Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

[Echo In Light]

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
By Naomi Wolf

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all
Tuesday April 24, 2007 The Guardian

"...As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

[rusty quoin]

1. Great article

I'm glad this stuff is finally out there like Joe Conason, It Could Happen Here. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/19/conason/

And Chris Hedges, who said something, during our darkest hour.
"THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN FASCISM"http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm

[Echo In Light]

13. I'd encourage everyone to read Chris Hedges' book

Professor, author and social critic, Mark Crispin Miller - Cruel & Unusual: Bush/Cheney's NWO, and Fooled Again, on the 04 election theft - is quite informative also.

[gateley]

2. Damn we're good --we've got it covered! nt

[Echo In Light]

3. As listed:

1)Invoking an external and internal threat
2)Establishing secret prisons
3)Developing a paramilitary force
4)Surveiling ordinary citizens
5)Infiltrating citizens' groups
6)Arbitrarily detaining and releasing citizens
7)Targeting key individuals
8)Restricting the press
9)Casting criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason"
10)Subverting the rule of law

[Exultant Democracy]

8. Do we at least get a door prize?

[krkaufman]

29. Associating one party with the military and "us" ...

... and others with "them" and anti-military and anti-patriotic.

This may be covered by Naomi's step #9, but I view Bush's recent disparagement of MoveOn.org, their ad, and the Democratic Party as a very dangerous step toward casting the opposition as anti-military and unpatriotic... taking us a closer to associating opposition with treason, and acceptability of forceful suppression.

[CJCRANE]

4. I think it's a big joke for Bush-Cheney...

talking about "the homeland" and "complete victory"...these are the equivalent phrases to those used by that short Austrian fella in the first half of the twentieth century...

on edit: just remembered - he was Austrian not German

[yurbud]

26. Democrats should pass a bill changing name to just "home" security. "homeland" is fucking creepy

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. Namoi Wolf was on the Colbert Report this past week and although she only

got through the 4 fourth stage to fascism, it was a great segment.

Here is the link to the Colbert video. The interview is 3rd down on the right.

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml

but above all, shhhhhhhhh..there was a recent post about how to get a thread recommended and kicked and talking about fascism was a sure way. It boggles my mind that not only some posters here can't see what's happening, they ridicule the rest of us who do.

[Echo In Light]

7. I saw her on Colbert the other night

And was surprised! Colbert didn't let her get through all ten, but allowed her to put forth her postulation.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

11. I don't think there was enough time for her to get through all 10 because if he didn't say

anything, it wouldn't have been an "interview" but Colbert did a great job emphasizing what she had to say and made one intrigued to read the book.

BTW.. welcome to DU!!!! :hi:

[Kip Humphrey]

14. Order Naomi Wolf's book (bundle it with Joe Conason's at Amazon,com),,, Lend it to neighbors,

co-workers, family, friends.

[krkaufman]

30. He'd probably have liked to let he get through all 10, but there's only so much time ...

... allocated to the interviews. (And he *does* try to maintain the facade of Right Wing nutjob.)

[emlev]

17. Very much worth watching. Thank you. eom

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

20. Your welcomed! eom

[Gabi Hayes]

21. yeah...I posted on that arrogant, POS thread. if it were around, I'd happily

link this one, which is so obviously rooted in OBSERVABLE reality.

a friend called the other day, waxing stunned surprise at this Blackwater thing, and I told him it's MUCH worse than he's heard so far.

just sent him a copy of stuff regarding Scahill's Blackwater book, and some info on NPSD #51, the one that gives him pretty much dictatorial powers under the most tenuous circumstance

even world nut daily is skeered....no news here, but it is to just about everybody else:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55824

Posted: May 23, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.

The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.

That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.

The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

When the president determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the president can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an "enduring constitutional government."

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

22. And Gabi, the fact that I have not heard One Member Of Congress

Scream about this tells you how frigging far down the rabbit hole we are. They are sent these POS orders and don't do anything about them. I have to check the rules, but I believe signing statements or Executive orders..don't know which, are sent to Congress and Congress has 30 days to respond.

