Lessons of a Catastrophe
It Can't Happen Here, But It Did Happen There
by Ariel Dorfman, The Nation

It Can't Happen Here. Thirty years ago that is what we chanted, that is what we sang, on the streets of Santiago de Chile. It can't happen here. There can never be a dictatorship in this country, we proclaimed to the winds of history that were about to furiously descend on us; our democracy is too solid, our armed forces too committed to popular sovereignty, our people too much in love with freedom. But it did happen.
Full story here.