Fascism

Fascism is a dictatorial, repressive political system founded by Benito Mussolini. Similar authoritarian regimes have been found in other countries since.

Zappa about fascism

Frank Zappa: "I’m not going to give you a civics lesson, but I can tell you one thing: we must not see eye-to-eye on a government that must forbid things in order to protect families."

John Lofton (Washington Times): "What is the government’s role? You’ve told me several times what it should do."

Zappa: "What about defense? What about national defense?"

Lofton: "Our families are under attack from people like you with these lyrics."

Zappa: "Could I make a comment about National Defense: the biggest threat to America today is not communism. It’s moving America toward a fascist theocracy. And everything that’s happened under the Reagan Administration is steering us right down that pipe. (...) When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion, and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very very right wing, almost toward Attila the Hun…"

Lofton: "Well then you are an anarchist. Every form of civil government is based on some kind of morality, Frank."

Zappa: "Morality in terms of behavior, not in terms of theology!"

- Frank Zappa. Interview on CNN's Crossfire, 28 March 1986.

"On the left you've got Communism. Well, Communism doesn't work. It absolutely doesn't work, and on the right you have Fascism and that doesn't work either. (...) I don't think that Americans, in the way they think of themselves as being nice, kind, free, fair, good-natured, jolly little individuals, would willingly opt for Fascism, but they could easily be tricked into it. All you have to do is tell them that it's a candy apple, or whatever the lies are that are going on right now. Literally, they are being molded into something that is as potentially dangerous to the rest of the world as Nazi Germany was in the Thirties and Forties. But tricked into it by people who have just lulled them into this false sense of security, and they wave a little American flag over it and everybody just has this knee-jerk reaction that they've got to buy it. - Frank Zappa in Interview by Bob Marshall, 22 October 1988.

"There's been an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitudes here, most of them being helped along by the Republican Party. That Republican National Party Convention last summer was just unbelievable. Even the set decor looked like a Nuremberg rally. Hatemongers like Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and the rest of the featured speakers were convinced they were going to win again." - Frank Zappa in Pulse Interview, April 1993.