Yeah, there is some truth in what RL is saying, but its not really all as bad as he says, is it? He's melodramatic, hyperbolic, way over the top. Sure, there are historical parallels to European twentieth century fascism, but it will never be all that bad here, it can't happen here, can it?

Well, you're wrong. It CAN happen here. That's not the same as saying it WILL happen here, history need not repeat itself. And even when it does its always with variations. But it can. We did it to the Indian Nations, we did it to the African slaves. We did it to every immigrant community we brought here for cheap labor, and guess what, we're doing it all over again! We did it to the Mexicans when we conquered half their country to satisfy our Manifest Destiny, our own Yankee Doodle lust for Lebensraum. See, its not just the Germans. We felt as entitled to the Mexican West of the Pecos as the Aryan supermen felt about the steppes West of the Urals. What do a few Slavs, or Spics, matter, eh? And we even did it again, on a smaller, down-home scale, in the Jim Crow era.

That ugly streak is still a part of our character, our national make-up. We did not leave all the bigotry and prejudice of Europe behind when we came here. We are not exceptional, we're perfectly capable of doing it all over again, and I've seen it with my own eyes. I was there, I saw it go down, I was 17 in 1964 and I lived in the Deep South. Oh yeah, I saw improvement, I saw progress, perhaps even more than I ever expected at the time, but I saw the resistance to that progress and improvement, too. The push back never really went away, and its coming back again, isn't it? Jim Crow never went away completely. For a while I thought the problem was solved, or well on its way to being put behind us, forever. Now I'm not so sure. America is a land of great potential, but it has always promised more than it can deliver. She is like a beautiful woman--with rotten teeth.

I was not in my ancestral homeland when it happened in Cuba, I have talked to my relatives who went through it there and it all sounds hauntingly familiar. Fascism, of the right or left, will sneak up on you. That's what they all said, it comes gradually, slowly, and one day you wake up and its there and it will not go away. Then comes the fear, and the despair.

It could very well happen here, perhaps not as bad as in Germany or the Soviet Union or Red China or Cuba, but we are certainly capable of it too. We are not immune. We are not really as exceptional as we like to think we are.

Listen to RL. Maybe he IS a bit over the top. Maybe he's even a bit out of line. But he is not necessarily mistaken. I know exactly what he knows, and exactly how he feels, and I am scared too.