I'm reading 'It Can't Happen Here' by Sinclair Lewis and it's scaring me.

[devilgrrl]

I decided to post this after seeing PlanetBev's post about her father. Has anyone read this? If not, do so, it's a novel written in the 1930's about the fascist takeover of the United States and is so close to what's happening today, that it's more frightening than George Orwell's '1984'. In fact, it's the scariest horror novel I've read in years.

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[Mike Niendorff]

1. book is online here (thx to Project Gutenberg) :

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html


MDN

[rwenos]

2. Thank You So Much!

This is how technology can really spread ideas! I'll read this book tonight.

THE INTERNET ROCKS! DU ROCKS! PROJECT GUTENBERG ROCKS!

[GetTheRightVote]

4. thank you for the posting, will read it as well

[Digit]

8. I started reading it immediately.

It is already becoming disturbing.
Good for the brain instead of the pablum the networks give you.
Thanks for the head's up!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. It should be required reading for everyone in the country right now!!

Before it is banned and burned...

[idiosyncratic]

5. Did you notice Kerry had this book on a table during an interview?

I don't remember if it was on 60-Minutes, but the book was prominently displayed so anyone familiar with the cover could tell what was there on the table.

[Indiana_Dem]

6. Read these, too.

Living Under Fascism
Davidson Loehr 7 November 2004
First UU Church of Austin
http://www.uua.org/news/2004/voting/sermon_loehr.html

"You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a
serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap
name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style
of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as
fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly
regarded as terrifying. That’s what I am about here. And even if I don’t
persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and
where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.

The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of
sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the
bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the
bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds
un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the
wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of
Representatives.

Still, it’s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word "fascism"
they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It
is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are
part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism,
known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which was an
essential ingredient of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s tyrannies. So-called corporatism
was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a
model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and
Europe.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in “The Corporation Will Eat Your
Soul”), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his
fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and
transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather
than those who earned it." ---Sinclair Lewis' book is mentioned in this article...

This next link won't work right now but try it later. Either it's getting lots of traffic or it's being hijacked, I don't know:

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

[theshadow]

7. It's a tragedy that Sinclair Lewis...

... is largely forgotten today. And yes, that book IS scary. Next, try "Kingsblood Royal".

[Erika]

10. I hope right-wing lurkers

realize what they have done to this country by supporting Bush.

[indigonation]

11. They are so far in denial. Remember? we are commie traitors. n/t

[HawkerHurricane]

9. First read it in 5th grade...

It is a scary book; and a warning of the best sort: don't say it can't happen, because it can.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. I read it in the 80s, and dug it out a few years ago.

It happened.

[BiggJawn]

13. I read it just before the Selection.

Scared the piss out of me. I spent one night reading it till almost 5AM because I couldn't put it down.

A dumb-ass yokel gets elected President on a platform of being a "likable guy" who's gonna give everyone a RAISE...

A dumb-ass yokel with some really sinister people with ambition behind him....

And legions of "Marching Clubs" to support him...

“Buzz and buzz and hail the Chief,
And his five-pointed sta-ar,
The U.S. ne’er can come to grief
With us prepared for wa-ar.”

[JanMichael]

14. Note how it ends by the way.

The term "Cooperative Commonwealth" is bandied about.