-Caveat Lector- H.L. Mencken on Totalitarianism and the Modern Dictatorship
"We have had two dictatorships in the past, one operated by Abraham Lincoln and the other by Woodrow Wilson. Both were marked by gross blunders and injustices. At the end of each, the courts were intimidated and palsied, the books bristled with oppressive and idiotic laws, thousands of men were jailed for their opinions, and great hordes of impudent scoundrels were rolling in money .... Who can forget what happened when Wilson was turned loose in 1917. He began with sweet talk about putting down tyranny and saving humanity. But ended with the Attorney General's spies roving the land, with every avenue of honest opinion barricaded, with the press paralyzed and the people cowed." -- Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1933. "Whenever talk of a dictatorship is heard in this country the assumption is that it will have to follow some European pattern. But there is no reason to believe that the American Fuhrer will be a copy of Mussolini or Hitler or even Stalin. We are an original people, and we make our own quacks just as we make our own automobiles. My guess is that he will be a great deal more like Coolidge than the fee-fi-fo-fums of Europe with their operatic swords and comic mustachios. The last dictator we had was Woodrow Wilson, who looked like a respectable Sunday-school teacher and witch burner, and was. The one before that was old Abe Lincoln, the ideal rube... our next dictator will have to use easier words than Woodrow and have a mellower voice than Abe. But otherwise will probably run true to type. Americans don't like to be drilled like Germans and Russians, they prefer to be wooed and soothed." -- Baltimore Sun, April 26, 1937. "To most Europeans, the United States is still regarded naively as a land of liberty par exellence, whereas to most Americans the thing itself has long since ceased to have any significance, and to large numbers of them, indeed, it has of late taken on an extreme obnoxiousness. I know of no civilized country, indeed, in which liberty is less esteemed than it is in the United States: certainly there is none in which more persistent efforts are made to limit it and put it down. Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please =96 before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and.. the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer." -- "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy," 1956. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
