I finally finished reading
It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis and I thought I'd diary the similarities between the book and current events.
I could've sworn half the time I was reading straight out of Rove's playbook. I'm sure he's read this book before and taken quite a few cues. Such as this one:
An honest propagandist for any Cause, that is, one who honestly studies and figures out the most effective way of putting over his Message, will learn fairly early that it is not fair to ordinary folks--it just confuses them--to try to make them swallow all the true facts that would be suitable to a higher class of people. And one seemingly small but almighty important point he learns, if he does much speechifying, is that you can win over folks to your point of view much better in the evening, when they are tired out from work and not so likely to resist you, than at any other time of day.
Zero Hour, Berzelius Windrip
How's that for spooky?
More below the fold.
Oh, and how about the name of the book (Zero Hour) by the dictator Windrip? That reminds me of something. Oh yeah, supposed terrorist chatter on September 10th. Somebody heard somebody say, "Tomorrow is Zero Hour." I wonder if whomever said that had read this book and September 11th was part of their plan? Just a thought.
So anyway, the story is about a very charismatic man, supported by a charismatic preacher, who rises to power quite easily during the 1930's. He gets elected primarily because he promises $5000/year to everyone. Sound familiar?
He easily takes over everything by declaring martial law and jailing Congressmen (and others) "for their safety." Who wants to bet this will happen if we get attacked again? Terror Alert Level Red is equivalent to martial law. That's all it will take.
More parallels:
Doremus discovered that neither he nor any other small citizen had been hearing one hundredth of what was going on in America. Windrip & Co. had, like Hitler and Mussolini, discovered that a modern state can, by the triple process of controlling every item in the press, breaking up at the start any association which might become dangerous, and keeping all the machine guns, artillery, armored automobiles and aeroplanes in the hands of the government, dominate the complex contemporary population better than had ever been done in medieval days, when rebellious peasantry were armed only with pitchforks and good-will, but the State was not armed much better.
Well they don't have all the guns, so that makes me feel a little bit better. Kinda.
How about this little gem:
America followed, too, the same ingenious finances as Europe. Windrip had promised to make everybody richer and had contrived to make everybody, except for a few hundred bankers and industrialists and soldiers, much poorer.
Change "soldier" to "government official" and "Windrip" to "Bush" and read that again.
This one will seem eerily familiar, too:
"Rats! Just a lot of irresponsible wind bags!" jeered President Windrip. "Why! I thought you were supposed to be the camera-eyed gink that kept up on everything that goes on, Lee! You forget that I myself, personally, made a special radio address to that particular section of the country last week! And I got a wonderful reaction. The Middle Westerners are absolutely loyal to me. They appreciate what I've been trying to do!"
Not answering him at all, Sarason [Rove] demanded that, in order to bring and hold all elements in the country together by that useful Patriotism which always appears upon threat of an outside attack, the government immediately arrange to be insulted and menaced in a well-planned series of deplorable "incidents" on the Mexican border, and declare war on Mexico as soon as America showed that it was getting hot and patriotic enough.
Amazing, huh?
This one will make you say
Amen!!!
He was afraid that the world struggle today was not of Communism against Fascism, but of tolerance against the bigotry that was preached equally by Communism and Fascism. 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. For they were thieves not only of wages but of honor. To their purpose they could quote not only Scripture but Jefferson.
Anyway, I highly recommend reading this book. It's available at Amazon.com for less than $5. Anyone here who's read this book before, I'd love to hear your comments especially.