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With America's first black president-elect comes a wave of optimism, it seems: things will be okay. But even as the public breathes this collective sigh of relief, it turns a wary eye to Barack Obama and wonders, if quietly, will things really be okay? Because the Bush administration has done real damage to America's democratic structure by limiting civil liberties, creating undemocratic "justice" systems, and otherwise desecrating our constitution. This damage is frightenly cataloged by Naomi Wolf in her 2007 book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.
Wolf's basic premise is simple and hard to dispute: when studying dictators throughout the world's history, there are ten patterns of behavior that emerge that contribute to their rise to power, and George W. Bush and his administration has pursued each of these steps. While never outright calling Bush and his posse a fascist dictatorship, Wolf certainly connects many dots and sounds a clear warning. Paper coups are still coups.
That said, the book is by no means a simple comparison of Bush and Hitler. That would be too simplistic, and could be easily brushed off as left-wing rhetoric. Wolf's arguments transcend this, referencing more than just the obvious Nazi regime (who, after all, were simply better at such tactics than anyone else). Mussolini, Pinochet, Stalin and others all appear frequently to bolster her points. In fact, there are suprisingly few histrionics; Wolf spends much of her writing merely cataloging events and listing actions from different regimes side by side for the reader to compare.
While the book's premise is strongly supported by facts, it's the epistolary format and sheer number of wrongdoings that makes the book a little heavy-handed. Of course, this is the author's intention, but it would have been nice to see a few practical suggestions other than be aware, be vigilant offered to the reader. I suspect this omission is deliberate, though. Wolf's aim is to awaken, not necessarily to direct. She is asking her reader to consider the true meaning of patriot, someone who actively participates in and engages with one's civic society. And to do so, one must first pay attention.
And with chilling examples, Wolf demands our attention. In the end, it's extremely difficult to write off such examples as merely rhetoric, or such warnings as unlikely to occur. Small events become significant when placed against the backdrop of government, as when she describes a TSA agent forcing a mother to prove the substance in her baby's bottle is really breastmilk by drinking it herself: "In Benito Mussolini's era, one intimidation tactic was to force citizens to drink emetics and other liquids...Of course, baby formula is not an emetic. But a state agent—some agents are armed—forcing a citizen to ingest a liquid is a new scene in America."
When the scenes play out, and the layers are peeled back, and the dots begin to connect, what remains are nagging questions: how far does the administration have to go it before its citizens refuse to cooperate? How many democratic protections must be suspended before the public demands its rights back? How many secret armies, Blackwaters, must be formed? How many innocent citizens must be harrassed, jailed, persecuted before their peers step up in their defense? On Tuesday, we heard one answer to these questions.
So, perhaps the recent election signalled The End of America over before it began. What sense is there in rehashing the last eight years, after all, when we all want to move forward? The truth is, it would be dangerous to sit back and rest easy. The Bush administration did a lot of damage; it took an extended series of measured, deliberate steps to maintain and grow its power at the expense of the U.S. Constitution. Those changes will still be operable under the new presidency—we need to know them, to study them, to be able to roll them back.
Wolf's book is, if no longer a warning of imminent danger, at the very least a guide to serious legal issues that need to be addressed by the still-forming Obama administration. So much of the Bush administration's activities were carried out in the shadows of a disinterested, and therefore uninformed, electorate, that one can only hope that Tuesday's engagement was the mark of an extended era, and not merely an emotional hiccup. The end of America may have been delayed, but this book remains a damning documentation of how close we were, and are.
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Whether you read the book or not, I highly recommend watching the following presentation, in which Wolf outlines her premise and presents incredible evidence to support it. A more polished version (with commercials) is also available from SnagFilms.
Wolf's basic premise is simple and hard to dispute: when studying dictators throughout the world's history, there are ten patterns of behavior that emerge that contribute to their rise to power, and George W. Bush and his administration has pursued each of these steps. While never outright calling Bush and his posse a fascist dictatorship, Wolf certainly connects many dots and sounds a clear warning. Paper coups are still coups.
