Can it happen here?

[Astarho]

Poll question: Can it happen here?

I'm not asking anyone to believe or disbelieve in any "conspiracy theory". I'm just wondering if you think America could fall into totalitarianism, fascism, or a dictatorship

[Myra]

1. Other = It already happened here.

It's not theory, it's history.

[DFLforever]

2. I agree with Myra -

Bush admin 2000-2004 = crypto-fascism
Bush admin 2004-2008? - fascism delux

[creativelcro]

13. Yup

[durutti]

39. Hyperbole, anyone?

Saying that American today is fascist is an insult to all those who suffered under Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

45. Yep...the U. S. became a Fascist nation in December 2000...

...which was the month the U.S. Supreme Court decided to select Junior as the first Leader of the New World Order.

Anyone that believes otherwise has NOT been paying attention.

[Selwynn]

3. If we do there is no one to blame but US.

I am responsible for what goes on in my country.

If there are any of you who post things about how the country is falling apart or how democracy is being ripped to shreds who have done nothing but sit on your butts and watch while it happens, well .. shame on you.

I'm not accusing DU member, or even speaking of DUers directly. I'm just saying that you don't really earn the right to wail and moan about the downfall of our republic if you'be been an enabler the entire time. Now, for those of you who have busted your ass and given blood sweat and tears to the defense of civil liberties, voluneerism, community action, rallying protesting, getting out, speaking out, and being active locally and nationally - then I think you've earned a right to say a few words.

That's what I'd like to see on the boards. Nevermind the gold star for being a donator. I'd like to see a blue star that represents every man woman or child who is a regular contributer to more than one progressive activist organization, who has written more than ten letters to congressmen and represntatives, who has attentded more than one political rally or protest, who is a regular registered voter, who has written at least one op-ed piece for a local publication, who speaks out daily to friends and neighbors about the issues of the day, who volunteers personal time regular to social work or political action.

Now there's a star that would mean something. (Er, well not meant as a dis on the gold star, just emphasizing how much we all can and should be doing about the things we see and hear.)

Sel
(Blue Star)

[SpiralHawk]

12. The elders said to watch for the Blue Star

It will mark an important turning point, an acceleration.

Then the Blue Star Kachina will also dance in the plaza. Masks will be removed. Everyone will know what is to come. Say the Hopi Sinon.

White Feather of the Bear Clan:
An ancient Hopi Indian prophecy states, "When the Blue Star Kachina makes its appearance in the heavens, the Fifth World will emerge".

This will be the Day of Purification. The Hopi name for the star Sirius is Blue Star Kachina. It will come when the Saquasohuh (Blue Star) Kachina dances in the plaza and removes his mask.

[Bucky]

15. ... and treat the omen with Blue Star Ointment

Stops itching fast

ahhh... that feels so good.

[davekriss]

40. "Get off the internet, I'll see you in the streets"

The subject title a motif from a list server where I participate.

Blue star here (except for the "op-ed" piece). However much I agree with you Sel, there is value to the awakening of awareness that boards such as these enable. Let the newly awakened work out their knowledge and conceptions here, even if they've never ventured a vote before. Activism is step two, the very necessary step two.

[jbm]

4. I think we're there...

but I'm not worried anymore. I read something several years ago(I'd be more specific if I could remember more details) that said something like 'when the left is in disarray and the right enters a period of disconnect,then revolution will follow." The other day I was listening to the CNBC stock market morning show and the host was asking some economist guy why Wal-Marts sales had declined. The guy said,"because people have so much more money now that they're shopping at stores like Neiman Marcus." It occured to me that maybe I had just heard the defining moment of disconnect.

A few years ago I thought the divide between liberal and conservative thinking was probably not as distant as it appeared. In fact,I thought that for the conservatives to see things as drastically differently then I did meant that maybe I was missing out on some bit of information that would make it all fit. Now,I'm almost convinced it's some biological wiring or something,but who knows?

