"OMG, it's dead on" (re: It Can't Happen Here)

[JHB]

https://twitter.com/EllenHopkinsLit

Ellen Hopkins‏ Verified account @EllenHopkinsLit
This is real, BTW. The back cover blurb for Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE.

[BSdetect]

1. He's no genius at acting; his followers are all simpletons. Easily persuaded by hate and fear.

[Sneederbunk]

8. At least Lonesome Rhodes could play the guitar.

[Skittles]

24. thank you

he does NOT fool non-racist folk with any amount of critical thinking skills

[Nuggets]

38. Putin might be. nt

[Doremus]

43. Ding ding ding we have a winner nt

[Oneironaut]

62. Agreed. Most Liberals are incredulous Americans are swindled by this idiot.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Fantastic book. Highly recommended.

[Atticus]

3. It not only CAN happen here, it's in progress. Time to pull heads out of "dark places"

where we've kept them for decades.

[certainot]

22. democracy was designed to counter and prevent it but we've allowed the fascists to control

and coordinate messaging from 1500 of the loudest radio stations in the country as a 20-1 monopoly, and liberals and democrats have ignored it for 30 years. and still are. we're going to have to get lucky and find out that one of the mueller spin off investigations involves russians using talk radio for a decade or more, maybe involving laundered money through trump to limbaugh and hannity etc

[Nuggets]

40. Not exactly

...they’ve simply failed to draw a large audience. Air America, which lasted from 2004 to 2010, was the most conspicuous failure. Thom Hartmann is probably the most successful liberal on radio right now, but he’s got a pretty small audience–drawing less than a quarter of Hannity’s 13.75 million weekly audience...

Partly it’s demographics. Minorities are a large potion of liberal America, and they have ethnic radio they prefer: Spanish-language radio or inner-city stations. Those stations do have talk programs, but it’s not the same as a Limbaugh or a Hannity. It’s more general, not really railing against the system. No one is yelling. ‘We need to get rid of the Republicans. They’re the worst thing to happen to this country.’ But you’ll hear conservative radio hosts say that about liberals on their programs.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2015/07/13/why-all-the-talk-radio-stars-are-conservative/

[Doremus]

46. Mostly it's deregulation. Allowing a few billionaires to own most of the market share.

He who controls the message controls everything.

When we sat quietly by while the Fairness Doctrine was ended and ownership rules of TV-radio market share were written in favor of a handful of billionaires, it was pretty much a fait accompli.

It will keep getting worse until Dems do something other than what they've been doing for 30 years.

[certainot]

49. with limbaugh on 600 stations it really doesn't matter who owns them

dems have the opportunity now to destroy rw radio and with AI it will be fairly easy

americans need offense vs trump/putin and rw radio is very vulnerable. here's my suggestions- here are 2 ways to punish the GOP

1) protests at the 88+ universities that support 260 limbaugh stations and keep RW radio alive. all those stations follow the limbaugh lead. the local blowhards on those stations have to be pro republican and anti choice or they lose their jobs.

if GA anti choice cons paid $1000/hr to support and elect republicans those stations would be worth $1,050,000/WEEK FREE to them (1000x15hrs/dayx5 =$75,000/ station)

what difference did that make in the stacey abrams 'defeat'? - how many points was that worth? in florida there are about 20 limbaugh stations that depend on florida universities like that - working againsnt gillum.. and in the next election?

students at those universities can protest right on campus - those schools have no excuse to keep supporting trump, global warming denial, and anti-choice motherfuckers. local GOP will freak out. all their pols know the importance of being able to ride limbaugh's/talk radio's trail of lies as well as RWTRs invisibility to the left.

