How many DUers have lived in a totalitarian, theocratic, or facist nation excepting

[Skidmore]

the current US conditions? Do alarms go off for you frequently these days as they do for me? Do you feel big brother looking over your shoulder? Do you feel the pressure to shut up and go along? Do you feel it from one side of the aisle or both?

I do and I choose not to sit silently or to not see. I certainly will not make excuses for any of those who perpetuate this and put in place institutions to support it.

[Buzz Clik]

1. My dad was something of a bastard. Does that count?

[yardwork]

4. LOL! Meanwhile, I want to hear more details from Skidmore.

[Skidmore]

13. I've lived in a country the ME for a decade in mypast, and I feel

the insinuation of many similar infringements on personal and civil liberties in our nation today.

[Virginia Dare]

2. I have not, but I have two very close friends who have..

and from everything they have told me, we aren't even CLOSE. Not to say that we should just sit by and let our rights be taken from us, but honestly, anybody born and raised in this country knows NOTHING of totalitarianism or the like.

[yardwork]

6. That's interesting becuase I have a very close friend who was raised in a fascist country

and she says that we're already living in one, too. Meanwhile, hers got better. Maybe ours will too.

[Virginia Dare]

7. what country was it?...n/t

[yardwork]

12. Espana.

[Virginia Dare]

14. Ah, okay..

I'm talking about China and Poland.

[bryant69]

3. No, no, no, no, and no

But that's probably not the answers you were looking for. And since I answered no to the first one, I guess i shouldn't have answered the rest.

I'm just impetuous.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[SteppingRazor]

11. Agreed.

Say what you want about the current conditions of our country, but by commonly accepted definitions, the United States is not a theocracy (rule by clergy) or fascist state (Fascism's a little harder to define, but Kevin Passmore's definition is, I think, best:

"Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because the defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party. Fascists are pushed towards conservatism by common hatred of socialism and feminism, but are prepared to override conservative interests - family, property, religion, the universities, the civil service - where the interests of the nation are considered to require it. Fascist radicalism also derives from a desire to assuage discontent by accepting specific demands of the labour and women's movements, so long as these demands accord with the national priority. Fascists seek to ensure the harmonization of workers' and women's interests with those of the nation by mobilizing them within special sections of the party and/or within a corporate system. Access to these organizations and to the benefits they confer upon members depends on the individual's national, political, and/or racial characteristics. All aspects of fascist policy are suffused with ultranationalism."


As for the third term, totalitarian, the United States isn't even remotely a totalitarian state. I think that's fairly common sense. The government, obviously, does not control all aspects of our lives -- else, we would not be discussing the point here.

At best (or at worst, I suppose) one might term certain elements of the Republican Party, particularly the neocons, as "crypto-fascist." But that hardly defines America as a whole.

[hobbit709]

5. I've been in some of those

And my mother tells me what it was like in Austria under Hitler. She says the BS is pretty much the same.

[Cleita]

8. I did live in a nation that was very Democratic, which we destroyed

for profit (Chile) in the seventies. Prior to that it was one of the few nations in South America to have a large middle class. The people were very democratic and freedom loving. They constantly argued politics from all side very publically and without fear of retaliation. Since my family lived between the two nations in the forties and fifties, I was very aware of the fact that the USA was not as democratic, even back then, as they claimed it to be.

I believe it's the American willingness to believe in all the patriotism that they were taught in school and the ability to ignore that what was going around them maybe wasn't all that democratic, like segregation, racism, sexism that has led us to where we are today. The opportunistic right wingers saw back as far as Nixon that the ability to lead Americans like sheep might give them the edge they needed to grab power and then use that power to change this country into the facsimile of Nazi Germany that it is today.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. My Jewish step-dad had cousins in Germany during the 30s and 40s

Several of them died in the camps. I've heard stories, first and second hand. Does that count?

And yes, I hear a lot of alarms when I look around nowadays. What strikes me as most alarming derive from stories on how the "opposition" coalition in the Reichstag could have stopped -- but did not -- Hitler's rise to power.

[Cleita]

15. Exactly and our opposition is just rolling over for Bush

more often than not. It's eerily similar and very disturbing.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. I lived in Apartheid South Africa

It was a police state for whites, too. I remember the atmosphere of fear, the worry that you were being listened to, the care taken not to say anything anti-government.

It's familiar.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Yes, yes and yes

as both a historian and having lived in Mexico (who after 1968 became interesting), this reminds me of it

I remember my dad warning us to watch what we said over the phone, especially with international calls

And as a historian both the USSR, especially the early years (and the kulacks), and Nazi germany (both extremes) have many parallels to today