QUOTE : How likely is it that the ruling class in America could develop an openly fascist system here? I think it’s very unlikely, frankly. They don’t have the force. About a century ago, in the freest countries in the world at that time—Britain and the United States—the dominant classes came to understand that they can’t control the population by force any longer. Too much freedom had been won by struggles like these. They realized this, they were self-conscious about it, and it’s discussed in their literature. The dominant class recognized they had to shift their tactics to control of attitudes and beliefs instead of just the cudgel. They didn’t throw away the cudgel, but it can’t do what it used to do. You have to control attitudes and beliefs. In fact, that’s when the public relations industry began. It began in the United States and England, the free countries where you had to have a major industry to control beliefs and attitudes; to induce consumerism, passivity, apathy, distraction—all the things you know very well. And that’s the way it’s been going on. It’s a barrier, but it’s a lot easier to overcome than torture and the Gestapo. I don’t think the circumstances exist any longer for instituting anything like what we called fascism.