Dear Sinclair Lewis: IT DID HAPPEN HERE...

[nostamj]

I'm reading (for the first time) Lewis' 1935 novel about fascism in America. it's funny, creepy and... well, take a look at this little snip:

Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut 'Liberty cabbage' and somebody actually proposed calling German measles 'Liberty measles'?

that's 1935

this book is going to be quite a ride!

Where in all history has there been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours?

that's 1935! :wow:

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Liberty Measels...

:eyes:
Good to know idiots existed in all eras of our history.

[Catch22Dem]

2. Wow, what if we had people here who said "Freedom Fries"

Oh wait, that's right, we do have fucking morAns JUST like that!

[atommom]

3. Buzz Windrip IS just a little too much like Bush!

Hmmm ... Bush Windrip... :D

[nostamj]

4. oh yeah.... like this gem...

People will think they're electing him to create more economic security. Then watch the Terror! God knows there's been enough indication that we can have tyranny in America--

that's 1935!

[Igel]

5. Yes, an all the claims turned out to be utterly true.

Not.

In grade school I was terrified of global cooling, Silent Spring, nuclear war ('duck and cover!'), and the fact that parallels with Rome showed that we were far in decline and the US would be a bit-player by the time I was in my 20s--although it wouldn't matter. Oil wouldn't last to the end of the '80s, and everybody would be starving, freezing in their igloos.

The sky's been falling for many a decade, nay, century!, and has yet to even reach the rooftops.

Although I think if the disease had always been called "Liberty measles" before the mid 1930s, I either would have wanted to change the name to either "German measles" or "Soviet measles". Not the other way 'round.

[nostamj]

6. don't worry, be happy....

right. got to remember that. :crazy:

[Igel]

7. Not happy.

Just skeptical. The models are more sophisticated these days, they account for more data, they may be right. It's not that I don't want to believe, or do want to believe. I don't see a reason for belief, one way or the other. I've had sufficient leaps of faith in useless causes for one lifetime.

Every generation has new boogie men. Every generation is going to be the last. Every generation succeeds in rearing its offspring.

There's bound to be a last generation some day. I'm just unconvinced I'll be in it.

[coreystone]

8. Great For You!!

:-)

Try Babbitt and Main Street next!

;-)

[nostamj]

10. did both of those YEARS ago but...

never really heard about ICHH until recently. enjoying it VERY much!

when I'm not TOTALLY creeped out by it! :crazy:

[JanMichael]

9. Great book! I loved it. Try London's "Iron Heel" next.

I read those two, one after the other, last year and am still making comparisons to them and now.

If it wasn't so scary it'd be a blast.