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    Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism: Lessons from History
    Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism: Lessons from History
    Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism: Lessons from History
    Ebook36 pages35 minutes

    Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism: Lessons from History

    By Julie R Butler

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    About this ebook

    A nation that went to war thinking that it would be quick and easy, but then getting bogged down, becoming polarized, falling into financial difficulties, losing confidence in their government, looking desperately for strong leadership, and falling for conspiracy theories and false accusations about those within and without who oppose the romantic call for cultural purity and supposed morality...?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJulie R Butler
    Release dateSep 20, 2010
    ISBN9781452349558
    Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism: Lessons from History
    Author

    Julie R Butler

    I am child of Colorful Colorado and a citizen of the world.I am always searching for truths that we can all live by, which celebrate diversity, respect individuality, and promote real democracy.I love to play with language, images, and ideas.I believe that knowledge does set us free, and that the manipulation of knowledge and fear is a large part of what has held humanity back from solving problems that are enormous, but not unsolvable through patient perseverance.I see the universe as infinitely interconnected and incomprehensibly complex, but not in and of itself incomprehensible.After spending several decades living a nomadic lifestyle while traveling the roads of North and Central America with my life partner followed by seven years living in South America (Uruguay and Argentina) and then returning to Central Mexico until his death in 2018, I have landed back in Colorado, where I currently split my time between Denver and the San Luis Valley.My essays and the occasional poem can be found at the following locations:The philosophy anthology, "What Do You Believe?" (edited by Derek Beres Brooklyn, NY: Outside the Box Publishing, 2009)."Connectively Speaking"(http://connectivelyspeaking.blogspot.com), my social issues blog [which, as a set of observations from more than a decade ago, is, I believe, pretty prescient.]"we fear what we don't understand" (http://julierbutler.blogspot.com), my older socio-political blog.

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      Book preview

      Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism - Julie R Butler

      * * * * *

      SECRECY, DEMOCRACY, AND FASCISM

      Lessons from History

      * * * * *

      Published by Julie R Butler

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2010 by Julie R Butler

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      * * * * *

      Secrecy, Democracy, and Fascism

      Lessons from History

      I recently began a project to examine why it is that people seem to be so susceptible to crazy conspiracy theories, fear-mongering tactics, and mis-directions of attention from finding real solutions to problems that we all face as human beings on this planet. I began this quest for understanding because I cannot understand how polarized the United States of America has become in recent years, due to extremism on the part of the Evangelical Right, which then makes the Progressive Left appear extreme to those who do not understand that the underlying problem is that information has been denied most of the population, the press has been hijacked by big business interests with ties to the White House, history has been re-written, and those who seek power for its own sake have allied with those extremists on the right, the religious extremists, the economic extremists, and the political extremists, and skewed the entire country toward their right-wing viewpoints. I speak from the Left in all three of these categories, but I feel that my views are only extreme in regard to religion because I am an atheist, and I am willing to admit that this is an extreme viewpoint because my belief is that religion is entirely independent of facts and knowledge and thus should be a private, not a public, matter. But on the other two fronts, I do not think that my ideas are as radical as the other side would like to paint them to be. That I believe these unconscionable manipulations of information by vested interests to constitute Crimes Against Humanity, as they are creating havoc not only here at home, but across the globe, directly causing great unnecessary suffering through poverty, disease, and violence that we could have avoided had more information and real solutions been freely available, may at first seem pretty radical, but by contrasting these actions with the principles of real democracy, I am asserting that deceit, secretiveness, and opportunism are radical while freedom, democracy, and respect are not.

      My project began when I was shocked to find out that

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