In general, people don't see fascism coming. But there are a whole lot of people still alive who once called Nixon a fascist and Reagan, too. I think what we have seen in the U. S. is a gradual wearing away of our guard against the brownshirts. It just takes a real prick like W to revive the worst of government, and then trigger the disdain for his betrayal of democracy. The repugs are screwed.

Hopefully for a very long time (but we have such short memories: after the Nixon/Ford WH, we got four years of Carter, and then fell right in step with Ronnie Raygun. Could something worse be on the way four years past W's run?)

Thanks so much for mentioning my latest limericks, Norm. And a belated happy Thanksgiving!

We better start praying now on those faith-based firewalls.

The Bush administration could further savings by calling for the Iraq effort to be supported by charitable donations from community.

Or yet, why not eliminate taxes altogether and allow all to depend on prayer? And why not stimulate the economy by praying for rich people? Why would the most comfortable need big tax breaks more than prayer?

Oh damn! I can't protect my computer, I'm an atheist. Oh well, the devil's firewall will have to do.

regarding fascism, i think this is a creepy article which talks about both improvements in surveillance technology as well as weakening of protections against abuse of power (also some technologies, like echelon, have no protections or oversight at all)

http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/aclureportbiggermonsterweaker_chains.pdf

however, i am under the impression that between the world wars in germany the economy was horrible due to depression as well as war reparations and i think that probably played a role in the growth of fascism and the need for a scapegoat.