2) stoprush x100- anyone anywhere can record programs and podcasts on those stations and can use artificial intelligence-enhanced transcription such as at sonix.ai for $5/hr, and list advertisers with contact info with very little listening required. the companies that are helping republicans with this shit can be associated directly with the crap they sponsor.

when the ad industry realizes they're going to have to stop bundling advertisers onto those huge stations and start asking them all if they actually want to support anti-choice, trump, global warming denial they'll have to start applying actual market demand and it will kill the 20-1 monopoly. the ad industry will kill trump putin talk radio to be able to get their clients onto those huge radio stations without getting trashed. it's stoprush x 100.

from republiconradio.org

Artificial intelligence now makes it very easy to list talk radio advertisers
1) Record
Quicktime, on every Mac, is a basic app for recording audio streams. While playing the stream turn on Quicktime, go to 'File' and 'New Audio Recording'. Turn on the recorder and when you're done save it. With Quicktime it is necessary to have volume on. Other recording apps will allow recording multiple streams at the same time, pre scheduling, and editing.
2) Transcribe
At $5/hr and under, Sonix.ai may be the cheapest, quickest, and easiest transcription service. An hour takes minutes and is very accurate. When it's done they send an email with a link to the transcription in their editing program where it can be downloaded or tweaked and corrected on their site as you listen. It can also be stored there. The monthly subscription is $15 but they offer a 30 minutes free trial.
3) Search for "DOT" to identify advertisers
Live recordings of radio streams include advertisements and most announce web sites transcribed as "so-and-so-company dot com". Most advertisers can be found by searching for the word "dot". Sometimes the ads provided phone numbers. The Sonix text editor allows you to highlight and add notes. Each company or quote can get a note that is listed and numbered. The notes can then be copied and pasted elsewhere.
4) Contact
Most websites provide phone numbers and email addresses specifically for contact by potential customers. Complaint emails may get further up the chain of command than a phone call, and there's a lasting written record for employees to pass around. It may also be easier for sympathetic staff to pass on a comment to a boss in email form than personally.

[Doremus]

51. You think Limbaugh would continue to be a radio fixture if ownership rules were stricter?

The last I read he was hemorrhaging advertisers and red ink. What purpose would there be for a liberal owner to continue to run his program? (Short answer: none.)

We need a return to the regulations that kept our news media unbiased for decades. Repeal deregulation, it's the easiest solution.

[certainot]

53. problem is dems have ben trying to regulate and reregulate but every time, republicans

block and obstruct and then get democrats to blame their own representatives for not trying hard enough

the cons best weapon for beating dems on this and creating the made-to-order constituencies to yell "free markets!" "free speech!" "money is speech" "corporations are people" "regulation will raise prices" etc demand is talk radio. they're using the same crap to beat net neutrality.

destroy rw radio first and they'll have nothing. reregulation will be a lot easier then. we can't go into another election with limbaugh's army screaming about investigations and deep state coups and africans coming across the southern border with ebola (no joke, they did it before and seem to be gearing up to do it again - and for some reason ebola clinics are being attacked). it will also make it a lot easier to get republican senators to impeach if they see rw radio falling apart and limbaugh and sons losing stations left and right. that's why trump paraded limbaugh around the golf course right after the mueller report came out. imo it's the most effective form of offense dems can do, with the most upside.

[Nuggets]

58. This can't be stated enough times

“...problem is dems have ben trying to regulate and reregulate but every time, republicans
block and obstruct and then get democrats to blame their own representatives for not trying hard enough”


Republicans keep enough power to maintain control
because Liberals are going to stay home and not vote or vote third party when foolishly blaming their own leaders for results that aren’t their fault.

Never have understood how so many Liberals could be so blind as if they couldn’t see what the GOP has done.

It’s why Dems like AOC and Sanders are so annoying whining about Dems not doing anything.
Sanders was there, he has no excuse to be bashing Dems. AOC could be too young to remember, but then, this is why newbies shouldn’t run in looking for media attention instead of first listening to your experienced peers on resolving issues.

[sharedvalues]

54. This is great.

We have to stop rightwing radio and its lies.

But on the left side- take heart. Podcasts are the new left-wing radio. Pod Save America is the most high profile but there are many others. It’s a good trend.

[certainot]

50. it's wall mart vs mom and pop

they have subsidized a monopoly and protected it. there is no way that people who would listen to talk radio are 20-1 idiots who like to lied to repeatedly. this was never about market demand. they bought those loud stations and the ad industry want those ears so they bundle unenthusiastic advertisers on there. if the ad industry saw boycott and shunning action aimed at those stations, and now with AI (see below ), the industry would have to start asking their clients if they really support this anti-abortion, pro trump, global warming denial, racist bullshit and rw radio would fall apart. stations would open up for liberal talkers, who have shown they can successfully compete on an even playing field.

go nuggets - next year, dambit

[Nuggets]

59. Many of those advertisements

are from companies whose leaders support Trump.
Like John Deere. I wonder what they think now that Trumps tariffs are bankrupting their audience?