We are done, over, kaput. I hate to be so frigging cynical but it is so evident and there is not a single thing that i can do about it. I have written tomes of emails, made hundreds of calls and nada, zilch. So I sit here and am just waiting for the boot to fall. It might not be today or tomorrow but it's going to happen.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

25. Also! For your friend, ask him to watch the Senate Hearings from yesterday

on Blackwater and others. If he is stunned from what's coming out in the press, he'll be sick to his stomach listening to the testimony.

Here's the link
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-hearing.cfm?A=40

[tbyg52]

6. Woo hoo! Two 5th recs in two days! I must be living right.

Found one thing I disagree with, though.

Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini's march on Rome or Hitler's roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.

I dunno about that. They've sure tried to set the stage for it....

Edited to say:

Hi Echo in Light! Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Echo In Light]

10. Thanky. Also...

On Colbert the other night Naomi did espouse the notion that our open society indeed is being swiftly closed, and that we don't have much time left.

[NMDemDist2]

9. in a UK paper, the Brits already know we're screwed

why not the front page of the NYT or the WashPo?

cry for your country, cry for freedom

[acmavm]

12. What's always surprised me is the way that we've let the law be hijacked

by the professionals. One of the reasons people left Europe and made the dangerous trip across the ocean was because the had no access to the courts and to justice. In England the best example I can give is the Star Chamber.

America was a nation that had as one of its basic premises that the law belonged to EVERYONE, not just the privileged few that could afford it. And we all had the right to defend ourselves, in plain language, in front of the courts, and we had the right to expect fairness and justice. Then the law got hijacked by the professionals and the politicians and the peasantry got shut out. We can't get justice (which has absolutely nothing to do with 'the law') unless we have lots of money for lawyers. And the guy with the most money will always win. The appeals process is set up to drag out that way.

We lost our way a long time ago and now we're reaping what we've sown. We let our rights be stolen from us, if you can all it theft.

[tom_paine]

Yes. Just so.

As to why we let it all happened: Look around you. Look at yourself. We are all of responsible in our own way for letting it happen.

And yes, we are reaping what we have sown. I myself, back in the Last Days of the Old American Republic, remember thinking that politics was dull and boring. I'd much rather be out hiking a ridge or hanging with my freinds or enjoying the day.

Even then, with the Bushie "termites" having already eaten away a substantial portion of the foundations which Ms. Wolf speaks of, I thought to myself, "I don't need to participate. Everything is running great on 'autopilot' so why should I waste my precious life on doing stuff that's not fun?"

In this way I carry my share of blame and responsibility, as we all do, in one way or another.

"The fault, dear Cassius, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves."
--William Shakespeare

[acmavm]

18. You are so right. Remember years ago when everyone said 'never

again'? We let out this BIG sigh of relief as we watched Nixon get on the plane. And we thought it was over.

Over? It had hardly begun. But we got lazy, soft, and complacent. We, who knew what these people were like and what they were capable of, we let them go underground and come back stronger than ever.

And as for the courts, justice, and the law, we let the 'professionals' make rules and frame everything in a language that we can't understand and can't deal with. They've made sure that they commandeered our right to the law and that we could no longer represent ourselves. They made sure that our basic rights were/are a way for them to line their pockets.

[tom_paine]

15. 10 for 10 batting average for the Bushies'

As the oitline of the New Totalitarianism comes closer to takiung the shape of whastever the Bushies' Final Solutions (maybe not so murderous as other Final Solutions, bu tundoubtedly horrific nonetheless) to the Liberal Problem turn out to be.

Yes, it is true that the foundations of democracy are almost gone, eaten away, asnd the danger already is far more severe than most realize, even a large minority, if not a majority, of DUers, some of whom have undoubtedly come here to sneer and smear Ms. Wolf's Tinfoil Assertions.

:puke:

[flyarm]

16. k&r ..and thanks!!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

19. A pResident that decries the value of the Constitution...

and a nation that doesn't react. We have been subdued by corporatism and political appointees that do their bidding. Held captive, but not recognized on a conscious level by most.

[hedgetrimmer]

23. I was just speaking to my wife about this, this morning... When-

the government gives corporate welfare and goes to foreign lands to defend the actions of a private corporation (for exp. blackwater) and attempt to keep it in business, then the government is acting on behalf or for the corporation which is FASCISM! Further, the attack from the pResident on the MoveOn.org ad and the admonishment to the N.Y. Times is a step down deeper into the pits of fascism; where free speech is a passing fad and zones for descent become prisons for descenders and the guards are fundamentalist mercenaries for hire outside the laws that make a country free.

