Tyrants cut off information
The first thing tyrants do is close schools. The second thing they do is burn books. The third thing is cut off information. Right-wing Republicans are on the way to doing all three: State legislatures continue to cut school budgets; local Republicans are reducing budgets for libraries. Congressional Republicans are now cutting off information — slashing the budgets of the most important sources we have for collecting data on what’s really happening to jobs, wages, and the economy: the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because of such cuts, the BLS can no longer collect data on mass layoffs or how Americans are using their time; the cuts may also make employment data less reliable.
Republicans don’t want Americans to know the truth. That way they can hoodwink us even more. But a free society needs good information no less than it needs citizens sufficiently educated to use that information to make informed decisions – such as voting Republicans out of office.
No labor statistics for you, peasants.
That neoliberal technique of restricting information is not confined to the US, it’s part of a widespread attack on social democracy and it will probably work, in the short term at least. Out of sight out of mind.
The Romans sometimes wondered how many slaves there were in the Empire, but they were afraid of the answer.
Tyrants usually end up hurting themselves because they lack, or refuse to believe, the information they could have gathered. They forget that they may need the information themselves some time.
I read somewhere that during the siege of Stalingrad the German front line generals deliberately sent false reports about how the battle was progressing because they knew bad news would make Hitler angry. As a result the German high command didn’t know their strategy on the eastern front was failing and so didn’t do anything about it until it was too late.
Bernard, look at Franco. Or Pinochet.
Short of trading counter-examples, how do you quantify your claim that it really is more often than not?
(We’ve got all of history to choose from!)
The first thing tyrants do is close schools.
Can’t recall seeing much about that in studies of the rise of fascism. Curricula and personnel got replaced wholesale, and certain programs closed, but the schools continued as such.
In some cases (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Saddam’s Iraq), tyrants built a lot of schools.
Bernard Hurley @ # 2 – I dunno about your sources, but what I’ve read from multiple accounts had it that General Paulus begged Hitler for permission to retreat for months, but the Fuhrer refused on general principles.