I have been reading and searching and I do not claim for even one second to be an expert (or even qualify as a novice) on any of this stuff,but I have stumbled across some interesting theories that seem to have held true historically. I can't swear this came from Antonio Gramsci,and I don't have the book here to check,but I'm thinking he was the one who described how the left will initially try to move forward using conservative means,but that it will fail. What ultimately happens is that the right creates a ceiling that traditional legislations and behaviors can't penetrate,and so eventually,the lefts reaction will take some 'bigger' form,because it has no other choice. (This is entirely my paraphrasing and interpretations). I don't know that the 'bigger form' must be violent,but I believe that it must occur. You can't stop progress,even if it may not look very progressive when it happens. I think it is the way things must go,and I don't think that there is any reason to believe that human nature has somehow undergone some massive change that will prevent it from happening again.

If there is a safety valve built into the american system to prevent it from happening,I haven't been able to identify it...and I think that the left truly is feeling rather powerless right now and that the right is creating a ceiling that feels very heavy. I don't know that it has to happen now. Maybe the swing voters will correct the imbalance,maybe the conservatives will take a step back and realize that they've pushed to hard,but I think that people have been driven by and resisting and recreating the same forces throughout history,and maybe it's time to experience it all again. The fact the civilization continues to progress tells me in advance who will win though! :)

[Charlls]

23. i think you are talking about transition phases...

When water is at the boiling temperature, bubbles start to grow size; at first vapor is confined in disconnected bubbles; but at some point the bubbles grow to a point where they all touch together, and now the water is confined in disconnected vapor drops.

About safety valves, You may want to read this
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=25124

[jbm]

29. Thanks Charlls...

I'm in such early stages of trying to understand how it all fits together,that I'm going to take your word for it that I'm talking about transition phases..lol. I like your analogy,and I read the post you linked to with interest. Thanks for the response!

[thebigidea]

5. oh goodie! Lets have another thread about alienating swing voters

with Bush/Hitler comparisons!

Just to get the usual fun people started, I offer the following infuriating idiocy:

[RBHam]

19. The parrallels are far too obvious - there's even a family connection.

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/bushnonazi.html

[JanMichael]

6. Have you been reading Sinclair Lewis?

My answer?

Yes. It can indeed happen here.

[Zomby Woof]

9. or listening to Zappa

(who probably had Lewis in mind when his debut album repeated the mantra "It can't happen here!")

[guitar man]

7. Yes it can happen here

All it takes is the type of gross complacency that has become evident in the majority of the American people these days. Most people are more interseted in Michael Jackson or Paris Hilton than they are a nation in distress in the form of Chimpy and his buddies.

As long as the majority decides who they want to vote for based on sound bytes and headlines rather than investing a little time into some research and critical thinking about who is to govern the nation,we are just so many sheep to the slaughter.

[Zomby Woof]

8. America is already quasi-fascist

The idealization of military power, the fetishism with the flag and other symbols we equate more with might and power - even to religious iconic levels - rather than freedom or liberty. There is the pressure to conform, which chills free expression, and most fascisty of all, the blurred lines between private corporate control and ownership by the government. The lobbyists for corporations now AUTHOR much of the legislation put forth by the GOP Congress. Regulation is an inconvenience to be erased. Accountability is for suckers. They are taking care of everything, so wave your flag, and be grateful for your freedom! Don't ask questions, either. You can sense the vibe in national discourse. For every letter to the editor raising even the mildest of criticism for the government or Bush, comes 20 more to shout you down and impugn your patriotism or intelligence. Then that teacher in another thread who called one of our young DUers "disgusting" because he didn't participate in the daily religious-national ritual of the Pledge. It's in the air.

