Naomi Wolf is touring the country to promote her bestselling horror book THE END OF AMERICA. In it she directs our attention to ten steps which have foreshadowed every open society’s descent to totalitarian rule. Rather than signs of nascent machinations, these form more of an inviolate blueprint. Recognize ALL of them?
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
Now we can see the checklist, applied by such would-be dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, etc. Every last one being implemented, under development, or next up in the USA.
I would always have had a hard time imagining Brownshirts in America, because I imagined the thug class to be made of thugs. Imagine however the American incarnation, an under-educated, highly-patriotic, methodological enforcer of the law, except imagine the law as perverted, inconsistent, irrational, counter intuitive to what citizens expect to be their protections. Not so bright agents of arbitrary rules. It’s all there, and we’re already seeing the signs, police killing subjects with non-leathal weapons, using excessive force, enforcing laws that are contradictions of contradictions of constitutional protections. That’s thuggery. That’s terror.
Naomi Wolf is a liberal who seems to animate and activate those who see fascism developing right around the corner. Or worse yet, those people who thing fascism is already being here. In fact, neither thesis is right. Fascism has not arrived.
The current situation is that America is truly glued to a 2-party pseudo democracy run by corporations but this has been the case for over a hundred years now. And during that time there have been many periods of increased repression, of which today’s is not one of the worst.
The problem America has is much more profound than being one of facing a new fascist threat. There is no fascist movement growing today in the US, and those who imagine such are just truly ignorant of what fascism really is, and why such a movement is formed by the rich.
Those who shout ‘Facism! Fascism! FascismFascism!’ today are actually former true believers in ‘The 2 Party System’ that just woke up a little at long last. They are folk that tend to wake up some when the Republicans run the show, and then who go back to napping when the Democrats take back the steering wheel.
Much of their fear of ‘facism’ is superficial and full of holes. What we really need to fear is not just fascism, but the entire structure of what is called democracy in the US, though it is nothing more than corporate dictatorship. Will they still be active in opposing war making and repression when the Democrats are put back in the White House? That remains to be seen?
Meanwhile, oppose the repression, but don’t go off the deep end rhetorically. What we have ruling over us is bad enough, but don’t go off screaming about it being something it is not. We do not have fascismfascism nor are we facing a growing fascist movement at this time. We have an authoritarian corporate pseudo democracy, but we had that 50 years ago, too.
Eric,
I enjoyed reading your posting. Thank you for the information.
How fortuitous for you to bring it up. This year marks the 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the National Security Act, which created the National Military Establishment, the National Security Council, AND THE CIA! The basis for the shadow government for which the two-party system is just window dressing.