The Ten Steps Towards Fascist Dictatorship
Wolf's arguments and examples in most cases are incredibly strong and well documented (including 14 pages of reference notes and a full bibliography). Unfortunately, there are stretches that undermine her message. She too often conflates the media (particularly the right-leaning outlets and blogosphere) with the administration itself, as when she hammers Ann Coulter for her book Treason. But these leaps become a little easier to swallow when we remember that much of Hitler's power lay in his use of ordinary citizens, as well as organized media, to further his message. Just because one's finger is not on the trigger doesn't mean they aren't responsible for the death.
- Invoke an external and internal threat.
Example: Terrorism- Establish secret prisons.
Example: Guantánamo- Develop a paramilitary force.
Example: Blackwater- Surveil ordinary citizens.
Example: USA Patriot Act and TIPS- Infiltrate citizen's groups.
Example: Talon and multiple state-level incidents- Arbitrarily detain and release citizens.
Example: The TSA no-fly list, specific individual arrests- Target key individuals.
Example: Direct Congressional pressure on academia, attorney firings- Restrict the press.
Example: The outing of Valerie Plame, detainment of reporters, deliberate withholding of information- Cast criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason."
Example: Revived use of the Espionage Act- Subvert the rule of law.
Example: Military Commissions Act of 2006 (the suspension of habeous corpus), Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill (the gutting of posse comitatus law)
That said, the book is by no means a simple comparison of Bush and Hitler. That would be too simplistic, and could be easily brushed off as left-wing rhetoric. Wolf's arguments transcend this, referencing more than just the obvious Nazi regime (who, after all, were simply better at such tactics than anyone else). Mussolini, Pinochet, Stalin and others all appear frequently to bolster her points. In fact, there are suprisingly few histrionics; Wolf spends much of her writing merely cataloging events and listing actions from different regimes side by side for the reader to compare.
While the book's premise is strongly supported by facts, it's the epistolary format and sheer number of wrongdoings that makes the book a little heavy-handed. Of course, this is the author's intention, but it would have been nice to see a few practical suggestions other than be aware, be vigilant offered to the reader. I suspect this omission is deliberate, though. Wolf's aim is to awaken, not necessarily to direct. She is asking her reader to consider the true meaning of patriot, someone who actively participates in and engages with one's civic society. And to do so, one must first pay attention.
And with chilling examples, Wolf demands our attention. In the end, it's extremely difficult to write off such examples as merely rhetoric, or such warnings as unlikely to occur. Small events become significant when placed against the backdrop of government, as when she describes a TSA agent forcing a mother to prove the substance in her baby's bottle is really breastmilk by drinking it herself: "In Benito Mussolini's era, one intimidation tactic was to force citizens to drink emetics and other liquids...Of course, baby formula is not an emetic. But a state agent—some agents are armed—forcing a citizen to ingest a liquid is a new scene in America."
When the scenes play out, and the layers are peeled back, and the dots begin to connect, what remains are nagging questions: how far does the administration have to go it before its citizens refuse to cooperate? How many democratic protections must be suspended before the public demands its rights back? How many secret armies, Blackwaters, must be formed? How many innocent citizens must be harrassed, jailed, persecuted before their peers step up in their defense? On Tuesday, we heard one answer to these questions.
So, perhaps the recent election signalled The End of America over before it began. What sense is there in rehashing the last eight years, after all, when we all want to move forward? The truth is, it would be dangerous to sit back and rest easy. The Bush administration did a lot of damage; it took an extended series of measured, deliberate steps to maintain and grow its power at the expense of the U.S. Constitution. Those changes will still be operable under the new presidency—we need to know them, to study them, to be able to roll them back.
Wolf's book is, if no longer a warning of imminent danger, at the very least a guide to serious legal issues that need to be addressed by the still-forming Obama administration. So much of the Bush administration's activities were carried out in the shadows of a disinterested, and therefore uninformed, electorate, that one can only hope that Tuesday's engagement was the mark of an extended era, and not merely an emotional hiccup. The end of America may have been delayed, but this book remains a damning documentation of how close we were, and are.
---
Whether you read the book or not, I highly recommend watching the following presentation, in which Wolf outlines her premise and presents incredible evidence to support it. A more polished version (with commercials) is also available from SnagFilms.
Labels: being_watched, censorship, free_speech, politics, pop, products, reviews, writing
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