What with today's vote in the House pushing us ever so much closer to a complete,
bona fide facist regime, I figured I'd brush up on life under a dictatorship. Wikipedia offers a concise page on the
Nazi Germany, so I hit it up for a few pointers. The similarities in the Pre-war Politics section are pretty striking concerning Hitler's rise to power ("squaring the Industrial magnates," aristocrats, religious and military leaders, etc). I'm sure it's
no news to kossacks that Bush and Hitler's regimes are dramatically analogous, but in my cursory research, I figured I'd try and pin down whereabouts we are right now.
From Wikipedia:
A further step that turned Germany into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in March 1933 with 444 votes, to the 94 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government (and thus effectively the Nazi Party) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution. With these powers, Hitler removed the remaining opposition and turned the Weimar Republic into the "Third Reich".
Admittedly, I got tempted to play a little Mad Libs and see just how far off we are. I kind of wish I hadn't (edits mine):
A further step that turned The United States into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in September 2006 with 253 votes, to the 168 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government (and thus effectively the Republican Party) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution. With these powers, Bush removed the remaining opposition and turned the Federal Republic into the "Fourth Reich".
So we're about a sentence, maybe a sentence and a half away in our yet unwritten history from a real deal dictatorship. Swell. Without hyperbole, I'd say nipping this in the bud in November is the most important thing any person could participate in during this lifetime.