Page:Army Talk Orientation Fact Sheet - 64.djvu/1



OU are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives because of a thing called fascism. Our country was attacked by the fascist aggressor, Japan. The "Sons of Heaven" were promptly joined by their fascist partners of Germany and Italy.

"Fascism" is a word that's been used a great deal these last few years. We come across it in our newspapers, we hear it in our newsreels, it comes up in our bull sessions. We've heard about the cruelties of fascism, its terror, its conquest of country after country. We've heard of its concentration camps—like Dachau in Germany and its torture chambers—like Maidanek in Poland. We've heard of its planned mass murder of whole peoples—which scholars call "genocide."

Some of the things that have been done to people by fascists seem too horrible to believe, especially to Americans who believe in "live and let live." Hardboiled American correspondents, formerly skeptical, now believe because they have seen. (See page 6.)

We Americans have been fighting fascists for more than three years. When Cecil Brown, one of the leading war correspondents, came back from the battle fronts, he went on a trip that took him into big cities and small towns all over America. He talked and listened to all kinds of people. He found that most Americans are vague about just what fascism really means. He found few Americans who were confident they would recognize a fascist if they saw one.

And are we in uniform any more certain what fascism is—where it came from—what made it strong? Do we know how fascism leads men to do the things done to people at Maidanek? Do we know how it leads them to attack helpless nations? Are Maidaneks and war inevitable results of fascism? Do all fascists speak only German, Italian or Japanese—or do some of them speak our language? Will military victory in this War automatically kill fascism? Or could fascism rise in the United States after it's been crushed abroad? What can we do to prevent it?

Perhaps we ought to get to know the answers. If we don't understand fascism and recognize fascism when we see it, it might crop up again—under another label—and cause another war.

Fascism is a way to run a country—it's the way Italy was run, and the way Germany and Japan are run. Fascism is the precise opposite of democracy. The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.

Fascism is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state. Why? The democratic way of life interferes with their methods and desires for: (1) conducting business; (2) living with their fellow-men; (3) having the final say in matters concerning others, as well as themselves. The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he's told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law. They make their own rules and change them when they choose. If you don't like it, it's "T.S."

They maintain themselves in power by use of force