If the Tea Party wins:
Belize looking better and better
By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver / The Rag Blog / September 15, 2010
With the results of the primary elections tonight, the “Tea Party” is poised to become the Republican Party.
Lots of people look at the TP movement and see danger, and lots of people look at 2012 as potentially the American “January 20, 1933.” We are possibly a step closer to that. What many do not consider is that the election that foreshadowed the Nazi victory of 1933 was the election of 1931, when “Nazi crazies” won sufficient seats in the Reichstag to become the largest party. That is when they crossed the line toward complete electoral victory.
Myself, I remember long conversations with that famous director, Billy Wilder, whom I was fortunate to know in the 1980s. He recognized the Nazis for what they were in 1928, when his friends still thought Hitler was a joke. He harped on the Nazi danger to the point his friends called him a “crank” — then there were the 1931 elections, and some friends got worried. Then when the 1933 victory happened, he packed everything he owned in a steamer trunk and bought a one-way ticket on the Paris Express that same night of the victory.
If the Democrats have a brain (unproven at this point) they can defeat these loonies this year, but if they don’t, and these people get into office, then this is America’s “election of 1931,” and watch out 2012.
I strongly recommend to all that if these people win in November, you be sure your passport is current before 2012.
Remember what Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1934: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Belize is looking better and better. Hey, if we all go down there, we can move into our own neighborhood and start our own pub!
[Thomas McKelvey Cleaver is an accidental native Texan, a journalist, and a produced screenwriter. He has written successful horror movies and articles about Second World War aviation, was a major fundraiser for Obama in 2008, and has been an activist on anti-war, political reform, and environmental issues for almost 50 years.]
Thomas, Sorry, dude, but this is way off base!!
Belize is an independent nation with its own peoples, economy, and problems, not some vacant, idyllic playground for gringoes who can’t hack their own future!! While the tiny country has welcomed expatriates from many nations, intense immigration pressure from more southern nations, as well as the commercially-rising Taiwanese, is today threatening to overwhelm Belize’s fragile infrastructure and ecology.
While citizenship is still available to some immigrants, standards and costs have risen. Belize, a very young nation, struggles to overcome official corruption and foreigh economic domination — sort of like us!!
By all means, have fun on the eco-tours, but it’s extremely irresponsible, not to mention rude, to advocate mass exodus to a nation that hasn’t actually invited you! And, btw, there are quite enough “pubs” and drunkards in Belize, and consequent crimes of passion and roadkill, without your adding more! Alcohol is especially harmful to local indigenous people.
Really want to do something needed in Belize? Start installing solar water heating equipment in this sun-rich, energy-starved part of the world, where the lack of domestic hot water leads to higher levels of preventable childhood illness and blindness. Get a sturdy vehicle and deliver library books to remote villages in the Mayan Highlands. Start a legitimate research effort into the sustainability and value of Belize’s herbal medicines. Heck, open a bowling alley or an air-conditioned movie theater!
But please don’t go there to model whining defeatism and booze to the young people of this very special place!
Mariann — Tom was being FACETIOUS! Nobody’s advocating a mass migration to Belize. It was simply a device for making a point.
Thorne
Thorne, that’s not the way I read it. What point was made, pray tell, by dragging Belize into this article? Does Tom think that his writing is uninfluential?
Well, whatever. In the real world if the Tea Party represents the kind of decision the German elite made back then, then Belize or any other place will not make you safe from the nukes — it only takes a 15 megaton exchange to possibly start a nuclear winter (think about what occurred in Europe with the volcano recently and you might, if you are moderately intelligent, dear reader, get the picture).
Or does anyone believe that a world war can remain “conventional”?
Personally, I MUCH prefer being in a place that will be massively hit, like NYC, where I will never even know what hit me.
Also, those of you who think war comes from the capitalist/communist paradigm think again; when World War III started, the Soviet Union was not even a gleam in V.I. Lenin’s eye.
Thomas,
Wow! Nazis being elected in the US. Where do you think they’ll set up the Death Camps? You know they come after the Intellectuals first, right? You better get packin’. Not sure how you’ll earn a living down there in that free speech haven of Bealize, because I’ll bet they’ve got their fill of D movie writers and I’m not sure your VA bennies will transfer down there. Maybe you can start a hobby shop and sell snaptie models, like the ones you build. First it will be Kristallnacht, then you’ll be made e wear an armband with the letter “O”. Yeah, I think you’d better get packin’!