April 27, 2007 Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet

 

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and Beyond, History Shows There Are Certain Steps

That Any Would-Be Dictator Must Take To Destroy Constitutional Freedoms.

And George Bush and His Administration Seem To Be Taking Them All

Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 by The Guardian/UK

 

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy: After September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate or even read it…

2. Create a gulag: Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay (and CIA secret prisons internationally) to be situated in legal "outer space") - where torture takes place…

3. Develop a thug caste: When leaders seek… a "fascist shift" …to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorize citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany…

4. Set up an internal surveillance system: In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbors to spy on neighbors… (now) secret state program to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions...

5. Harass citizens' groups: The fifth thing you do is related to step four - you infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favor of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service…

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release: This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. .. In a closing or closed society there is a "list" of dissidents and opposition leaders: you are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list.

7. Target key individuals: Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line. Mussolini went after the rectors of state universities who did not conform to the fascist line; so did Joseph Goebbels, who purged academics who were not pro-Nazi…

8. Control the press: Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Latin America, etc.- all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.

9. Dissent equals treason: Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor".

10. Suspend the rule of law: The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard (and the use of the military as a domestic police force)…

Impeach Bush & Cheney Now! Resist!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination: anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc. 5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.

Contact: Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB `Ola`a (Kurtistown), Hawai`i 96760.

Phone (808) 966-7622. Email ja@interpac.net       http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil (April 27, 2007 – 293rd week) – Fridays 3:30 - 5PM downtown Post Office