NP? Ferlinghetti Interview

[Tim Strzechowski]

Ferlinghetti: I mean you have what's called "totalitarian democracy" going on now, in Washington, DC.

[...]

LF: I'm not kidding! It's not a laughable matter! No one realizes what the president is up to, what his real menu is. There's a famous book called School for Dictators. It was written by Ignazio Silone in '37 or '38, published before the Second World War. It's the story of an American who wants to be a dictator, who comes to Europe to interview fascists and find out how they seized power. And the parallels with today are astounding! For instance, one important thing was that the Fascist governments arrived in power with the full consent of the existing democratic institutions-which is just what's happened today, with the elections in Florida and the cooperation of the Supreme Court. You have George II, who usurped the throne and is illegally occupying the White House. The parallels with 1938 are really astounding.

http://www.chronogram.com/backIssues/2002/0802/viewfromthetop/conversation.html

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