Would anyone like to read 'It Can't Happen Here ' online?

[seemslikeadream]

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html







Shad Ledue, leader of the fascist "Corpos," beats Doremus Jessup, a Vermont newspaperman who has been opposing the dictatorship in his newspaper. A scene from It Can't Happen Here at the Blackstone Theatre, Chicago, IL, October 1936
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/new_deal_for_the_arts/images/activist_arts/shad_ledue.html

[babylonsister]

1. I've never heard of this story before; sounds fascinating and was written

prior to 1936? BTW, that picture is chilling...

[seemslikeadream]

2. Windrip is in the pocket of big business (i.e. Corpos), is favored by religious extremists

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/09/far04030.html

"The D.A.R. . . . is composed of females who spend one half their waking hours boasting of being descended from the seditious American colonists of 1776, and the other more ardent half in attacking all contemporaries who believe in precisely the principles for which such ancestors struggled." – page 5


"Senator Windrip has got an excellent chance to be elected President, next November, and if he is, probably his gang of buzzards will get us into some war, just to grease their insane vanity and show the world that we’re the huskiest nation going." – page 20


"Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage’ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles, ‘Liberty measles?’And wartime censorship of honest papers?. . . Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution?" -- page 21

"he Saturday Evening Post enraged the small shopkeepers by calling Windrip a demagogue, and the New York Times, once Independent Democrat, was anti-Windrip. But most of the religious periodicals announced that with a saint like Bishop Prang for backer, Windrip must have been called of God." -- page 96
"For the first time in America, except during the Civil War and the World War, people were afraid to say whatever came to their tongues." – page 263

"December tenth was the birthday of Berzelius Windrip, though in his earlier days as a politician, before he fruitfully realized that lies sometimes get printed and unjustly remembered against you, he had been wont to tell the world that his birthday was on December twenty-fifth, like one whom he admitted to be an even greater leader. . ." - page 260

"The newspapers everywhere might no longer be so wishily-washily liberal as to print the opinions of non-Corpos; they might give but little news from those old-fashioned and democratic countries, Great Britain, France and the Scandinavian states, might indeed print almost no foreign news, except as regards the triumph of Italy giving Ethiopia good roads, trains on time, freedom from beggars and from men of honor, and all the other spiritual benefactions of Roman civilization." -- Page 342
"But he saw now that he must remain alone, a "Liberal" scorned by all the nosier prophets for refusing to be a willing cat for the busy monkeys of either side. . . 'More and more, as I think about history,' he pondered, 'I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world had been accomplished by the free inquiring critical spirit and the that preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever.'" – page 433

[AlGore-08.com]

3. Yes, it was written in 1935 and Lewis co-wrote a stage version in 1936

The book is incredible. Lewis was satirizing the attitude so many folks had before Pearl Harbor that the American character was completely incompatible with fascism. The really brilliant part of the book IMNSHO is the evolution of the main character, who is a small town newspaperman and moderate Republican.

The stage version was produced by the Federal Theater Project and opened in multiple cities simultaneously. It's mentioned in Tim Robbin's film "Cradle Will Rock".

[tblue37]

9. It parallels our current situation and our current Little Boots

dictator so closely it will freak you out. Conason's book It Can Happen Here lays out the similarities and shows how close we are to a real fascist dictatorship already.

[bobthedrummer]

10. read it-it even has an anti-Windrip organization called "New Underground/NU"

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. Thank YOU!

I started it once a couple of years ago, and then lost it... I just bought "It Can Happen Here" and I so wanted to finish this first.

:bounce:

[bobthedrummer]

5. How dare you, a known "communist" DUer make such a suggestion

as to read that commie propaganda from the author of other anti-American works like Arrowsmith, Babbit, Dodsworth, Elmer Gantry and Mainstreet?

You and your ilk are what the alert button is for, slad! Reading is a waste of productivity, you should just go shopping and fill up the tank.

:sarcasm:

[seemslikeadream]

7. Of course I'm a hard line communist

who takes my dialectical materialism seriously

[bobthedrummer]

6. K&R #5

:hi:

[tblue37]

8. THANKS!

I have Conason's It Can Happen Here, the title of which is a play on this title. Conason's bok is a powerful read, and I have been meaning to locate the Lewis book and read it, too. Now I can do so from the comfort of my computer.

[seemslikeadream]

11. PICTURE THIS:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/12/18/public_enemy/?page=full

By Joe Keohane | December 18, 2005

PICTURE THIS: A folksy, self-consciously plainspoken Southern politician rises to power during a period of profound unrest in America. The nation is facing one of the half-dozen or so of its worst existential crises to date, and the people, once sunny, confident, and striving, are now scared, angry, and disillusioned.

This politician, a ''Professional Common Man,'' executes his rise by relentlessly attacking the liberal media, fancy-talking intellectuals, shiftless progressives, pinkos, promiscuity, and welfare hangers-on, all the while clamoring for a return to traditional values, to love of country, to the pie-scented days of old when things made sense and Americans were indisputably American. He speaks almost entirely in ''noble but slippery abstractions''-Liberty, Freedom, Equality-and people love him, even if they can't fully articulate why without resorting to abstractions themselves.

Through a combination of factors-his easy bearing chief among them (along with massive cash donations from Big Business; disorganization in the liberal opposition; a stuffy, aloof opponent; and support from religious fanatics who feel they've been unfairly marginalized)-he wins the presidential election.

Once in, he appoints his friends and political advisers to high-level positions, stocks the Supreme Court with ''surprisingly unknown lawyers who called by his first name,'' declaws Congress, allows Big Business to dictate policy, consolidates the media, and fills newspapers with ''syndicated gossip from Hollywood.'' Carping newspapermen worry that America is moving backward to a time when anti-German politicians renamed sauerkraut ''Liberty Cabbage'' and ''hick legislators...set up shop as scientific experts and made the world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution,'' but newspaper readers, wary of excessive negativity, pay no mind.

[tbyg52]

12. Thanks, but it was a hard enough read on paper

It had to be done, though--we're almost there.

It's also available as a play--I think this listing is in response to current events, as I'd looked for the play version not too long ago (less than a year) and couldn't find it.
http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?index=0&key=2068

Found *one* copy of the playscript on ABE. (Well, not counting the $2,000 original copy!) Not including link, because I bought it. Going to try to get our local theatre group to do it (the cast is probably too large, though).

Oops--got distracted and forgot to add:
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."-Sinclair Lewis (1935)

[hootinholler]

13. LOL

Fron the parent page of the OP bottom link...

Based on a bestselling novel by Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here describes America under the control of a fascist dictatorship similar to the ones ruling Germany and Italy. On October 27, 1936, the Federal Theatre Project took advantage of the interest in Lewis's book and launched 22 simultaneous openings of the play across the country, including Yiddish, Spanish, and all-black productions. By the end of its run, It Can't Happen Here had been seen by almost 500,000 people nationwide. In some cities, local authorities refused to allow the play to open because of its controversial content. Republicans charged that the date for the show's mass opening had been selected to whip up support for Democrats in the 1936 elections.

Things really don't change much do they?

-Hoot

[HCE SuiGeneris]

14. kick

[DemBones DemBones]

15. Thanks for the link. I had started reading it online last year, before

my computer crashed, and hadn't gotten around to looking for the link again. I just read the first seven chapters and it's hard to stop reading.

[antigop]

16. I have recommended this book many times on DU -- people should read it n/t