Fascism Watch

Monday, June 4, was supposed to be Maxwell Corydon Wheat’s big day. The 80-year-old poet, who lives in Nassau County, New York, was to be announced as the county’s first poet laureate.

But the announcement never came. Instead, he saw his name sullied, and then his nomination shot down.

All because he’s written some poems critical of Bush and the Iraq War.
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This is number 11 on the Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism:

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.