Fascism comes in different flavors. Spanish Fascism was different than German Nazi Fascism on many levels, or Japanese Fascism. It ties in to which parts of each culture and its existing governmental/economic structures are in place so as to accent fascism's various qualities. Much like the way a prism shows you a different color of light depending on which angle you hold it to the source. (Example: Americans have always been taught to revere the flag, so it is apparent it was one of the first cultural watermarks to manifest itself with the new fascism - talk of Constitutional amendments and so forth to make its sanctity official). So America has its own peculiar brand in the works. Though there were prescient signs in the 1920's - the Red Scare and Palmer raids, the Sacco & Vanzetti case, the rebirth of the KKK - the modern flavor began in seedling form with the creation of the National Security state in 1947, post-Potsdam Conference and the divvying up of Europe, with the NSA, the CIA,... and made its first kicks in the womb with McCarthyism a few years later. Nixon advanced the cause (Kent State, FBI/CIA abuses, Watergate), but it was Reagan who gave fascism its Great Leap Forward (privatized national security in Latin America, secret government from the WH basements, Coors beer buying airplanes to smuggle arms to the Contras, et al).

9/11 was JUST the national rallying point/trauma center to awaken the latent fascist tendencies in some Americans, after the initial shock and grief subsided. The manipulation of fear and emphasizing the dangers of external threats - part and parcel of fascism (qualities which also ebbed and flowed during the Cold War) - got new life in the PATRIOT ACT and the new national chilling of open dialogue, as well as the ostensible takeover of the government by corporations and their Republican lackeys in all three branches of government.

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there...

[HereSince1628]

21. The question is what should it be called?

I agree that "political winter" is taking hold, your post reads like my diaries...

But classic fascism is a reaction of the middle-class, the symbiosis of government and business has government picking the dance tunes in a manner that benefits the middle class by enriching the nation.

What is happening here, is that most of the typology of fascism is manifest...but its NOT a movement of the middle class endeavoring to reign in corporations to serve the good of the nation. Rather its the coportations and the needs of corporations that are picking the tunes, at the expense of the middleclass. Rather than being a reaction to increasing demands of industrialization, this seems to be a post-industrial movement featuring the capitalized elite.

What does one call fascism of, by and for the rich? Tyranny of course, but by what name?

Instead of using fascism to build a nation, we seem to be devolving toward a post-industrial governance that endorses corporate colonialism, while the regime proper employs the methods of rw authoritarianism, conservative restorationism (a political personality cult: Reaganism), and militarism to establish a rationalization for the cropping of the middlestandt's economic, hence political, base.

(As an aside to my own post, the very bizarre aspect of this is that the current neo-con cabal claims an international authority based on victory over communism. Unfortunately, with the possibility of the middle class resisting via a right wing movement, the political environment the regime is creating could force the disenchanted (if not disenfranchised) middleclass to seek redress through a movement on the left with a strong anti-laissez-faire (if not socialist) character.)

PM me ZW if you have an idea about what this is called

[Zomby Woof]

22. Lots to chew on

Thanks for giving me new angles to approach the construct and contrasting it to orthodox fascism.

I am not sure I have a name for it, but because it isn't classical fascism, I chose "quasi" as a qualifier in my post title, because it has the essence, or what you termed the 'typology', of fascism.

Using the "post" or "neo" prefix must be required, because none of the previous models of colonialism, imperialism, fascism, or other relevant -isms seem adequate. Your passage that struck me most was "(As an aside to my own post, the very bizarre aspect of this is that the current neo-con cabal claims an international authority based on victory over communism.)"

So the neocons are asserting a "divine right" to rule in a manner of speaking. Nature abhorred the vacuum left by the removal of the Cold War's bipolar tension, and the victorious neocons happily filled it. There's more I can say on that, but staying on topic...

Perhaps since neoconservatism is the prevailing contemporary ideology, and subverts the classical definition of conservatism, then neofascist is the proper term for how America subverts and employs the typologies of classical fascism to meet the demands of neocon rule.

Neofascism: Post-industrial, post-technological, post-consumerist, post-colonial, and perhaps one day, post-middle class.

[Philostopher]

26. And, see, another problem I've noticed in dialogue on this is ...

As soon as you use the word, 'fascism' (or fascistic), some people will dispute the label like they'll kick when the doctor hits their knee with a hammer, regardless of whether they can dispute the facts or not, because they object to the label. They can't provide cogent arguments against the definition of fascism and how it compares to the direction of our current government, but they get queasy about the bundle of sticks. Instead of arguing the point, they simply repeat their mantra, "this isn't (insert prior fascistic regime); therefore, it simply isn't happening."

