Mr. Viv Forbes of the Carbon Sense Coalition lists 7 common traits to a dictatorship.
We quote Mr. Forbes, (bold highlights mine)
"1. Start the Scare
It can be the Yellow Horde, Inflation, Drugs, Pollution, Terrorism, Bird Flu, Peak Oil, Unemployment or Global Warming — get the people anxious and demanding protection from some terror.
2. Lay the Bait
The Utopian Vision — freedom from want, stable prices, fair trading, equality, Lebensraum, racial purity, saving the polar bears/koalas/Great Barrier Reef, balmy weather, return to a simple life, job security, world status.
3. Trumpet the Call to Arms
"Together we can beat this peril/achieve Nirvana.
4. Grab Power and Resources
"We need extra powers, more people and extra taxes to save you from this threat.
5. Spread Propaganda
Use ministerial PR offices to create "The Big Lie. Follow up with supporting half truths and subliminal messages and pictures. Use suasion and the lure of grant money to create a supportive "research industry. Then make sure the government media is well stacked with fellow travellers.
6. Divert the Masses
Arrange massive public activities that create feelings of pride, solidarity and excitement —Roman circuses, Nazi rallies, Soviet military parades, heroes, adventures, football, rock concerts and endless games and nationalistic contests. Enlist the young in exciting things like the Hitler Youth or Mao's Red Brigades.
7. Eliminate the Opposition
Start with pretending they don't exist ("we have consensus — the science is settled). If that fails, follow up with denigration, defamation, vilification, questioning of motives and intimidation. Then, for the diehards, the final solution. The hidden agenda is always the same — more power and money for central controllers and their business mates, higher taxes and less freedom and property rights for the peons."
This reminds me of F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (comic version, video)
Mr. Forbes cites historical examples,
``Let's recall the world of the 1920s:
• The League of Nations had just been set up "to prevent war.
• After years of civil war, Lenin's Bolsheviks controlled Russia and starving peasants were eating a mixture of grain, clay and twigs. When Lenin died, Stalin seized power, murdered Trotsky, turned farms into communes and announced the first of Russia's "Five Year Plans. Millions more died.
• Mussolini, leader of the National Fascists (the Black Shirts) and former editor of the Milan Socialist Party Newspaper, declared himself "Il Duce of Italy.
• Mao Tse-tung formed the Communist Party in China, and commenced setting up communes and Five Year Plans that no one believed in. Millions died in man-made famines.
• French troops occupied the Ruhr to extract reparations from Germany for World War I. The German currency and German savings were destroyed by runaway inflation caused by excessive spending financed by printing paper money.
• Adolph Hitler reorganized the National Socialist German Workers Party and his Brown Shirts attempted to seize power in Bavaria. He also published "Mein Kampf, another grand plan to remake society by force.
• The Conservation Movement was established in Germany and embraced the Nazi party. (see: Green and Brown)
• The Ku Klux Klan claimed one million members in USA.
• The British imposed a Salt Tax in India, thus provoking Ghandi to peaceful revolution. The first Hindu-Muslim riots occurred.
• In Australia there were long strikes in the coal mines, at Broken Hill and on the waterfront.
Read the rest here
As H. L. Mencken once wrote, ``The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
We quote Mr. Forbes, (bold highlights mine)
"1. Start the Scare
It can be the Yellow Horde, Inflation, Drugs, Pollution, Terrorism, Bird Flu, Peak Oil, Unemployment or Global Warming — get the people anxious and demanding protection from some terror.
2. Lay the Bait
The Utopian Vision — freedom from want, stable prices, fair trading, equality, Lebensraum, racial purity, saving the polar bears/koalas/Great Barrier Reef, balmy weather, return to a simple life, job security, world status.
3. Trumpet the Call to Arms
"Together we can beat this peril/achieve Nirvana.
4. Grab Power and Resources
"We need extra powers, more people and extra taxes to save you from this threat.
5. Spread Propaganda
Use ministerial PR offices to create "The Big Lie. Follow up with supporting half truths and subliminal messages and pictures. Use suasion and the lure of grant money to create a supportive "research industry. Then make sure the government media is well stacked with fellow travellers.
6. Divert the Masses
Arrange massive public activities that create feelings of pride, solidarity and excitement —Roman circuses, Nazi rallies, Soviet military parades, heroes, adventures, football, rock concerts and endless games and nationalistic contests. Enlist the young in exciting things like the Hitler Youth or Mao's Red Brigades.
7. Eliminate the Opposition
Start with pretending they don't exist ("we have consensus — the science is settled). If that fails, follow up with denigration, defamation, vilification, questioning of motives and intimidation. Then, for the diehards, the final solution. The hidden agenda is always the same — more power and money for central controllers and their business mates, higher taxes and less freedom and property rights for the peons."
This reminds me of F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (comic version, video)
Mr. Forbes cites historical examples,
``Let's recall the world of the 1920s:
• The League of Nations had just been set up "to prevent war.
• After years of civil war, Lenin's Bolsheviks controlled Russia and starving peasants were eating a mixture of grain, clay and twigs. When Lenin died, Stalin seized power, murdered Trotsky, turned farms into communes and announced the first of Russia's "Five Year Plans. Millions more died.
• Mussolini, leader of the National Fascists (the Black Shirts) and former editor of the Milan Socialist Party Newspaper, declared himself "Il Duce of Italy.
• Mao Tse-tung formed the Communist Party in China, and commenced setting up communes and Five Year Plans that no one believed in. Millions died in man-made famines.
• French troops occupied the Ruhr to extract reparations from Germany for World War I. The German currency and German savings were destroyed by runaway inflation caused by excessive spending financed by printing paper money.
• Adolph Hitler reorganized the National Socialist German Workers Party and his Brown Shirts attempted to seize power in Bavaria. He also published "Mein Kampf, another grand plan to remake society by force.
• The Conservation Movement was established in Germany and embraced the Nazi party. (see: Green and Brown)
• The Ku Klux Klan claimed one million members in USA.
• The British imposed a Salt Tax in India, thus provoking Ghandi to peaceful revolution. The first Hindu-Muslim riots occurred.
• In Australia there were long strikes in the coal mines, at Broken Hill and on the waterfront.
Read the rest here
As H. L. Mencken once wrote, ``The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
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