About the author

H. L. Dowless

With a BS degree in social sciences and history, H. L. Dowless has been a freelance author and researcher for over thirty five years. He is also a lifetime history buff who volunteers for work at museums, participates in archaeological fieldwork and visits historical sites on a regular basis. He is an international ESL instructor.

Stairway to Tyranny

Name: Stairway to Tyranny
Price: 19.95 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: H. L. Dowless
ISBN: 9781628942583

Corporate Creep, Globalism and the Loss of Liberty

Price range: $19.95 through $29.95

Stairway to Tyranny reviews the historical precedents that show how we are being set up for an authoritarian take-over, and it calls for all citizens to work together to stop it in its tracks.

Book Type

Clear

Categories: History: USAuthor: H. L. Dowless SKU: stairway-to-tyranny Category: History: US Tags: American political history, Authoritarian takeover America, civil liberties under threat, corporate control of government, corporate power and democracy, creeping fascism United States, crony capitalism history, erosion of American freedoms, government corruption and corporations, history of American decline, history of corporate influence in politics, is America becoming a tyranny, Lincoln and corporate interests, loss of property rights, media distortion of history, political collusion Washington, political wake-up call, power and the elite, rise of authoritarianism, shadow government history, US history reexamined, Washington and banking collusion, who controls America, working class losing ground Author: H. L. Dowless

Available from

Sound Bite

When did this creeping tilt toward fascism, totalitarianism, come from? More and more Americans recognize a corporate stranglehold on the economy; collusion between Washington and the bankers/businesses; laws that take private property away from hard-working families and individuals for the benefit of those at the top...

But it's nothing new! This defeat of the individual and the spirit of enterprise began prior to 1862; it was accelerated under Lincoln, a corporate agent. Wilson allowed the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, Reagan further empowered the corporations, and Bush gave us the Patriot Act.

About the Book

Stairway to Tyranny reviews the historical precedents that show how we are being set up for an authoritarian take-over, and it calls for all citizens to work together to stop it in its tracks. Today, it’s clear that the increasing influence of corporations and their prioritization of profit over public interest has undermined regulations protecting workers, the environment, and public health. This unchecked power has shifted governance from democratic institutions to corporate elites. But when did all this begin?

The school system and corporate media have distorted our image of US history, so that we misread the signs that indicate the danger. Every major issue has been condensed into an emotional distraction for the purpose of concealing the facts. We have a corporate stranglehold on the economy; collusion between Washington and the bankers/businesses; laws that take private property away from hard-working families and individuals for the benefit of those at the top...Are we walking right into the trap?

Dowless examines the rise of corporate power, authoritarianism, and economic inequality, offering insights into their impact on global governance and individual liberties. Trade agreements like NAFTA and TPP have eroded national sovereignty, empowering multinational corporations and limiting governments’ ability to protect citizens. Authority is being concentrated, our liberties are chipped away, and what little wealth we manage to scrape together is confiscated on more and more flimsy pretexts. The privately-held resource base that was supposed to be the bedrock of this country is being taken away, and the average citizen is turned into a feudal serf, a debt-slave, subservient to a central bank and the corporations it finances.

Stairway to Tyranny traces the defeat of individual enterprise back to the de facto central bank of New York, and the corporations that have grown up around it. Lincoln started the War against the South to support that bank and the corporations. Forty years after World War II, the checks and balances on the corporations were removed in Reagan's plan of deregulation.

Twenty years after that, 9/11 provided the excuse for passing the Patriot Act, which removed the checks and balances preventing the president from placing himself in the position of absolute authority. By Trump’s second term, 25 years later, we actually have a president who thinks he’s Emperor of the World. Here we stand on the threshold of the unthinkable, and it has materialized right before our eyes.

About the Book

Most Americans sense that something has gone seriously wrong with the country — that corporations call the shots, that Washington serves the wealthy, and that ordinary working people keep losing ground. This book argues that the slide toward authoritarian rule didn't start recently. It traces the roots of corporate dominance and government collusion back well before the Civil War, with a particular focus on Abraham Lincoln, who the author characterizes not as a great emancipator but as an agent of corporate and banking interests.

Drawing on historical precedents, the book makes the case that what looks like modern political dysfunction is actually the latest stage in a long, deliberate erosion of individual rights and democratic governance. The distortion of American history in schools and corporate media, the argument goes, has left citizens unable to recognize the warning signs for what they are. Hot-button issues get turned into emotional distractions while the real mechanisms of control — property laws that strip wealth from working families, regulatory capture, and elite collusion — operate largely out of public view.

The book's central call is a civic one: that Americans across the political spectrum need to set aside manufactured divisions and confront the concentrated power that threatens self-governance. Whether readers agree with every argument or not, the book raises pointed questions about who really benefits from the way American political and economic institutions are structured, and how that arrangement took hold over more than a century and a half of history.