I know other liberals and non-neocons who will complain heartily about the fact the popular press appear to be in shackles, we're being spun around like two BBs in a little centrifugal force puzzle, the arts are pressured to support the regime or risk boycott, things we buy have little value beyond bringing a profit to the retailer who sold them to us, all our own labor produces little for our benefit unless we do it for ourselves, we're told we're unpatriotic if we criticize the figurehead or his rotten behavior, we're un-American if we don't conform, consume and obey (as Mr. Snaffleburger says), we're given philosophically and aesthetically empty symbols to worship instead of meaning ... and yet the word fascism itself is objectionable to them because that's not Mussolini they're seeing on CNN, so it isn't like it was in Italy, so it has nothing to do with fascism. Because it isn't, that's why.

When you tell them, "just because it's not exactly like the manifestation of fascism that occurred in Italy or Germany, that doesn't mean there's not at least a strong element of fascism to the way those hucksters and schemers are manipulating the public trust, that doesn't mean there aren't comparisons; you have to get past particular regimes and into the definition to understand what I'm trying to say," why do they pull the la-la-la! I'm putting my fingers in my ears! I'm not listening! I'm not listening! la-la-la! trick?

Sometimes, I feel like I live in Pee Wee's Playhouse.

(edited typo -- it's late and I need to go to bed.)

[jbm]

33. good point...

Over the years I've noticed that quite often we only "learn from our mistakes" if life recreates the exact same identical scenario. Change the situation even a little,and we're just as dumb the second go around. Famous last words,"but,but..it's DIFFERENT this time!"

The posts on this thread have been very informative. Stuff like this is my favorite part of DU!

[VOX]

27. Back in February, Norman Mailer wrote that the U.S. is "pre-fascist"

I recall being quite stricken by this piece back in February, and re-reading it tonight, I am again astonished by Mailer's foresight and insight into the whole mess

Particularly intriguing is his notion that attempting to establish democracy in Iraq is anathema to terrorists, as they are fundamentalists, and efforts to bring democracy to the region will probably result in fomenting more terrorism:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/27/1046064162690.html

There's one way to protect democracy - send in the fascists

February 28 2003

There is a subtext to what the "Bushites" are doing as they prepare for war in Iraq. My hypothesis is that George Bush and many conservatives have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save the United States and get it off its down slope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that we might lose our democracy in the process.
<snip>
They also expect to bring democracy to the region and believe that in itself will help to diminish terrorism. I expect the opposite will happen: terrorists are not impressed by democracy. They loathe it. They are fundamentalists of the most basic kind. The more successful democracy is in the Near East (not likely in my view), the more terrorism it will generate. It will only make the terrorists more desperate to defeat it.
<snip>
My guess, though, is that, like it or not or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. It will be an ever greater and greater overlay on the American system. And before it is all over democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. My long experience with human nature - I'm 80 years old now - suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state.

Indeed, democracy is the special condition - a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America already.

[Zomby Woof]

36. whichever flavor it is

Or how many labels he, you, or I can conjure, it walks, talks, and smells like fascism to me.

Ah, time for some renewal with my Woody Guthrie recordings...

[davekriss]

42. Corporate Feudalism

And the middleclass continues to channel surf to serfdom at the cathode-ray nipple of the corporatist state.

I recall a slimbook by Robert Heilbroner in the mid-seventies, The Decline of Business Civilization, that hinted at the current state of affairs.

[Cat Atomic]

10. Absolutely. The religious right has been gaining more and more

influence in the Republican Party for the last couple of decades. They've gone from being the fringe to being the base. Republicans buy their votes with symbolic things like prayer in school, but there may come a time when the base is not so easily appeased.

We've already got corporatists vying for control of most everything, but corporatists are more interested in the status-quo. They aren't going to upset the apple cart- they just want to buy it and make you push it.

