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You’ve probably heard some variation on this quote: “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross,” possibly attributed to Sinclair Lewis or Huey Long. The only problem: there’s no evidence that either men said it.
But Sally Parry of the Sinclair Lewis Society provides us with two similar passages written by Lewis:
From It Can’t Happen Here (1935): “But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word ‘Fascism’ and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.”
From Gideon Planish (1943): “I just wish people wouldn’t quote Lincoln or the Bible, or hang out the flag or the cross, to cover up something that belongs more to the bank-book and the three golden balls.”
Also, the author behind the site What Shii Knows has done some research and found two other possible sources:
“It is a peculiarity of the development of American fascism that at the present stage it comes forward principally in the guise of an opposition to fascism, which it accuses of being an “un-American” trend imported from abroad.” – Georgi Dimitrov, in his report delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in 1935.
“When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’” – An uncredited New York Times reporter covering Halford E. Luccock in an article published September 12, 1938.
See Also
Is it too late to stop fascism in the US?
The Duggars and Quiverfull – The Cult Behind The Family
There’s also been some debate about whether James Madison ever said “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” My research on the subject is here.
at 7:50 pm
The wikipedia entry on distributism is relevant to this question.
at 1:00 pm
I know that James Madison said “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy?” and he couldn’t be more right. But it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said “A good war makes sacred any cause.” which is equally prescient given the current conflicts.
at 12:06 pm
Actually, Robert, you’re wrong. Madison never said that either. Never helps to replace one made up quote with another. Instead of relying on wiser people to express your thoughts, just say: “I think XYZ.” That way you’ll always know who’s responsible for your own thoughts….
at 4:32 pm
Mr. Mann …A little problem with saying that James Maddison never said that. Almost every site on Google says he did. I am no historian, so I have to do my own research when something comes-up, but I suggest you start doing the same thing.
at 7:26 pm
I did some research on this: http://technoccult.net/archives/2011/10/16/did-james-madison-say/
It doesn’t look like Madison said “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy?” But he did say: “The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”
at 9:42 am
He’s not ‘wrong’, or right.
But you are completely wrong.
The self absorbed Pseudo intellectual usually is
at 11:04 am
I don’t give a flip who said it, its the truest statement I’ve ever heard. Fellow liberals, you need to learn to shoot too.
at 6:44 pm
Plenty of liberal own guns, and can hit what they aim at. Anyone who believes otherwise are ignorantly putting their fate in the hands of myths
at 1:23 am
And a lot of us liberals went to SE Asia back in the day as patriots and came back feeling like mercenaries; like the “Good Germans” in WW II movies who — while despising the Nazis – were still loyal to their country….
And a lot of us were taught various and sundry “interesting” skills and tradecraft at places like Ft Benning, Ft Bragg, Ft Sherman, Indianhead, Eglin AFB, Ft Holabird, Vint Hill, Camp Perry, and other places.
We have fought those enemies of the Constitution of the United States of America — both domestic and foreign — before and we will continue to do so.
Some of us are not Abrahamic, but we all regard the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Amendments to the Constitution as sacred.
Don’t even think about telling me who, what or how I may worship! Don’t even think about trying to tell me or my children or grandchildren whom they may love or marry!
And don’t try to make me try to live under yourreligious laws! I’m neither Muslim nor Mormon; Baptist nor Buddhist; Jewish nor Jain, Shinto nor Sikh!
I am a good, Goddess worshiping Wiccan and I will fight back against any theocracy which anyone may try to set up here in this land of mine – The United States of America!
at 1:55 am
Apologies…
I forgot to add my signatures…
—————
Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
— Robert A. Heinlein
—————
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
— Robert A. Heinlein
at 2:03 am
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd184/RangerJimK/Military/MyMilitarySig-1.jpg
at 9:07 pm
Actually, Madison never said this. It may be an inaccurate and out of context paraphrase of: “Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.”
