On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, Chip Berlet wrote:
> There are certainly disputes over the terms "authoritarian" and
> "totalitarian," but in European academic writing the terms are used
> intelligently by some leftist scholars. In the U.S. the terms were
> hijacked by anticommunist ideologues like Jeane J. Kirkpatrick.
Which led to my favorite definitions, in a four panel Auth cartoon from the early 1980s. Jean Kirkpatrick is giving a lecture:
1) In totalitarian countries . .
2) The government tortures, kills and suppresses unions and the press.
3) Whereas in authoritarian countries . .
4) These functions are left to the private sector.
Michael