Christian fundamentalists are ideologically driven. They're liable to burn the apple cart up because the Garden of Eden stories suggest apples are evil.

[IronLionZion]

11. It hurts that people think it happened already

because you don't have the slightest idea. Sure it seems like we're headed there and all the ingredients are there but no. We are still freer than Cuba/China/North Korea and nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. We would not have DU in a fascist government and our protestors would die on the spot.

So I really hope you are joking.

[Q]

14. Protestors don't 'die on the spot'...they're rounded up and put in 'pens'.

- 'Modern' fascism doesn't need violence to attain its goals. They can use the laws already in place...under the auspices of a 'state of emergency' to suppress the voice of the people and eliminate the checks and balances normally present in a representative government.

- A fascist government needs only to control that which poses a threat. DU is no real threat...so we're allowed to squaw and complain to each other without restraint. Protestors are more of a threat because they're in the public eye. Thus...the corporate media is told to ignore them and law enforcement becomes the paramilitary entity to round them up and herd them into pens where they can't be heard.

- While it's true that we have a bigger cage than the people in China and North Korea...we're no more 'free' than they in many respects.

[incapsulated]

18. Really?

I've taken part in several demonstrations over the past few years and I wasn't put in any pen.

Just as there is a danger in complacency and self-satisfaction, there is also a danger in overstating our situation and hyberbole. It leads to helplessness and inaction.

We have the right to vote, yet half of us don't bother. No one is putting a gun to their head to stop them that I know of. Yes, there was 2000 and there are all sorts of voting problems. But if more of us actually voted, those problems would not be as ignored as they presently are. We are in danger, not of being "taken over" by fascists, but by allowing them to slowly infest the system through our own apathy and misplaced priorities (like "buy more stuff" and "watch more tv").

If we allow the country to slip into a totalitarian nightmare, it's not as if we didn't have fair warning, so who is to blame but ourselves?

[corporatewhore]

24. you werent protestin if you werent put in any pen

just kidding
There is a real danger in protesting nowadays when bush diverts eight and a half million dollars from the eighty seven for iraq and afgahnastan. I saw peaceful protesters shot (with rubber bullets that ripped a girls earlobe) chemically assualted with tear gas and pepperspray tazered and beaten for peacfully dispersing after the cops told them if they did so they would be ok. a seventy one year old union retiree was also arrested at gun point. This all happened at miami during the ftaa talks.Churches/residents that were hosting protesters were bullied by cops before the protests as well. So yeah our right to protest safely is endangered .Protesters were also arrested for no reason before the protests.scary times

[Astarho]

31. Never in the poll

Did I have the option of "It already happened" I have heard many comments both on DU and off that seemed to say Fascism doesn't happen in America. I was curious if that was how many people here felt.

Sure it seems like we're headed there and all the ingredients are there...

No, we are not to Hitlerian levels, yet, but Hitler started out somewhere too. We are also futher on the road to the Fourth Reich then many people would like to admit.

[Cleita]

47. As a reminder, Hitler didn't hit "Hitlarian" levels until

he was well esconced in power. At first the Germans couldn't see their rights eroding, but there were those directives about not hiring Jews and those signs that announced in stores and restaurants that Jews would not be served because they were the reason for everything that had gone wrong in Germany. In our universe, how about all those ME types who want to bomb us that the conservatives are referring to? How about those terror alerts. No one even thinks that another Timothy McVeigh could be the author of the next terror attack. It has to be an Arab type.

The arrests of Jews were a trickle at first but became more blatant with mostly trumped up charges as the years passed. The flow to the camps was slow at first but started to build in crescendo as the Nazis consolidated their power until they reached the full scale atrocities that the allies found after conquering the Nazis.

The press was more immediately silenced. Anyone who published something that didn't paint the Nazis in a good light found themselves being squeezed out of a job or bending and complying not to be targeted. This happened from the very beginning of Hitler's chancellorship. Eventually all periodicals and newspapers that survived echoed the Nazi party ideology. Things were not reported that didn't make the Nazis look good. Often stories were made up or embellished for political purposes. Anything familiar here?

