10 Steps towards a fascist America…
…How many steps have we taken so far?
Naomi Wolf had an opinion piece in the UK’s Guardian newspaper back in September ‘07 outlining the steps that fascist groups and dictators across history and the world have taken in the past in order to rise to power, and she makes the argument that Americans have allowed Bush to take many of those same steps to varying degrees.
When I first read it back then, it was chilling, for her document laid out all the fears that have been troubling me ever since September 11, 2001. Even then I and many others felt that catastrophic event would be used to excuse egregious future crimes, and the last 7 years have only brought those prophecies to horrid fruition.
The oxymoronic Patriot Act, the suspension of habeas corpus, military tribunals, and this week the ex post facto pardon of telecom corporations who participated in the warrantless spying on all Americans. All these events are steps, large or baby ones, towards the eventual abandonment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights enshrined therein.
That the highest judiciary in the land seems silent on most of these issues, or gives tacit approval to Bush’s actions, should send a dagger of ice-cold fear into every American’s heart.
Read her step by step blueprint for the end of freedom, and tell me you can’t agree.
UPDATE 2/14/08 11:20am:
Wired’s Threat Level has an excellent summation of what took place during the Senate vote to gut the 4th Amendment. You can also see exactly who voted for or against the bill, and they point out that both Hillary and Obama didn’t vote on the bill at all. Interesting.
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I think often overlooked, and perhaps the heart of the matter, is that Telecom immunity will also mean immunity for the Bush administration for the laws it has broken. It’s VERY personal!