Mort Sahl: This is 20 years too late, man. They’ve been drafting people like you for 20 years. So that eventually 435 honorable men in the Congress don’t even object, and nobody votes against the Un-American Activities Committee, and nobody says anything about the war, and nobody says anything about anything, and nobody says anything about murder in the streets. I’ve been crying fascism, fascism. How much success, how heady was the sensation, and how intoxicated with the fascists in this country to get to a point where they thought they could go ahead with this boldest stroke as killing him in the street? Well, obviously what makes them think they can get away with it? The experience of getting away with it over the years! They tend to get power drunk because they’ve been successful. It gets crazier and crazier. They’ve extended fascism without challenge for so long in this country, a generation since 1945, the dark days, this long night started with Roosevelt’s death. You can chart the whole thing and it gets to a point where a whole generation doesn’t know any better.
Robert Kennedy talks about a massive retaliation and communism and capitalism and vehicular capability. You’re brought up on those terms, man. You can’t even tell when somebody is jiving you anymore because it’s 20 years of madness.
As much as my Jewish friends aren’t going to like it, the German people weren’t born crazy. They were made so by their government. They were made in the form which is most convenient to that government, which is fascistic, which broke the backs of the unions and used the anti-Semitism as a dodge. Same thing is happening here. They’re trying to drive the American people crazy. I’ll tell you something: I think they’re succeeding. There’s great evidence in the barbarism of day-to-day life and in the lack of direction and the degree of a lack of mental health in this country.
I’m not suggesting going to a psychiatrist because most of them are sellouts too. Sad to say because they know better, but all they want to do is to repair you and get you back on the line to keep punching out Mustang frames. That’s the trouble.