I’m hoping Liberal podcasts start gaining listeners.



Yeah! Lets go Nuggets next year!!
Made it to the 7th game in the 2nd series
I think they have the youngest team in the NBA too!

Now I’m enjoying watching the Curry brothers duke it out. Rooting for GS! In the EC rooting for Raptors even though I’m starting to think they will be swept in this series. Bucks have several really talented players.

[certainot]

61. they depend on a lot of small and local advertisers who don't support trump or who

are apolitical or apathetic or who believe the ad execs who tell them those are just political entertainers. stoprush made clear there's a lot of advertisers in that category who would not want to be associated with rw radio. some have told me that they asked not to be on those stations or that they couldn't afford to pay to be able to choose stations - they got packages.

stoprush really hurt limbaugh and the industry and with AI it could be easy to convince them to start applying market forces to that monpoly. they want all those ears and on the loud stations they're not all old racists shits

then there's the universities. like CU, which puts buffs games on KOA.....

i can't get into the rest of the playoffs yet, still in mourning.... nuggets got cold. i'm looking forward to healthy juancho, vanderbuilt, and mpj in summer league.

[crazytown]

4. President Windrip was elected promising a UBI

$5,000 a year.

[JHB]

14. In 1935 dollars?

That would be equivalent to about $93,000 today.

[crazytown]

16. Yeah.

The novel is satire. So was 1984.

[Mister Ed]

5. In 2016, I had custom bumper sticker printed:

BUZZ WINDRIP 2016
Make America Great Again

I thought it was funny at the time.

[DemocracyMouse]

11. It WAS funny... the problem is that liberal complacency is FOUNDED on one embarassing thing:

... most US liberals are nearly as poorly educated as the authoritarians.

We must educate, preech, cajole, goose AND humor our country into impeaching our current Buzz Windrip.

We may have access to a half decent education, but our brains are distracted by a competing education from the corporate commercial sphere. Small business uses word of mouth and thus would provide BOTH an economic solution and a cultural-educational solution.... that damn holistic thinking again

[randr]

6. Gotta love it--Buzz Windrip

Clown at large

[NCjack]

7. "1984" arrived on schedule. nt

[GeorgeGist]

10. By my account ...

it's about 33 years late.

[Jokerman]

9. I did book reports on that one and "1984" in high school.

Back in those relatively cheery days of Jimmy Carter they seemed a little distant and hard to relate to.

Not any more.

[2naSalit]

12. K&R

[keithbvadu2]

13. 1935 - Describing Hitler's rise to power?

[JHB]

17. That would have been the primary comparison at the time, but...

...he probably also drew from other sources: Mussolini's rise (he took power 12 years before the book), the second incarnation of the KKK in the 19teens and 20s (in northern areas their big draw was being anti-immigrant), and domestic fascist groups like the Silver Shirts.

[keithbvadu2]

18. Always something new to learn Hadn't heard of them before

Always something new to learn

Hadn’t heard of them before

http://holocaustonline.org/silver-shirts/

With Nazi German funding, they had begun construction of the Murphy Ranch, situated on a secluded 55 acre site in the Los Angeles hills, which was meant to serve as a fortified world headquarters after the expected Fascist global conquest. The Silver Shirts, Pelley pledged, would spearhead a new “Christian Commonwealth” in the United States, which would register all Jews in a national census, then systematically reduce their role in business, government and cultural affairs, ultimately confining all Jews within one city in each state.

============================

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America

The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an underground American fascist organization founded by William Dudley Pelley that was headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina[1] and announced publicly on January 30, 1933. The group was effectively dissolved on December 8, 1941 when police called for the open arrest of any individuals associated with the group.

[marylandblue]

27. Buzz Windrip was based on Huey Long.

[smirkymonkey]

28. Also Huey Long right here in the US, with a few Nazi touches.

[dalton99a]

15. Kick

[ffr]

19. So Fascism.

[pangaia]

21. A pretty wimpy, happy, dappy, boppy monologue, if you ask me..

And why that robotic VI,IV,I,V chord progression ostinato... again ??
Well, at least it wasn't the other option - the 'studio-fun'k groove with the obsessive dry, close-miked kick drum



Thanks anyway ffr...