[HereSince1628]

35. Well I'm not kidding when I say we are at the cusp.

A new improved version of tyranny is going to be free from at least some of the excesses of versions that have failed.

It's in the interest of the regime to keep people going to work, attending to family needs, etc., rather than having the regime do something that would awakwen and rally semi-somulent citizens to overt resistance.

Consequently, that DU exists is neither evidence for nor against this disturbing state of affairs. It can be accounted for under either, and we are forced, thereby, to look in other places for evidence.

[BackDoorMan]

16. It's happened!

Wake up! Truly...

[RBHam]

17. It already has.

Take a look around you.

[Mis-an-thrope1111]

20. OUR FREEDOM

is in the shopping malls

in the gas stations

in the car lots

our freedom is a consumer freedom, and for most humans, thats all they want

people won't revolt in america until they don't have the freedom to consume obscene amounts and wonder why the poor and starving of the world "hate our freedom"

If you replace the word "freedom" with the word "consumer gluttony"
in the Bushite Rhetoric, it all makes perfect sense.

To a large extent that gluttony is epitomized by the automobile, the symbol of american freedom.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

28. Amen. We are 'free' to drive around and buy shit. Not control our gov't.

We are not educated in youth or informed by journalists to be informed citizens who validate our own governance, the definition of democracy. We are raised from day one in a matrix of lies controlled by illegitimate authorities (redundant, there is no such thing as 'authority')who serve themselves by committing mass murder in the name of 'nationalism.'

[corporatewhore]

25. evidence of facism nafta/wto/ftaa/cafta

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

[mmonk]

30. Yes

Though I used to think no. Then the current admin and all the propaganda and anger came along.

[ramapo]

32. Just finished the Lewis book...It's happened in part

How about calling german measles "Liberty Measles" or sauerkraut "Liberty Cabbage? Sound familiar?

How about the "Corpos" (for the corporate ones) ruling the country?

There are amazing similarities between the "fictional" events as written by Lewis and the real events of the past few years.

We don't have the concentration camps quite yet (although Gitmo comes mighty close) but we are further down the fascist road than I ever imagined.

[populistmom]

34. We're already too damn close

The Constitution has been renderred alomost meaningless. They can round you up, call you a terrorist, and keep you without legal counsel. Today it's someone with brown skin who happened to be born halfway around the world (therefore most sheeple don't give a damn), tomorrow it's their political enemies, the next day it's you.

[amber dog democrat]

37. We're headed that way.

if it has not in fact happened already.
I am thinking more and more about Sinclair Lewis these days.
It won't take much to remove the veneer of civil rights.
We are already in a dangeroulsy statist situation. The end run around habeus corpus laws as well as the posse commiutatis ( sp? ) has me thinking the pieces are being put in place - so that when the trap is sprung, it will be a fiat accompli.

My real question is what next? What do we do about it?

[durutti]

38. Not likely in the foreseeable future.

Fascism is a term that is used too loosely by liberals. True fascism is characterized by certain social, political, and economic dynamics that are mostly absent from American society today.

[MrPrax]

41. I voted Immune...

One of the great things about America is the fact people instinctively hate government.

From it's very inception, government (esp. Big Government, Inc.) is an anethma to most Americans and any attempt to impose a totalitarian order would be opposed by subvertly, if not overtly.

That is also the problem with America--inability to coalese around any important issue; strident individualism and a mantle of 'don't tread on me' doesn't lend itself to a fulfilled totalitarian vision...

[Padraig18]

43. If we are not vigilant enough, yes. n/t

[banana republican]

44. It already has!!!!

eom

[hippywife]

46. Google these:

Espionage Act 1917
Sedition Act 1918
The Palmer Raids
Soviet Ark Buford

And this all pre-dated the McCarthy era. It has happened and it can happen again. The Patriot Act is just a repeat performance.

What was that saying about those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it?? We repeat it over and over again.