Mon Oct 29 09:33:42 CDT 2018

I second the recommendation of Robert O. Paxton's "The Anatomy of
Fascism". I have a point-by-point breakdown of the first two-thirds
completed (and unfortunately I doubt I'll get around to doing the rest
of the work as I loaned it out and never got it back). If anyone wants
a copy of my readers notes, let me know!

Cheers,
YOPJ
On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 8:38 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Howdy Folks,
>
> Are we all familiar with the Business Plot of 1933? That sure seems
> relevant, in that the roots of fascism have been there (US) for a while (we
> were no more immune to the ideas and trends that were in the air; I mean
> just think of Father Coughlin or that Bellamy salute).
>
> Also, if you haven't read Robert Paxton's "Fascism", you should. The fellow
> knows what he's talking about. Early on, when Chump was a but a candidate,
> Paxton pointed out that Drumpf was at least quasi-fascistic. Perhap by now
> he has updated that diagnosis.
>
> Of course it is also worth looking at Isaiah Berlin's work on the
> intellectual roots of fascism (Joseph de Maistre, but also the so-called
> Counter-Enlightenment thinkers like Herder and Hamman that left a path for
> the Frenchmen Charles Maurras and Maurice Barrès; on these last two one
> might peruse J.W Burrow's "The Crisis of Reason: European Thought 1848 -
> 1914).
>
> That's my two bits on how history echoes all around.
>
> ciao
> mc
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 2:59 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
> > You’re right about  It Can’t Happen Here much less of a novel than 1984.
> >  It’s more like Aldous Huxley’s Island for all its pontificating.
> >
> > The thing is that both the Lewis book and Trump fit the set of
> > similarities set forth by Albright (in “Fascism") which authoritarian
> > dictators use to attain power and keep it,  this is whether they are right
> > wing or left.   They attack media, free speech, certain minority groups
> > voting rules and the political opposition while tending to promote a
> > militaristic form of nationalism with no avoidance of violence on any level
> > and themselves as cult leader. They make up what they need as they go along
> > so each regime/leader is unique in its own specifics.
> >
> > I’m still only about 1/2 way through.
> >
> > Becky
> > https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
> >
> > > On Oct 25, 2018, at 11:38 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I learned of it in an even earlier political and reprint cycle, Nixon's,
> > of the late 60s-70s when I was a pup bookseller. Bet voracious reader, we
> > think, TRP
> > > has read it. (You can't read and love 1984 and miss this one, although
> > it is much less as a novel).
> > >
> > > Just recently I got a copy of T. Harry Williams' HUGE biography of Huey
> > Long, the model. Surely won't read it all but from his Preface to the
> > paperback-that-hardly-holds together: ....TRP's/Weber's charisma is a
> > defining quality..."Long went much further than creating a political
> > "machine"--He was the first Southern leader, and very possibly the first
> > American leader, to set out not to contain the opposition or to impose
> > certain conditions on it, but to force it out of existence.
> > ....Deliberately, he grasped the control of all existing boards and other
> > agencies ..and then just as deliberately by creating new agencies to
> > perform new functions, he continually enlarged the patronage at his
> > disposal. His control of patronage, gave him control of the legislature,
> > and his control of the legislature enabled him to have laws enacted that
> > invested him with imperial authority over every level of local
> > government.........he became so powerful finally that he could deny the
> > opposition almost all political sustenance, and if he wished, destroy it.
> > .....but he did it differently. He created an arrangement in which the
> > survival of any opposing organization would have to come into his to
> > survive. He defined the terms and the rewards.  He also campaigned for
> > sympathetic judges and they were winning so, all three branches. And he had
> > effectively set it up before he died.
> > >
> > > Arendt totalitarianism. What is at least at stake in the upcoming US
> > elections, as Trump has packed the Supremes, is still the patronage
> > President, the Senate--McConnell has surely studied Long's career-- will
> > probably not turn Dem therefore.......
> > >
> > > On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 9:40 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> > wrote:
> > > Yup -  but written in 1936 so Lewis would be limited in some ways
> > including the bomb as well as the environment.   Life is much more
> > dangerous for many more people now.  (But it was in the days of the Shrub,
> > too.)
> > >
> > >  I’ve read about some post-WWII and post-WWII totalitarian tactics and
> > strategies (Fascism by Madeleine Albright) and we’ll see how he does on
> > those. This was written in 1935,  way prior to Pearl Harbor.  just after
> > Hitler became Fuhrer.  I don’t know what I’m reading for - parallels to
> > current times or historical interest.
> > >
> > > I read Lewis’ Main Street a few years ago.  It’ll be interesting if
> > nothing else.
> > >
> > >
> > > Becky
> > > https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
> > >
> > > > On Oct 25, 2018, at 3:08 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I remember fifteen years ago, the LAST time It Can't Happen Here went
> > > > through a cycle of current-events-spawned popularity. It even had the
> > > > Dubya Bush / Buzz Windrip synchronistical nomenclature to help sell
> > > > its ostensibly prophetic nature.
> > > >
> > > > It's a pretty good novel, very "readable", but the lack of nuclear
> > > > weapons in the mix means it can only go so far as a satire that can be
> > > > shoehorned over the contemporary realpolitik.
> > > >
> > > > Jerky
> > > > On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 6:03 PM Becky Lindroos <
> > bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Interesting as I’m just starting to read “It Can’t Happen Here”
> > (“What Will Happen When America Has a Dictator?”)  by Sinclair Lewis -
> > (1936).  A the time, the book was thought to be directed at Huey Long, a
> > Mississippi populist, governor/senator who was assassinated as he was
> > getting his campaign for president together.  Sinclair’s novel is a satire
> > and really aimed at its own times,  but it resonates what with all the
> > fictional Windrip does *after* he gains office.  (hush the critics, etc.)
> > > >>
> > > >> "Keith Perry argues that the key weakness of the novel is not that he
> > decks out U.S. politicians with sinister European touches, but that he
> > finally conceives of fascism and totalitarianism in terms of traditional
> > U.S. political models rather than seeing them as introducing a new kind of
> > society and a new kind of regime.”
> > > >>
> > > >> Also:
> > > >> "A number of writers have compared the demagogue Buzz Windrip to
> > Donald Trump. Michael Paulsonwrote in The New York Times that the Berkeley
> > Repertory Theatre's rendition of the play aimed to provoke discussion about
> > Trump's presidential candidacy.[2]”
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> And:
> > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/books/review/classic-novel-that-predicted-trump-sinclar-lewis-it-cant-happen-here.html
> > > >>
> > > >> or:
> > > >>
> > http://time.com/money/4573801/sinclair-lewis-it-cant-happen-here-amazon/
> > > >>
> > > >> very curious -
> > > >>
> > > >> Becky
> > > >> https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
> > > >>
> > > >>> On Oct 25, 2018, at 2:37 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Nice.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> And true.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> J.
> > > >>> On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 3:09 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> From Charles Pierce
> > > >>>>
> > https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a24174810/cnn-obama-clintons-bomb-donald-trump/
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> "The bomb has been as essential a part of American political
> > history as
> > > >>>> were the knife, and the pistol, the high-powered rifle, and the
> > rope."
> > > >>>> --
> > > >>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > > >>> --
> > > >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > > >>
> > >
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l