I just finished reading Naomi Wolf's The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

[backscatter712]

It's pretty much confirmed what I already know - the U.S. is rapidly turning into a fascist state.

Wolf's article published a few months ago, Fascist America, in 10 easy steps comes from the material used to write her book, with the ten steps to fascism:

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
    

Yep, we've pretty much got them all, at least in progress. The one thing that most people don't know about the onset of totalitarianism is that it's incremental. It's not a case of one day having a free nation where everything's hunky-dory, then the next day, thousands of jack-booted thugs swoop across the country, and freedom instantly stops. Germany in 1933 looked much like the U.S. - people bitched about Hitler the way we bitch about Bush and Cheney, there were civil rights lawyers still fighting to keep things fair, people still went out to see a show, get drunk, etc. But there, freedoms were being eroded, as they are here. The Nazis didn't instantly start arresting everyone who told a joke about Hitler, but eventually they did. They started their pogroms against minorities - Jews mostly in that case, leaving the impression that if you weren't a member of the persecuted minority, you weren't going to be targeted. But later, there, as is starting to happen here, they started blurring the lines. The U.S. started with people of Middle-Eastern descent, now they're going after Latinos, and blacks are seeing an upswing in racial violence and disproportional targeting by law enforcement and prosecutors. And the line will blur further - lawyers who represent Gitmo inmates are being threatened - careers are put in jeopardy, and some of them have even been threatened with criminal prosecution.

That's just one example. We are rapidly falling into darkness, and if we don't take immediate, drastic action, if we don't stand up NOW, we'll lose our ability to fight. Fascism is insidious in that the constant small threats to your freedom, the implications you're being watched, the smears, the attacks, etc. will silence nearly everyone. People speak out when they feel that they're going to be able to go home afterwards and return to their lives. If that's no longer the case, say if activism is punished by imprisonment or even execution, or people who speak out lose their jobs and get blackballed, then almost everyone will stay silent.

Fight now, or not at all. That is the choice that stands before us.

[PDJane]

1. Start by Impeaching Bush and Cheney.

Put severe limits on the military. There has to be some way to rein in Blackwater.

[datasuspect]

2. we have our very own "auslaender" or "untermensch" class:

undocumented mexican immigrants.

pundits talk in "final solution to the immigrant problem" tones.

[backscatter712]

3. It's amazing the resources fascists commit to oppressing their minorities of choice.

The U.S. is spending millions of dollars building a wall along the border, which will have little to no effect upon cross-border traffic of illegal immigrants, but they'll build it anyways.

The Nazis spent immense resources on rounding up Jews and other minorities and murdering them in concentration camps. So much that Hitler actually ordered military units back from the Eastern Front, in late 1944 and 1945, to accelerate the Final Solution, and also accelerating their defeat.

It's completely irrational, and utterly evil. We could be spending billions to bring health care to everyone in this country, but instead, those billions will be spent on war, on border fences, on more prisons and camps, and on endless ways to oppress them in society.

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. My copy of the book just came yesterday!

I listened to Naomi being interviewed on Sam Seder;s show on AAR on Sept.9. I was driving home through the Mojave desert from a weekend in Nevada, and couldn;t write some things down, but wish I could have becase she gave to online sites to check out and join, and they sounded worth checking into. Any idea which ones those might be?

Anyway, all Naomi said in that interview very much frightened me becasue I know it to be true. However, am still more determined through being pissed off that our nation is so much in peril, that fear is the least of what drives me anymore in regard to saving our nation.

[gateley]

5. American Freedom Campaign and American Freedom Agenda

AFC is more left,
AFA is more libertarian

[Whoa_Nelly]

8. Thank you! Thank you!

I had gone through the transcripts of that show about three weeks ago, but the transcripts were incomplete...at least I couldn't find the references to those two site.

Thank you so much! :loveya:

[gateley]

9. My pleasure! When I actually know the answer to something, I'm thrilled! nt

[backscatter712]

10. I just looked at American Freedom Campaign.

Definitely something worth participating in.

http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/

[GuvWurld]

6. I just finished reading it too

It is very thorough in detailing the fascism formula - showing how all dictators take the same steps, and we've gone far down that path ourselves. It is very light on solutions - the HOW TO for organizing. Still, very worth reading and hopefully useful to many who need resources for building bridges to folks who still don't get it - that is, the objective criteria to shatter illusions about what current-day America really looks like.

[gateley]

7. She said in an interview to check American Freedom Campaign -- they have

over 5 million people. That's a nice chunk. If enough PEOPLE start shifting around, I think we can force a return back to "America". Hopefully its voice will be heard.

Biden talks about how "you can't take two steps over a chasm", but that's exactly what we've been doing the last few years. We're THIS CLOSE to hearing the doors slam shut.

I'm waiting for my copy of the book to arrive. I'm almost afraid to read it. It'll be like a checklist.