over and over that the terrorists are going to try to disrupt the election, ala Madrid. Repeat over and over and over that al Qaeda is desperate to get Bush out of office, because 'he's so tough on them' (I've already heard this stated by dozens GOP/Administration/corporate-media-hack spokespeople). 
  
  
• Condition the American people to automatically accept as "true" the increasingly frequent tapes/video coming out of the terrorist network/web sites - i.e. hostage taking/negotiating, pronouncements of intent, etc. 
  
  
• Have surrogates begin floating the idea of a possible election postponement if an attack was to occur, hoping Democrats will take the bait, and decry such an idea.

The attack occurs 1-2 days prior to the election, followed immediately by a grainy, scratchy audio or video, one that on closer examination appears obviously (and intentionally) bogus, in which Osama bin Laden or Zarqawi state something along the line of - "This is just a taste of what Allah will be sending your way if Bush remains in office".

In the face of a potentially devastating "Vote for Bush or the terrorists win!" Bush/GOP landslide victory - one that will 'seal the deal' for Republican rule for decades - it's the Democrats who will have no other choice but to demand a postponement of the election until the emotion of the attack subsides and the veracity of the video/audio tape can be investigated. At which point the neocons play their win-win hand and complete the coop: their media outlets ravage the Democratic Party for rank hypocrisy and "treasonously trying to circumvent the Constitution!", and they themselves gain a precedent - established by the Democrats - to do the same if and when the need arises. 

I'm telling you, this is how this group works. I call it the 'Rove Effect', but it's source is undoubtedly much higher upstream (or further up the sewage pipe) than that. Again, the answer to this dark scenario is near the beginning of this blurb. Nothing else is going to matter unless the average American citizen adopts more of a perceptive, rather than emotional approach to what's going on. 

Because the "2004 October Surprise Terror Attack" (if this is the kind of 'surprise' that occurs) is not going to be the last. It will be just one of many we will likely be dealing with from here on out. No one wants to hear something like this, but that's where we're at. That's what you get when you whack that hornets nest, as Bush did in Iraq (and soon to be Iran - watch for it - it's coming!). 

This was and is the method to their madness, at least on the domestic front. Ignite the fundamentalist Muslim world against us (adding tens of thousands to the terrorist ranks), fueling a never-ending 'war on terror'. Then use that war - and the fear generated - as a tool to dismantle, one by one, the structural components of our unique but fragile system of self rule by "we the people", and replace it with a theocratic form of military/industrial corporatism. One in which the nation's wealth will be owned/controlled by an elite few, and the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' will mean something altogether different than they do now.

It's not too late to pull this country back from that brink, but we are edging awfully close, and we're running out of time. So round up some help, get a good grip, and do what you can. And encourage people to be inquisitive and vigilant, not fearful, as we pass through this critical bottleneck in our nation's history. 

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." - Thomas Jefferson

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© copyright 7/22/04 by Kerry Tomasi. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached and the title is unchanged.