TheCommonerCall.org
By Jeff Schech
WhoWhat Why (5/31/17)
In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder talks to Jeff Schechtman about what he sees as the very real possibility that our republic will go the way of history’s other failed democracies, like Athens or even the Weimar Republic.
Both 1930s fascism and communism, Snyder warns, were responses to globalization and to rising inequality. We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats, but he argues that this is a misguided reflex.
Snyder cautions that our institutions, such as the courts, the free press and Congress, cannot alone preserve democratic principles against the ways of authoritarian rulers. In Snyder’s view only a certain set of rules for resistance might save us. Some of these include not being afraid to stand out, do not obey in advance, and be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
Snyder is the author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
Link to Story, 29-Minute Audio and Full Transcript
*****
A Cartoon Primer On Fascism
Commoner Call reader James Hoban sent a wonderful link to a cartoon introduction to fascism that you can link to HERE.