Reply #12: Good question, Nikia.

[Nay]

Telling the truth doesn't seem to work very well, at least not in microclimates like my workplace. When I lay out facts and figures that contradict the RW ideology, people just turn and walk away, only to come back another day, spouting the same crap that I just plainly demonstrated as wrong. It isn't a matter of truth anymore, and that's what makes the rise of fascism in America so possible. I personally have been appalled at the attitudes, opinions, irrational beliefs, and simple superstition that has been swirling around me since the Reagan years -- how do you combat whole communities full of minds that cannot think or reason?

The powers that are directing this fascism understand their supporters well, and they understand us, too. We also understand them quite well (we do call them what they are -- fascists), but we have no pull with their underlings. It will boil down to whether the people in this country, when they are abused enough, just knuckle under and blame the "liberals," "Jews," "n------," etc. and join the fascist party in abusing their fellow Americans, which is a definite possibility, or whether they will conduct their own version of the civil rights bus boycott.

Right now, I think the majority are trying on their black uniforms and shiny jackboots. When you think about it, the "I've got mine" and "greed is good" mantra of the capitalist system does not encourage us citizens to feel or act as a cohesive group with an eye to its own group survival. The RW has done a great job of turning us all against each other, while binding its own group together with wacky religion and exaggerated patriotism.

Everyone, please read "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner for an exact description of the emotional and mental states of the German people as they went through their own pre-fascist convulsions. I cannot recommend this book enough. It will turn your hair white. You will recognize, on each page, the exact situations occurring here in the U.S.