Cumberland BC: The Cumberlander Articles Section
Uncategorized · 29th November 2007
Editor
The United States is on the road to becoming a fascist society, right under our very noses. That’s the premise of a new book by feminist social critic Naomi Wolf. It’s called "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot".
As a "citizen journalist" I am sensitive to and aware of the issues raised by Ms. Klein. Knowing what I know, I cannot help but urge everyone to wake up to what is becoming an exceedingly dangerous situation that is not yet irreversible!
Naomi Wolf helps us in this awakening by outlining what she sees as the ten steps fascists take to shut down a democratic society. She argues that the Bush administration has already implemented many of these steps
The following transcript is from a recent interview with Klein conducted by Amy Goodman and aired on Democracy Now. Click HERE for a direct link to that interview.
AMY GOODMAN: Number nine and number ten of your steps toward fascism: restrict the press; cast criticism as espionage, dissent as treason. Subvert the rule of law is eleven. What is the patriot’s task, where you conclude?
NAOMI WOLF: Well, the patriot’s task is, first, wake up. I mean, all around the world, democracy activists who are familiar with these same ten steps are sort of waving their arms at us, going, “No! You know, recognize this.” You don’t make it easier for the President to declare martial law, as we just did with the 2007 Defense Authorization Act. You don’t make it easier for the President to lock up political opponents in a cell or strip people of habeas corpus. No, you don’t make it easier for the President to have a paramilitary force like Blackwater, composed of hand-selected torturers and murderers from countries like Chile and Nigeria and El Salvador, where they're trained to torture their own civilians. You know, you don’t set them loose in Illinois and Southern California and North Carolina. No! Bad idea! So, first, you wake up. You see the blueprint.
As a "citizen journalist" I am sensitive to and aware of the issues raised by Ms. Klein. Knowing what I know, I cannot help but urge everyone to wake up to what is becoming an exceedingly dangerous situation that is not yet irreversible!
Naomi Wolf helps us in this awakening by outlining what she sees as the ten steps fascists take to shut down a democratic society. She argues that the Bush administration has already implemented many of these steps
The following transcript is from a recent interview with Klein conducted by Amy Goodman and aired on Democracy Now. Click HERE for a direct link to that interview.
AMY GOODMAN: Number nine and number ten of your steps toward fascism: restrict the press; cast criticism as espionage, dissent as treason. Subvert the rule of law is eleven. What is the patriot’s task, where you conclude?
NAOMI WOLF: Well, the patriot’s task is, first, wake up. I mean, all around the world, democracy activists who are familiar with these same ten steps are sort of waving their arms at us, going, “No! You know, recognize this.” You don’t make it easier for the President to declare martial law, as we just did with the 2007 Defense Authorization Act. You don’t make it easier for the President to lock up political opponents in a cell or strip people of habeas corpus. No, you don’t make it easier for the President to have a paramilitary force like Blackwater, composed of hand-selected torturers and murderers from countries like Chile and Nigeria and El Salvador, where they're trained to torture their own civilians. You know, you don’t set them loose in Illinois and Southern California and North Carolina. No! Bad idea! So, first, you wake up. You see the blueprint.