[sop]

37. "Fascism is Capitalism plus murder" - Upton Sinclair

n/t

[certainot]

20. it happened here because in large part liberals ignored talk radio for 30 years

if the fascists would pay $1000 /hr for radio infomercial time then 1200 radio stations x 15 hrs/day = about $5BIL/year FREE for getting us to this point, and liberals, media, and the dem party STILL ignore it

sam nunberg said he "listened to 1000s of hours of talk radio" in 2014, the same year a russian troll said they "got a list of topics to write about" - and it's still ignored......

truly idiotic

[Doremus]

47. Exactly. nt

[LuvNewcastle]

23. Sinclair Lewis was excellent at describing the ugly,

hypocritical side of American life. "Babbit" is another good book by him. It's amazing how Lewis's work still seems fresh and current after all these years. I guess some things, the bad things, never change in this country.

[IronLionZion]

25. "cautionary tale of liberal complacency"

a few too many liberals are still in denial and believe only "other people" will be impacted. They like to excuse or discredit people who are being impacted right now. They'll be in for a rude surprise when the extremists come for complacent liberals.

[Nuggets]

60. The enablers.

The ones who will wait for the laws of the land and those with authority to enforce them to save the day right up until they are marched to a labor camp.


Alfred Wolf, a Holocaust survivor from Eberbach, Germany, recalls the changes he noticed in Germany after the election of Adolf Hitler.

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/democracy-dictatorship

[Grasswire2]

26. Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer" is even more on target.

Same era.

[Scurrilous]

29. K&R

[SaintLouisBlues]

30. OMG, he said something critical of liberals. Where are my smelling salts?

[appalachiablue]

31. Calling out 'liberal complacency' in 1935, wow.

In 1935 in England there were the fascist BLACK SHIRTS under Sir Oswald Moseley and the British Union of Fascsists.

East End London, Battle of Cable Street, Oct. 4, 1936. Thousands of Black Shirt fascists clash with leftist groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street

[question everything]

32. Scary!

[mitch96]

33. Yes, very scary.... At least we were for warned.

People who don't know their history are bound to repeat it...... or something like that...
m

[SpankMe]

34. Son of a bitch! Lewis called it in '35! Amazing. n/t

[NastyRiffraff]

35. I don't know how I missed it

I just ordered it from Powell Books.

[I_have_had_enough]

36. wisdom...

"As nightfall does not come at once, nor oppression. In both instances, there's twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight we must be aware of change in the air, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.''
William O. Douglas

"The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame."
Theodore Roosevelt

[Doremus]

48. There were no 24/7 news cycles in Teddy's day.

Sad to say that today the people's wrath lasts as long as the next news cycle.

[Perseus]

39. I have been talking about this book here on DU for more than two years

I am glad someone else is too. I read this book about five years ago, and when the buffoon announced his candidacy and I started seeing his behaviour, that book came to mind immediately, so I started talking about it. Sinclair Lewis warned every one, but as ity has happened in other parts of the World people's reaction is always the same "It Can't Happen Here!", then it happens.

You can read it for free, just download the PDF.

[pbmus]

41. ....

[anarch]

42. huh...maybe it could be added (opposite "The Twilight Zone", for symmetry) to this chart:

[Perseus]

44. Here is the sentence Pelosi and Co. should read and post on one of the walls in their offices

"This cautionary tale of liberal complacency in the face of populist tyranny show it really can happen here."

[Lucky Luciano]

45. Chilling....nt

[BlueJac]

52. Awesome...

I guess I am from the old school, been book reading for years. There are so many that tell the tale from the past, about our present!

[andym]

56. Sinclair Lewis is underrated in his understanding of America

He really captured essential aspects of Americans in Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith etc.

[murielm99]

57. I reread that book in 2000, after

Dubya stole it. It was not too hard to see the path we were on.

The copy I owned was yellow and brittle. The librarians, my former colleagues, allowed me into the attic to access the archival collection. I read the book. They have since returned it to the main stacks. Mine was not the only request for this title.