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1798-05-13); published in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. II, p. 141
at 12:48 am
Sinclair Lewis said it– in response to an interviewer’s question about his Popular Front novel It Can’t Happen Here. I can’t attribute the exact source at the moment, although I think the interview originally ran in Partisan Review.
As long as I’ve been aware of what Sarah Palin is, the brand of paranoid cultural politics she purveys, the slice of humanity she appeals to, I’ve been tirelessly recommending Lewis’ novel (to borrow an expression from Hemingway) TO EVERY LITERATE PERSON I MEET. Read it– and as you do, substitute “Sarah Palin” for “Buzz Windrip” throughout. The similarities– the appeals to rural white populism, knownothingism, cultural resentment, et al.– are uncanny.
at 1:03 am
Oh, and a (minor) correction: he said wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, not waving a cross.
Sinclair wrote his book with the left-wing populism of Huey Long in mind. Anyone who has read the novel and is familiar with Long can’t miss Buzz Windrip as his fictional doppelganger. That said, the novel’s main points deal with populism per se; whether that populism is tilted left or right makes no difference. Populism ( as the historian John Lukacs pointed out in his brilliant slim volume Populism and Deomcracy: Fear and Hatred) is at bottom a mass movement fueled by envy and resentment. Anyone not palpably moronic or insane can see the similarities between the left-wing Huey Long populism of the 30s and the present day rightwing Palin variety. They are both based on appeals to the undereducated rurual white trash and the fundamentalists. This garbage was dangerous eighty years ago and it is dangerous today. That’s why Lewis’ novel is still relevant.
at 7:34 am
When I hear the things the Tea Party wants to do and the things they support (SB1070, the repeal of constitutional amendments they can’t fit around their ideology, Idaho GOP deligates wanting to take the voters out of the congressional election process, support of corperatist policies at the expense of the poor, disabled, and elderly, unfounded McCarthy like suspicion of those who disagree with them, patriotism morphed into nationalism) I can’t help but think, “If these guys get their way, we will be, essintially a fascist country. It scares the hell out of me.
at 12:59 am
it can’t happen here is available as a free ebook from project gutenberg australia. ctrl+f of the document fails to find that quote, or any three word fragments of it. try again.
at 4:19 am
my name sez “it can’t happen here is available as a free ebook from project gutenberg australia. ctrl+f of the document fails to find that quote, or any three word fragments of it. try again.”
Pay attention: “Sinclair Lewis said it – in response to an interviewer’s question…”
at 10:11 pm
It Can’t Happen Here was published in 1935 and time machines have not been invented, so a reporter in 1938 was not the source.
at 9:41 am
Since Lewis was responding to an interviewer’s question about the book, it makes perfect sense that the book had been out three years and gathering media attention before the author made this remark.
at 10:11 pm
It has happened here. That is why we are fighting against it, and, for our pains, get called nasty names by well-meaning people who do not have the facts. I go to a community college in LA, and it is nothing but a socialist cesspit. The corruption and contempt are sick-making. I had always considered myself something of a socialist, until I had my eyes opened about the lies I’d believed all my life. I understand why people still believe those lies. Please remember, next time you are feeling sorry for illegals, that illegals don’t want you in this country. I know that now. I hope you never get to find out.
at 12:52 am
@ Kate Powell:
What the heck are you saying? I’m not on put-down mode; I just can’t figure out what you mean by, “…next time you are feeling sorry for illegals, that illegals don’t want you in this country.”
What does that MEAN?
at 2:31 am
Hello !
Schools teach that the United States of America is a democracy. The government was established as “of, by, and for the people” and later on, a President Abraham Lincoln called the nation’s people to join and die in a civil war that such a thing might never perish from the earth. Aside from the extent the lesson was ever in accord with the truth, it has today become an outright absurdity. The Supreme Court has declared once and for all that the corporations will rule. The United States of America is now better described as a corporatocracy. The government is owned and dictated to by these capitalist creations whose God is Mammon.
