I’m not sure how many people have read Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here”, but I am always shocked how many times in modern times, I think about this book and what is going on.
The book is set in 1935 with the rise of a political star that uses the media and a sympathetic Congress to enact laws to keep the terror out, which in this case was Communism. In the end, a fascist government takes over.
Listening to the latest troubles and with laws like the Patriot Act, it worries me we will give up enough rights etc for something like this to happen.
I don’t think tomorrow black shirts will be marching down the Mall in Washington, it is just the creepiness that something I think all Americans (and all members of the World) don’t want is a Fascist government. Especially since I think I would probably be taken away in the forth or fifth wave of interments (and rising now by starting this thread).
Do other people feel as I do that although I’m not threatened by something like the Patriot Act, cause I’m not doing anything to worry about, all it takes is a few other laws and this thread becomes seditious and that knock on the door…
Sinclair Lewis was a drunken ignoramus who fancied himself a keen observer of Middle America, but had absolutely no clue what was going on. His admirers, of course, were people in the big cities of the East, eager to look down on the booboisie, and happy to have their prejudices confirmed.
There is no chance of fascism in America. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
There are absolutely NO parallels between Nazi Germany and the USA in 2003.
It’s a funny thing about Americans- we’ve never lived longer than we do today, and yet we’re more terrified of disease than ever before. We’ve never had more freedom than we do today, but we’re more terrified than ever of creeping fascism. Even with the current down economy and threat of terror, in most respects, we’ve never had it so good- and yet, we’ve never been so sure that everything is going to Hell in a handbasket.
Conservatives who fretted that Bill Clinton was going to destroy democracy were paranoid fruitcakes. And people fretting over Furhrer George are being equally ridiculous.
Chicken Little lefties have been screaming “The skying is falling!” for more than thirty years now. According to these folks, a fascist takeover is always just around the corner, and average Americans are just grinning idiots who can’t see the signs of danger so obvious and clear to enlightened, progressive intellectuals–you know, the folks who should * really * be in charge. And yet, somehow or another, the fascist takeover never quite gets here.
I grew up with religious fundamentalists and millenialists who were absolutely sure that the advent of the Anti-Christ and the Second Coming were going to happen any day. For forty years I’ve been hearing about how I’d better get down on my nears and pray because the Tribulation is going to start any minute. If you can’t see this it, it’s because Satan has deceived you, which of course means that you’re just not as good as the folks whose eyes have been opened by JEE-zus and see things ever so much more clearly than you do. And yet, somehow or another, the Apocalypse never guite gets here.
I can’t see a dime’s worth of difference between the two. Both attitudes are basically the same scam, i.e. manipulating people by scaring the hell out of them.
The OP will have to forgive me if I’m just a little bit skeptical.
How can one not believe a fascist state(world) is coming?
Do they not read?
How many people years and years ago would have accepted cameras watching them everywhere?
Being forced to take a social security number, etc.
The list goes on.
Read.
Of course, some people don’t want to beleive it, and they are happy with this case. They’ll just have a rude awakening someday.
When and if it does come, no one will protest, I guarantee you.
I opened this thread to see if anyone else wondered about the concept of a democratic state becoming a fascist one rather than a way for the very right and very left to launch a diatribe about current politics. If the OP implied that this could happen today, then I apologize, I meant it only to say that some of the concepts in the the book were playing out. Of course we would require a charismatic leader which we lack.
What I am reading is the lack of scepticism and a faith in the system. Maybe that is good enough to say it can not happen. But no one has offered any substantial arguements why it can’t.
I would suggest that the fear of a fascist state is mainly what keeps it from happening, in any country. That fear does need to be fed once in a while. The real enemy is complacency, after all.
I don’t think the fear of a fascist state works because so few people know what fascism is. Or communism for that matter. People throw the words around for things they don’t like, but they don’t know what they’re saying. I remember comparing some of the fascists in Latin America to Hitler in another forum a few months ago, and people were lining up to flame me. Not because they thought the Latin American dictators were nice guys, but because they weren’t killing Jews, so they weren’t fascists, duh.
If you start talking about pan-invasive monitoring of citizens, secret police forces, secret courts, you can get a damn lot of people to line up for it. Especially if you talk about how America needs this, and how patriotic it is, and how only evil terrorist sympathizers are criticizing the idea.
I’ve never read the Sinclair Lewis novel, but I have been thinking a lot about ‘Come Niheveh, Come Tyre’ by Allen Drury.
From what I remember about the novel, I see some parallels (redistricting, the ‘taking back California’ recall, the Ashcroft justice department) to what is happening now.
Maybe I’ll have to reread the novel and see if it is, indeed, prophetic, or whether it is just my imperfect memory which makes it seem so.
of course nobody is going to agree to becoming a fascist state if that is the question they are asked.
what is being suggested is that all the chipping away at little freedoms turns you into a fascist state without you realising until it is waaaaaay too late.
its easy to pass rules that are patriotic, or only affect people who are comitting crimes, but innocent people accused of those crimes suddenly find they have no rights because they are accused of being criminals and then you realise you are in a fascist state
Well, obviously you haven’t been listening to Our Beloved Ashcroft.
All these things are completely crippling the terrorists. As a matter of fact, it’s working so well that the Attorney General can take time to travel the country on a speaking tour! If it wasn’t working, would he have time for that?
Of course not!
And as for it being used ONLY against bona fide terrorists…well, anyone who acts against the USA (whether flying jets into skyscrapers or stealing paperclips from the Pentagon) is obviously a terrorist.
As Dubya said, ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us.’
What, you thought he was talking to other countries?
How cute.
-Joe, who isn’t a paranoiac, but really doesn’t like what he sees
I don’t think there’s anything hysterical about being alarmed that DAs are prosecuting ordinary criminals with police powers that were clearly identified as to be used ONLY on terrorists when they were granted. I’ts one thing to say something presents a “slippery slope” problem. It’s another thing to see it slide.
And what about the 150 local governemnts that have passed resoutions opposing the Patriot Act? Are they goddamed hysterical ninnies?
Who do you think you’re kidding here Polecat, other than yourself?
Count me with the ninnies. I’d say that it is alarming, the extent to which we are surveilled, yea, even unto the interiors of our bodies. I refer, of course, to employment drug testing. As one with libertarian views in that sphere, I find it disturbing that this aspect of drug enforcement is being carried out far more effectively by private business than the state could ever have hoped, by the simple strategy of linking one’s livelihood with compliance.
Like I said, you’re a bunch of hysterical ninnies. There’s no point in trying to reason with frightened little children who have scared themselves silly over the boogeyman, so I won’t try. Buh-bye.