When is a Dictatorship Announced?

From somewhere in the Third Galaxy:

It all happened so slowly, yet quickly -- in the open and behind closed doors.

When the deed was done, it was not even then called what it was: a tyranny such as that poor world had never seen:

Smiling faces on the glowing screens mouthing phrases of sugar and cream while, behind the scene, bodies floated softly down silent streams.

A dictatorship is never announced, neither in the intent or in the fulfillment of the dark intent of those who would scream of permanence and a thousand years of lasting peace from their thrones of rusty bricks and excrement as they slowly fry the world in bacon grease.

Thus it was that in Arrogance the people quickly -- o, so quickly! -- learned to watch their tongue and, like their leaders, never use words that said what they meant; for, as the Unknown Poet had writ so many years before:

The greatest enemy of democracy is bald faced hypocrisy.

In truth, a dictatorship is never called by its proper name until it has fallen and its statues and idols have been toppled and smashed in the streets.