Corporations are, of course, different from people. They are devoid of human emotion. They are constitutionally unable to generate empathy. They feel nothing if people suffer exploitation, if people live in misery, or if people die horribly. Union Carbide was unaffected by the thousands dead and dying in Bhopal. It registered only on the balance sheet, a $470-million loss taken for the sake of future corporate viability under a new name, Dow Chemical. The corporation will not be reasoned with, pleaded with, or shamed into changing course even when life on the planet hangs in the balance. McDonald’s is in the process of teaching Starbucks that even the pretense of a social conscience is a losing marketing ploy.
The corporation recognizes and reacts only to threats to its air supply-profits. So in one sense corporations do share something with human beings. They have an instinct for self-preservation and if they are deprived of a life giving element they die. While human beings must have oxygen and water, the corporation’s lifeblood is those quarterly profits. The corporation must make a profit and then ever greater profits into the future. Corporate profits must grow, forever! Irrational, impossible, unsustainable but that is in the nature of the beast-much as lemmings rush to the sea.
The parameters are the same in every corner of the globalized economy. The greatest possible profit is a product of the highest possible productivity and the lowest possible wage. US corporations have moved everything that isn’t nailed down to lower wage countries. Nothing is made in today’s de-industrialized United States. American consumer’s service calls are answered in Ireland, India, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic. Major League baseballs are made in Haiti and the recent deadly earthquake won’t change that. AirJordans come out of Nike’s sweatshops in Indonesia. Microsoft conducts 85% of its research in the US so Bill Gates fights to lift H-1B visa restrictions to bring the low wage high-tech workers here from India and Taiwan. Halliburton is now headquartered in Dubai and preparing to receive its old boss, Dick Cheney, in his retirement years.
To survive under their profit imperative corporations must undertake a never ending process of consolidation. There is consolidation by horizontal integration. For instance, numerous US corporations once dotted the auto making landscape. In the recent past it was down to the Big Three. Today Chrysler is doomed, Ford is on life support, and General Motors is on its knees. In the corporate world of the near future cars will be made in Japan, or China, or India. Ultimately, the industry will settle in one corporate entity.
There is consolidation by vertical integration and its champion is Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation. Wal-Mart has made a partner of the Chinese government. Working together, the partners have turned China into a vast subsistence-wage labor camp. China supplies Wal-Mart so it has no need of domestic vendors like the now destroyed Rubbermaid. Armed with the lowest production costs, Wal-Mart’s rise up on every other street corner selling every commodity imaginable and every service the corporation can get its hooks into. Wal-Mart lays waste to local economies and then picks up the pieces to become the only butcher, baker and candlestick maker in town. The corporation recently moved to provide banking services in its stores.
The US government has been hollowed out during the rise to absolute power of the corporations. Elections have become an elaborate “reality show” that plays out on corporate television for viewers entertainment. If you watch FOX, your reality is filtered through Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, NBC is General Electric news, CNN is Time/Warner news, ABC brings you into Disney’s world, and Viacom regularly checks the iconic CBS news department to make sure Edward R. Murrow is still dead. That is when Viacom is not preparing America’s youth for slavery and death through MTV and B.E.T.
The actual counting of the American people’s votes is done by the corporations. Little wonder giant defense contractor United Technologies recently moved to take the job off Diebold’s hands. Corporate sentinels, the lobbyists, roam the halls of government enforcing discipline among their hired hands, allowing the most servile to feed longest at the public trough. So the Congress has not passed legislation and the Supreme Court has not decided a case, in which significant wealth was involved, in favor of the people in thirty years. Each and every decision of US government now transfers wealth from the people to the corporate masters.
The corporations now have in their sights the last remaining institutional pillars of American democracy. The Business Roundtable, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation have been working mightily to crash the public schools. Wall Street is funding the effort to gain control of the Social Security trust fund for its investment bankers. And the whole corporate gang is intent on “starving the beast” or killing state and local governments. Their success in this effort is probably best expressed in Hawaii where the number of days children spend in school has been paired from 180 to 163, and in Detroit where teachers will give $500 a pay period back to the state, and in New Orleans where there are only a handful of public schools left, and in the states from California to New York to Florida where public school budgets have been slashed to the bone.
