But a good friend, Jen from donkeyod@gmail.com sent me this...thought it would make a good point with your post:

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider.....the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think....for people who did not want to think anyway gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about.....and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated.....by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.....

"Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'.....must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.....Each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next.

"You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone.....you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.

"That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.

"You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father.....could never have imagined."

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

Of course I don't mind.  It's exactly the concept I was trying to make, only better since it was written long before there was any chance of it being a partisan invention.  That's what happened to Germany, and it can happen here.  We only have to let it.  I remember in 2000, I was bummed about Bush winning, but took it in stride. My father, however, a (now) 90 YO liberal, told me, quite seriously, "This W scares me.  I think he's dangerous."  Daddy, you were right.  Frightening.

tim779 is right, the fascist tendencies in the GOP are startling, and are readily apparent for anyone who cares to look.  How about these fascist messages hammered home by the Republican Party every day:

1) We are in a war on terror that will determine the fate of civilization, there has never been anything like it before, so the sacred safeguards and protections in place for over 200 years are no longer relevant.

2) We are the victim of terrorism, which means torture, suspension of Constitutional rights, concentration camps, and lying are all acceptable and necessary.

3) The president is the commander-in-chief, has  classified intelligence no one else can see,  and must be allowed to do whatever is necessary to protect us, regardless of the law.

4) Americans are a superior people chosen by God to spread the virtues of democracy and capitalism to the rest of the world, whether it wants them or not.

5)  Mexicans and other foreigners are invading our country, taking jobs away from Americans, undermining our language, and contaminating our communities.

6)  Those who advocate diplomacy, or peace, or who  otherwise do not parrot the Party line are "cut and run" appeasers promoting the enemy's propaganda.

Why have so many of the media, business leaders, the clergy, and many others been so compliant in accepting this fascist program, without any critical analysis of the meaning of these messages or any efforts to rebut them?  I hope we wake up before it is too late.

the fascist tendencies in the GOP are startling, and are readily apparent for anyone who cares to look.

The fascist tendencies within the Democratic Party are what Democrats must condemn first and louder. Only when we've cleaned the fascist trash who helped pass the torture law from our own party, then we can beat the fascists in the GOP.