An important warning
by George SeldesApril 25th, 2007 at 08:32:55
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.
They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.
(Read the rest. A vital warning.)
April 25th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Interesting. I had read the article at the Guardian site and promptly sent it out to people I know. My BIL answered much like Rick and Kari.
In the past year, my husband and I have read everything we can get our hands on about Bush and his crime family. We have not stopped at reading the liberal/progressive side of issues, we have even, holding our noses, read Coulter….but the fact is, we have been educating ourselves.
And you know what we have found. There are facts that substantiate Fasciam in America.
Several friends of mine refuse to watch the news (heck we don’t watch the news, we want the truth not the spin). They refuse to read papers or books because they cannot DO anything about it. Bull! Of course we can DO something about it. We can talk to others, we can refuse to stand by and watch the country be ruined by conservative-fundimental wackos. We can get involved and vote. We can knock on our neighbors doors and see where they stand and if they are willing to sick their necks out and make changes.
Bush is just the figurehead. His ‘aw shucks” attitude appeals to a lot of people. We Americans need to vote and shop and be around people who want to get this mess out of Washington. We need to clean up our own legislature and elect people who want to preserve the America we had not line their own pockets. We can DO this! Start today.
April 25th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Kari: you don’t need a coup when you’re power and running the show. I find an “It Can’t Happen Here” attitude frankly far more absurd than noting pronounced, persistent tendencies towards fascism in this crowd.
Rick: Please go on, I’d like to hear more about the continuum and why we should feel that we’ve only gone a “small step” towards fascism. Are you saying that there are steps that Wolf’s article missed and that, unless those steps are taken, we can’t wind up with fascism? Or is it just that they haven’t gone so far? Or is it something else?
As for a disservice to those who have lived under fascism, the consistent message I get from my reading (and from the three Holocaust survivors I have met) is that one of the most effective and important responses to nascent fascism is to call things by their true name rather than ignoring or minimizing what’s happening.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I know it’s fashionable in hard-core lefty circles to imagine a coup by the Bushies, but it’s frankly absurd.
For starters, the military hates them all right now — do you really think the military would allow them one more day in office?
April 25th, 2007 at 9:01 am
There is a very long continuum between a participatory democracy and fascism. Though the Bush version of democracy has a scary Orwellian overtone, it is only a small step in the direction of fascism. Describing the Bush administration in those terms does a disservice to anyone who has had to live under real fascism. More importantly, even without Bush, we have work to do to make our society a complete and participatory democracy.