Naomi Wolf And The Beauty of The Fascist Myth

Naomi Wolf reveals us the Great Rove/Bush/Halliburton Road To Fascism Plan in the pages (OK in this case the screen) of the Guardian. You see there are ten ways you change a democratic government into a fascist state (Boo. Hiss) and the United States has seemingly just completed all ten on Ms. Wolf's checklist. The short version of the list...

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. Create a gulag

3. Develop a thug caste

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

5. Harass citizens' groups

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. Target key individuals

8. Control the press

9. Dissent equals treason

10. Suspend the rule of law

Most of the said article consists of Ms. Wolf twisting and dare I say torturing the anit-terrorism measures of the Bush administration into a rough approximation of a Nazi putsch. All done with the lack of proportion and intellectual honesty that would warm the cockles of the heart of her freshman PoliSci professor.
Far be it for me to ruin the hilarious joy of reading the whole piece intact, but I feel forced to hit for you some of the....for lack of a better word "highlights."

Number 3 on her hit parade is "develop a thug caste." Now while most of us probably have not noticed the gangs of politically motivated ruffians roaming the streets of America (unless you count these earnest fellows) the eagle eyed Wolf has scoped out the threatening malcontents...

Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000.

Ah yes, Germany had its brown shirts, Italy its black and America will one day tremble under the.....white shirts. White shirts and blue slacks to be exact. Maybe a red power tie to set it off.

Number 8, "control the press." Mmmmm, I think President Bush needs to work a bit longer on this one.

And my favorite, "Engage in arbitrary detention and release."
Her frightening example.....

Professor Walter F Murphy is emeritus of Princeton University; he is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the nation and author of the classic Constitutional Democracy. Murphy is also a decorated former marine, and he is not even especially politically liberal. But on March 1 this year, he was denied a boarding pass at Newark, "because I was on the Terrorist Watch list".

"Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," asked the airline employee.

"I explained," said Murphy, "that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution."

"That'll do it," the man said.

If only the Weimer Republic had had more ticket agents brave enough to speak the truth to overly gulli...ugh, I mean deeply probing professors, well, certainly it would still exist today.

And finally number 10, "Suspend the rule of law." Ms. Wolf has rather unique viewpoint on what consists of suspending said rule of said law...

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens.
Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spears's meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole's baby, the New York Times editorialised about this shift: "A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night ... Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any 'other condition'."

Critics see this as a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act - which was meant to restrain the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement.

See this is where sharp perception kicks in. A less perceptive person would think this had something to do with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the inability of the President to move swiftly due to his needing the approval of state officials before moving certain federal assets into an area. But no it is in fact a clever scheme to unleash the ironsides of Michigan on the unsuspecting peoples of Oregon.

Also I always thought the Posse Comitatus Act was designed to keep the Federal government from interfering with the unreconstructed Southern states as they tried to "Redeem" themselves.

It is nice however for Naomi Wolf to lighten our Spring with such a humorous prose work...

...but the English don't read this for actual political insight do they ?


Some other views on "Fascist America."