The End
Of America!
Of America!
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.
The second Naomi (besides Naomi Klein)
whose book caught my attention was
Naomi Wolf whose book is titled THE
END OF AMERICA!
Ms. Wolf says that she has these two
friends; one, the daughter of a survivor
of a German concentration camp, the
other a young citizen of the United
States, to whom she addresses the
subtitle of her book: "Letter of Warning to
a Young Patriot".
The author begins by quoting news
headlines from a two week period in the
summer of 2006, cataloging events that
portend the crumbling of American
democracy: a computer security expert
fired for posting a blog saying that
waterboarding is torture and is wrong; a
draft bill waiving due process for enemy
combatants; the revocation of rights of
prisoners guaranteed by the Geneva
Convention; the increase of "signing
statements" by the president, declared
by the American Bar Association, to be
an imminent and real threat to our
Republic; the jailing of an American
blogger for refusing to turn over a video
of a protest in San Francisco; and so on
and so on. . .And then of course there is
the immunity from prosecution the
administration seeks for telephone and
internet companies for eavesdropping on
citizens'
communications with one another and
the insistence that immunity be
retroactive.
Ms. Wolf says that as she talks about the
infringement of citizens' rights with her
other friend, the daughter of the
concentration camp survivor, that friend
keeps repeating the same phrase over
and over again. She tells Ms. Wolf, "they
did that in Germany."
Naomi Wolf has numbered ten steps that
she says seem to be a pattern of the
process from democracy to dictatorship.
These steps together with examples of
each step make up the chapters of her
book. But to preface the arguments that
follow, Ms. Wolf records a telephone
conversation she had with a friend who is
a professor of Constitutional Law.
Ms. Wolf asks: "Does the administration
assert that the president can define
anyone he wants as an enemy
combatant? Including U.S. citizens?"
"Yes", he replied
And does it argue that courts must defer
to the government's assertions that
someone could be held as an enemy
combatant even when it presents no
direct evidence?"
"Yes", he replied
"So doesn't that mean they are saying
that now any of us for any reason he
decides can be seized off the street and
imprisoned in isolation for months and
interrogated ?"
"Yes", he said.
"So why isn't anyone saying that?"
"Some people are. But a lot of people
probably think it would just sound crazy,"
he replied.
Then Naomi Wolf names her chapters --
things about which her German friend
kept saying, "that happened in
Germany." Here they are:
1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat;
2. Establish Secret Prisons;
3. Develop a paramilitary force; 4. Surveil
ordinary citizens; 5. Infiltrate citizens'
groups; 6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release
Citizens; 7. Target key individuals; 8.
Restrict the press; 9. Cast criticism as
Espionage and dissent as treason; and
10. Subvert the Rule of Law.
The author concludes with some
sobering thoughts. She cites Egyptian
Security forces that rounded up some of
its citizens. They threw opposition
leaders and a blogger in jail. When
challenged the Egyptians invoked the
example of the USA Patriot Act. She goes
on to say, "If Fascist Germany -- a
medium-sized modern European state --
could destabilize the globe in a matter of
a few years, and it took a world war to
overcome the threat, what force on earth
might restrain an America . . .and its
imperial reach?"
whose book caught my attention was
Naomi Wolf whose book is titled THE
END OF AMERICA!
Ms. Wolf says that she has these two
friends; one, the daughter of a survivor
of a German concentration camp, the
other a young citizen of the United
States, to whom she addresses the
subtitle of her book: "Letter of Warning to
a Young Patriot".
The author begins by quoting news
headlines from a two week period in the
summer of 2006, cataloging events that
portend the crumbling of American
democracy: a computer security expert
fired for posting a blog saying that
waterboarding is torture and is wrong; a
draft bill waiving due process for enemy
combatants; the revocation of rights of
prisoners guaranteed by the Geneva
Convention; the increase of "signing
statements" by the president, declared
by the American Bar Association, to be
an imminent and real threat to our
Republic; the jailing of an American
blogger for refusing to turn over a video
of a protest in San Francisco; and so on
and so on. . .And then of course there is
the immunity from prosecution the
administration seeks for telephone and
internet companies for eavesdropping on
citizens'
communications with one another and
the insistence that immunity be
retroactive.
Ms. Wolf says that as she talks about the
infringement of citizens' rights with her
other friend, the daughter of the
concentration camp survivor, that friend
keeps repeating the same phrase over
and over again. She tells Ms. Wolf, "they
did that in Germany."
Naomi Wolf has numbered ten steps that
she says seem to be a pattern of the
process from democracy to dictatorship.
These steps together with examples of
each step make up the chapters of her
book. But to preface the arguments that
follow, Ms. Wolf records a telephone
conversation she had with a friend who is
a professor of Constitutional Law.
Ms. Wolf asks: "Does the administration
assert that the president can define
anyone he wants as an enemy
combatant? Including U.S. citizens?"
"Yes", he replied
And does it argue that courts must defer
to the government's assertions that
someone could be held as an enemy
combatant even when it presents no
direct evidence?"
"Yes", he replied
"So doesn't that mean they are saying
that now any of us for any reason he
decides can be seized off the street and
imprisoned in isolation for months and
interrogated ?"
"Yes", he said.
"So why isn't anyone saying that?"
"Some people are. But a lot of people
probably think it would just sound crazy,"
he replied.
Then Naomi Wolf names her chapters --
things about which her German friend
kept saying, "that happened in
Germany." Here they are:
1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat;
2. Establish Secret Prisons;
3. Develop a paramilitary force; 4. Surveil
ordinary citizens; 5. Infiltrate citizens'
groups; 6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release
Citizens; 7. Target key individuals; 8.
Restrict the press; 9. Cast criticism as
Espionage and dissent as treason; and
10. Subvert the Rule of Law.
The author concludes with some
sobering thoughts. She cites Egyptian
Security forces that rounded up some of
its citizens. They threw opposition
leaders and a blogger in jail. When
challenged the Egyptians invoked the
example of the USA Patriot Act. She goes
on to say, "If Fascist Germany -- a
medium-sized modern European state --
could destabilize the globe in a matter of
a few years, and it took a world war to
overcome the threat, what force on earth
might restrain an America . . .and its
imperial reach?"
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