looped if's stop working

[lotmr]

After figuring out how to have a threaded frontend to pass varibles
I've run into a problem. The 'quit' command works as long as issue it
fast enough as soon as the if's start looping. If I wait about 5
seconds, the commands will close the frontend thread but leave the main
loop running. This seems to be becuase the looped ifs stopped
evaluating at all. Is there a better way to do this (events)? If not
how could I keep the if's running?

Thanks

Note- the 'join' command has no effect either.
Code:
#!usr/bin/python
#Filename: NIRC Core

import sys
import irc
import threading

def giveop(user):
    pass

def ip():
    pass

def uptime():
    pass

def auth(user,password,ip):
    pass

def kill(user):
    pass

def mute(user):
    pass

def servertest():
    pass

class receiver(threading.Thread):
    def run(self):
        while 1:
            n = raw_input('Enter Bot Commands : ')
            if n == 'quit':
                funcvars.breaker = True
                break
            if n == 'join':
                funcvars.join = raw_input('Enter Chan Name : ')

class funcvars:
    breaker = False
    join = ''

NIRC=irc.IRC_Object( )
conn=NIRC.new_connection( )
s = raw_input('Enter Commands : ')
if s == 'quit':
    sys.exit()
if s == 'version':
    print 'Version Alpha 0.1'
if s == 'ircstart':
    conn.nick='Nilzirc'
    conn.ident='nilzirc'
    conn.server=('irc.deltaanime.net', 6667)
    conn.realname='Noobwrangler McNeal'
    print 'Connection Started'
    receiver().start()
    while 1:
        NIRC.main_loop( )
        if funcvars.breaker == True:
            break
        if funcvars.join != '':
            conn.send_string('JOIN '+funcvars.join)
        
        
print 'Ending IRC communication'