https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-26-2024
"Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S.
Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled
Army Talks,
the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and
women and therefore better soldiers.”
On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”
“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian
job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet
explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked,
what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it
said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our
future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the
causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”
Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and
for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political,
social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic
governments, but fascist governments run the people.”
“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires;
hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to
do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.”
“Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’
was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.
Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain
themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive
ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by
false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart
and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”
Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the
common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist
principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought
democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups
against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”
Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to
America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a
harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had
experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and
suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions,
Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of
Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly
identified as ‘fascist.’”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