Then finally, there is the most ominous development of all. The corporations have begun forming their own Praetorian Guard. The massacre of Iraqi civilians and the patrolling of the hurricane ravaged streets of New Orleans have made Xe, formerly Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, the most famous of the rising corporate armies. Contrary to any notion of cost effectiveness, mercenaries protect US State Department personnel in Iraq instead of the regular military. It seems not to make sense, unless the corporatocracy is looking ahead to a day when they can no longer trust the US military to carry out attacks on an American people’s resistance.
Regards
at 1:02 am
Tim:
Thanks for this concise and thoughtful analysis. You have accurately summarized my last two decades of political analyses! This should be published elsewhere so more folks can read it!
Thanks, Bill
at 5:59 am
Great post and very thoughtful analysis. Here’s one by Laurence Britt. You’ve probably heard it too:
14 POINTS OF FASCISM: THE WARNING SIGNS
In his original article, “Fascism Anyone?,” Laurence Britt (interview) compared the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet and identified 14 characteristics common to those fascist regimes. This page is a collection of news articles dating from the start of the Bush presidency divided into topics relating to each of the 14 points of fascism. Further analysis of American Fascism done by the POAC can be read by Googling these terms or using another search engine.
1.) POWERFUL AND CONTINUING NATIONALISM: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
? Family Security Matters — the right-wing front group, claims ‘multiculturalism’ threatens U.S.
? New Majority Leader: Iraq War “May Be The Greatest Gift That We Give” Our Grandchildren
? Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with the Pentagons war-marketing slogans
? White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies, despite the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces.
? “You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die.” The inside story of the cozy relationship between big box office American war movies and the Pentagon
2.) DISDAIN FOR THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
? Oopsie: Torture victim’s records lost at Guantánamo, admits camp general
? One of the worst things you’ll ever read about your government
? We are now a torturing police state: Bush signing into law that will get rid of habeas corpus, allow hearsay evidence, and allow the President to determine what is allowable torture.
? Bush Offers Himself Amnesty for Human Rights Crimes
? Bush threatens to veto $442b defense bill if Congress investigates detainee abuses.
? Guantanamo Judge: “I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.”
? Rumsfeld to approve new guidelines that will formalize the administration’s policy of imprisoning without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold “ghost detainees,”
? US ‘preparing to detain terror suspects for life without trial’
? U.S. oks evidence gained through torture
? July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries: because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution.
? US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention
3.) IDENTIFICATION OF ENEMIES/SCAPEGOATS AS A UNIFYING CAUSE: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
? Congressman: Muslims ‘enemy amongst us’
? SB 24, Ohio law to muzzle “liberals”
? Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has joined a conservative Washington think tank, where he will found and direct a program called “America’s Enemies.”
? Sean Hannity creates weekly “Enemy of the State” segment on his new program
? Fox radio hosts suggests putting liberal commentators and activists in concentration camps.
? World history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdale’s Mohave Middle School was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing right criticism of the book’s unbiased portrayal of Islam
? Rallies planned against ‘Islamofacism’: Event to ‘unify all Americans behind common goal’
4.) SUPREMACY OF THE MILITARY: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
? Bush’s Domestic Program Hit List
? Bush slashes domestic programs, boosts defense. Arlen Spector calls it “scandalous”
? Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House
? Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades
? Bush budget to cut funding for just about anything that helps people, gives $35 billion more to the Pentagon (not including war costs), and guarantees record deficits for decades to come.
? President threatens veto of $11B increase in education, health research and border security funding. Meanwhile, Iraq war costs taxpayers $12B a month
? Bush lobbies Congress to have the funds saved from his veto of children’s health care to be spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $45.9-billion emergency request would push the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to over $600 billion.
? 8 states sue Bush Administration for cuts to Children Insurance Programs
? Many national parks will have to cut back on staff due to a $2.5 billion budget cut, the equivalent to one week of the Iraq war
? Bush wants to cut Iraq war funding. Just kidding, he wants to cut funding for a program that gives health insurance to poor children. Governors from both parties are opposing it.
