Fascist America

Naomi Wolf’s book Fascist America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot was published in September 2007. The following article from the UK’s The Guardian is a synopsis of the book. Are Naomi Wolf’s observations truer, or less true, a year later?

Naomi states: “Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree…”

I think part of the problem for many Americans is that they do not have a reference point to judge what is happening in America. In a sense, and this is my suspicion, people from outside of America is probably more aware of the radical changes happening than the US citizens themselves. Americans have had freedom for so long that they have forgotten what it took to get that freedom. Why did the Founding Fathers flee Europe in search of freedom in the New World? Why was the Bill of Rights created exactly as it was?

(Of course, in the end I am not an American and might just be wrong.)

Here are the 10 steps as set out by Wolf and which she claims the US government is guilty of. Read the full article at The Gaurdian.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
Tuesday April 24 2007, The Guardian


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

Right now, only a handful of patriots are trying to hold back the tide of tyranny for the rest of us - staff at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who faced death threats for representing the detainees yet persisted all the way to the Supreme Court; activists at the American Civil Liberties Union; and prominent conservatives trying to roll back the corrosive new laws, under the banner of a new group called the American Freedom Agenda. This small, disparate collection of people needs everybody's help, including that of Europeans and others internationally who are willing to put pressure on the administration because they can see what a US unrestrained by real democracy at home can mean for the rest of the world.

We need to look at history and face the "what ifs". For if we keep going down this road, the "end of America" could come for each of us in a different way, at a different moment; each of us might have a different moment when we feel forced to look back and think: that is how it was before - and this is the way it is now.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.