Try this at home

Get out a notepad, and spend an hour reading these two articles, which, while pretty general, do a very good job of reciting the bullet points of these eras.

As you read, write down points of interest which you think clearly resonate with our present populist "rebellions."  They don't have to be exact matches. They merely have to resonate with the kinds of social forces, resentments, and anger which allowed these hideous histories to evolve.

Then, tweet what you see, as a single assertion or statement, and include the word #Fascismy. I will watch that tag, and pull what you tweet into a post that summarizes what you see.  Don't hesitate to use more than 140 characters via services like Twitlonger.com, or tinypaste.com.

My point is not to suggest we ARE precisely like these previous moments in history.  Only… repeat.. ONLY to illustrate that there ARE, in fact, many such parallels that are painfully obvious to anyone that bothers to note them. Not with generalities or trite gestures such as drawing mustaches on Presidents, but with real specifics of historical fact.

What you do with that information is entirely up to you. I feel it's important that we all remind ourselves that sometimes, history is what happens; it's not always what we see coming until it's already past, and its damage done.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Fascism

Oh, should you comment with something about Godwin's law, my response will probably be simply this.