? Three cable channels now feed news, information and entertainment about the armed services into millions of living rooms 24 hours a day, seven days a week: The Military Channel, the Military History Channel and the Pentagon Channel.
5.) RAMPANT SEXISM: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
? It’s legal again, to fire gov’t workers for being gay
? Bush calls for Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages
? Bush refuses to sign U.N proposal on women’s “sexual” rights
? W. David Hager chairman of the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs.
? The State Department has awarded an explicitly anti-feminist U.S. group part of a US$10 million grant to train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy.
6.) CONTROLLED MASS MEDIA: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
? At the White House Christmas party for the press last night, “conservative talk radio hosts dominated the place: President Bush “smiled, patted him on the back and said, ‘Keep it up. We need you guys.’”
? FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game
? Report shows U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens and the story gets only 41 mentions in the media
? Free Press details recent governmental propaganda efforts, from faux-correspondent Jeff Gannon to paid-off pundit Armstrong Williams, and from the demise of FOIA to video news releases passed off as news. also… See a Whitehouse fake news release here (opens realplayer)
? Fox”news” hack lets it slip: Shep Smith says ‘Fox is Bush’s network after all.
? US seizes webservers from independent media sites
? Bush’s war on information: US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers
7.) OBSESSION WITH NATIONAL SECURITY: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. Bush Aides ADMIT ‘stoking fear’ for political gain: Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry’s ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush’s image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.
? The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level.
? TSA agents save us from a 5 foot 1, 74-year-old Holocaust survivor grandmother who didn’t want to drop her pants in the Palm Beach International Airport
? Keith Olbermann: “The Nexus of Politics and Terror.”
? Cheney warns that if Kerry is elected, the USA will suffer a “devastating attack”
? Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue in 2006
8.) RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT ARE INTERTWINED: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
? Jerry Falwell cleared of charges that he broke federal election law by urging followers to vote for Bush
? NC congressman proposes law making it ok to preach politics from the pulpit
? Texas Governor Mobilizes Evangelicals
? Family research council: Justice Sunday
? Thou shalt be like Bush: What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close – critics say alarmingly close – links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment.
? Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon and other nat’l parks
9.) CORPORATE POWER IS PROTECTED: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
? The I.R.S.’s scrutiny of the nation’s biggest companies is at a 20-year low
? A Bush administration plan to crack down on contract fraud has a multibillion-dollar loophole: The proposal to force companies to report abuse of taxpayer money will not apply to work overseas, including projects to secure and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.
? Bush continues to abuse his power and issues a signing statement to avoid pesky things like a “commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan”
? 4,000 Mine Safety Violations Ignored On Bush Administration Watch
? Bush Reappoints Mine Safety Chief Who Bungled Crandall Canyon Disaster
? GAO report: The White House “pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to weaken requirements that companies annually disclose releases of toxic chemicals
? The K Street Project is a project by the Republican party to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. It was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist Grover Norquist and House majority leader Tom DeLay.
? American Conservative Magazine: One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag… and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.”
? There are 6 Congressional Committees investigating the Oil-for-Food (UN) scandal, yet not a single Republican Committee Chairman will call a hearing to investigate the whereabouts of 9 billion dollars missing in Iraq
? Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas: Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President’s elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients
10.) LABOR POWER IS SUPPRESSED: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
? Bush vows to veto anti-terror security bill if it allows airport screeners to unionize.
? Labor Department warns unions against using their money politically
? President Bush Attacks Organized Labor: Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding.
? March 2001: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending.
? Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days.
11.) DISDAIN FOR INTELLECTUALS AND THE ARTS: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
? The A to Z guide to political interference in science
? Bush’s new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education
? Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds.
? A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes
? Freedom of Repression: New ruling will allow censorship of campus publications
12.) OBSESSION WITH CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations
? Citizens who have done no more than criticize the president are being banned from airline flights, harassed at airports’, strip searched, roughed up and even imprisoned
? The 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006
? The United States has now become the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-8 times the rate of other industrialized nations.
? American Gestapo is here: “There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the ‘United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.’”
? America: secret jails, secret courts, secret arrests, and now secret laws
? Snitch-or-Go-to-Jail bill will make pretty much anything short of reporting on everyone you see for doing just about anything a jailable offense. With minimum sentences, up to and including life without parole.
? The problem with Gonzales is that he has been deeply involved in developing some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation’s history, allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time
? Police officers don’t have to give a reason at the time they arrest someone, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a ruling that shields officers from false-arrest lawsuits.
13.) RAMPANT CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
? Bush Cronyism: Foxes Guarding the henhouse
? An illustrated guide to Republican scandals
? Who’s been indicted, named as a co-conspirator or convicted? The Grand Ole Docket tracks trial dates, court appearances and sentencing hearings for players in the current array of national political scandals.
? The Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials
? FEMA official who coordinated the fake news conference resigns, lands a new gig heading public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
? Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) was forced to give up his seat on the powerful committee after the FBI raided his home as part of the Abramoff scandal. To replace him, the GOP leadership tapped Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who was himself recently named one of Congress’ most corrupt lawmakers.
? Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal
? In preparation for upcoming Congressional hearings, Bush Administration firing federal attorneys and appointing ringers without Senate confirmation via the patriot act.
? If Bush’s pick is confirmed, that will mean the five top appointees at Justice have zero prosecutorial experience among them.
? Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush
? Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors
? Bush Wars — Crooks Get Contracts : The main companies that were awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq have paid more than $300 million in fines since 2000, to resolve allegations of fraud, bid rigging, delivery of faulty military equipment, and environmental damage.
? US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) lost track of $9 billion
? “Contracting in the aftermath of the hurricanes has been marked by waste, corruption and cronyism”
14. FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
? Secure elections bill defeated in House after Whitehouse intervenes.
? A couple of election workers have been convicted of rigging a recount in Ohio following the 2004 election
? Rolling Stone does some investigative and rather exhaustive digging into public documents and says we’re almost guaranteed the 2004 election results were massively rigged
? Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings
? Conyers hearing in which Clinton Curtis testifies that he was hired to create hackable voting machines (.wmv)
? The Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.
? The Conyers Report (.pdf)
? No explanation for the machines in Mahoning County that recorded Kerry votes for Bush, the improper purging in Cuyahoga County, the lock down in Warren County, the 99% voter turnout in Miami County, the machine tampering in Hocking County
? Less access than Kazakhstan. Fewer fail-safes than Venezuela. Not as simple as the Republic of Georgia. The 2004 Elections according to international observers.
? This picture is what stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The “citizens” started what was later called “the preppy riot.” Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these “outraged citizens” intimidated the polling officials to halt the court mandated recount. A closer look reveals who they really were. They were bussed and flown in at Republican lawmakers expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay’s private plane.
If Mussolini defines fascism as “the merger of corporate and government power” what does that make the K Street project?
Related Articles:
? “Now and Then”- Part 1 A 3 part series by W David Jenkins III on the similarities between America now and Germany post Reichstag fire
? “Now and Then”- Part II: The Propaganda Machine
? Now and Then- Part III Hitler’s Playbook: Bush and the Abuse of Power
? It may sound crazy to some, but the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism.
? Is America Becoming Fascist?
? Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
? The Danger of American Fascism: With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
? Sheila Samples: Freedom To Fascism — A Bumpy Ride: Republicans don’t seem to realize that they are no longer individual members of a coherent “party,” but are merely part of a mean-spirited and dangerous movement that is threatening to sweep away democracy as we know it.
? Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism
? The Brownshirting of America: Bush’s supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US – truths now firmly established by the Bush administration’s own reports – as treasonous America-bashing.
? Fascism then. Fascism now? When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don’t see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
? What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features
? Neo-fascism in America : Too many people believe fascism is only about goose-stepping, jack-booted Nazis. Too many people believe that American democracy is so strong that fascists could never take control of America. If you are sympathetic to those views, I invite you to consider the possibility that you are mistaken.
? It is in times of fascism rising that armies of ignorance are once more resuscitated from the bowels of a society bordering on the edge of mass psychosis. The America at the dawn of the twenty-first century is no exception…
? Republican Party Brown Shirts: “The Wide-Awakes”: The organization was known for virulent anti-Catholicism, secretive rituals, and a military-style organization complete with “officers” and units.
? Harper’s Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State
? They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism
? Victims of Creeping Fascism: We are witnessing nothing less astonishing than the demise of the American experiment. 12-20
? The ten phases of a Bush scandal. 12-22
? America is headed for a soft dictatorship by the end of Bush’s second term.
at 7:00 pm
Tim Norris, only 1 question: is our current form of govt a corporatocracy, or a kleptocracy? Same diff, huh? Thanks for an excellent post only more true less than 2 yrs later. Excellent.
at 10:23 am
Tim brilliant synopsis of America today. Not sure if you saw where George W. Bush said his only regret as President was that Social Security was not privatized. Gee, that would mean people on SS would be getting 40% less based on what Wall Street has done. Too bad people have been rope-a-doped into believing bs over truth, style over substance, and empty flag waving rhetoric over facts. The new Congressional majority wants to make sure the fat cats continue to get lower taxes while cutting unemployment benefits. Wave the flag, hold the cross. If this ain’t fascism then what is it?
at 5:17 am
“Mother F*CKER!!! PLANES IS FLYIN INTA’BUILDINS!…LAURA?! WHERE’S MY COKE STRAW?!” – George W. Bush
at 5:21 am
Kate Powell is really wallowing in socialist mayhem there at that Los Angeles? Louisiana? community college. You’re not a mislead young mind whatsoever. Tell your parents I say hi and to take the tin foil out of the windows meant to keep the mind control waves from penetrating the house.
at 8:42 pm
I must agree with Tim, as much as I wish I couldn’t. I believe the only course of action is to stop feeding the beast, at least as much as possible. The only thing we have to use is our money, what’s left of it anyway. How many people on this feed still shop at WalMart? Hmmm. . . how many of you are twittering on your shiny new iPhones? The only thing we have to combat the corporate/fascist take over is breaking the spell of spending and redirect what little money (= power) away from the corporations and toward local, grass-roots organizations that benefit real communities, real people. Cause no matter what SCOTUS says, corporations are NOT people.
at 12:39 pm
What Tim Norris said was the most intelligent thing I have read on the net in a long time. All of it makes sense if you are willing to use your brain, which most people have either forgotten to do or are afraid to. I’m glad I stumbled upon this site while looking for political t-shirts. Thank you Tim once again for that post from someone who has been thinking the same thing but could never explain it so eloquently.
at 4:19 pm
I couldn’t agree more with Sam’s compliment of Tim Norris’ post. I wanted to add my two bits to Sam’s statement… “All of it makes sense if you are willing to use your brain, which most people have either forgotten to do or are afraid to.” I think critical reasoning skills are one of the most important learning outcomes threatened by education cuts/lack of investments and the continued “dumbing down” of lower socio-economic citizens through unconscionable political discourse by the right wing media and politicians.
at 3:51 pm
I was driving home last night with the above bumper sticker on my car: A truck full of rednecks passed me in the wrong lane and threw a rock through my window.
Note: The above quote is not well understood by mentally-challenged country folk.
at 7:53 am
The Sinclair Lewis Society has been wrestling with this for years. This quote sounds like something Sinclair Lewis might have said or written, but the Sinclair Lewis Society has never been able to find this exact quote although we’ve been asked a number of times.
Here are passages from two books Lewis wrote that at least hint at the quote attributed to him.
From It Can’t Happen Here: “But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word ‘Fascism’ and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.”
From Gideon Planish: “I just wish people wouldn’t quote Lincoln or the Bible, or hang out the flag or the cross, to cover up something that belongs more to the bank-book and the three golden balls.”