Praise Jesus and pass the ammunition!

This is so f*cked up!

[Blue_Tires]

24. k+r

[grassfed]

27. Homosexual Victims of Nazis Timeline

Once it starts it moves very fast:

A Chronicle of Persecution

From 1919 to 1933 During the Weimar Republic the civil rights for gays and lesbians movement, which had been founded during the period of the German Empire, grew in strength. In 1929 the Law Committee of the Reichstag (Parliament) recommended the abolition of the law relating to punishment for homosexual acts between adults. However, the increase in votes for the Nazis and the crisis of the Weimar Republic prevented the carrying out of the Committee's decision.

30th January 1933 The National Socialist (Nazi) Party, led by Adolf Hitler, takes power.

23rd February 1933 The Prussian Minister of the Interior orders the closing of the restaurants and pubs "in which, by serving as meeting places, the practice of unnatural sex-acts is encouraged". Gay and lesbian pubs were closed down.

February/March 1933 The first male homosexuals are sent to concentration camps. The National Socialists ban organisations of gays and lesbians or force them to dissolve themselves. Journals and books are banned, publishers closed down.

6th May 1933 The Institute for Sexual Science, founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, is stormed and ransacked by Nazi Students. People wearing SA (Storm Troop) uniforms take away the Institute's library in lorries. On 10th May 1933 the books, along with the works of »un-German« writers such as Berthold Brecht, Thomas and Heinrich Mann and Franz Kafka are publicly burned on the square between the former Royal Library and Berlin's Opera House. (Now known as Bebelplatz.)

24th October 1934 Heinrich Himmler orders all police stations and police authorities, to draw up a list of all persons who have, in any way, been homosexually active. The lists are to be sent to the Secret Police Headquarters in Berlin. A special department for homosexuality is set up there at the end of October.

26th June 1935 Changes in the "Law for the prevention of Children with inherited Diseases", also makes possible the castration of "political-criminal homosexual males". In order to avoid prison or concentration camp many homosexuals who had been sentenced to a jail term are forced to agree to "voluntary" castration. From 1942 onwards, in concentration camps castration without the consent of the victim is legalised.

28th June 1935 Paragraph 175 (§ 175) of the penal code is made more severe. From now on any form of "unnatural" sex between men is liable to draconic punishment. With this measure all homo-sexuals are made criminals. The judgements against male homosexual rise rapidly. During the Nazi period around 50,000 men are sentenced for "unnatural sex".

10th October 1936 Heinrich Himmler establishes a Government Department for the Fight against Homosexuality and Abortion. Its task is to gather information and lead an effective fight against both forms of the "population-plague".

12th July 1940 Himmler orders that all homosexuals sentenced under Paragraph 175, "who have seduced more than one partner", should be taken into "preventive detention" after they are released from prison". In reality that means they are sent to a concentration camp. Those incarcerated there for § 175 offences are forced to wear a pink triangle in order to make them identifiable.

Only a minority survived the terror of the camps. It has been proven that pink triangle prisoners were sent to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Berlin/Columbiahaus, Buchenwald, Dachau, Emslandlager, Flossenbuerg, Groß Rosen, Lichtenburg, Majdanek, Mauthausen, Mittelbau-Dora, Natzweiler, Neuengamme, Ravensbrueck (Männer-Lager), Sachsenhausen, Stutthof.

15th November 1941 In a „Decree of the Fuehrer for the Cleansing of the SS (Secret State Police) and the police force", Hitler orders the death penalty for homosexual activity by members of the SS and Police.

19th May 1943 The head of the General Staff of the German Army (Wehrmacht), General Keitel, issues a decree laying down "regulations for the punishment of unnatural sexual acts." In "special difficult cases" the death penalty should be ordered.

1944 The Danish SS-Doctor Carl Vaernet carried out medical experiments on homosexuals in Buchenwald concentration camp. He wanted to "cure" homosexuals by implanting artificial hormone glands in the region of the upper leg.

8th May 1945 The war comes to an end. The concentration camps are liberated. In distinction to other Nazi laws, the Allies do not withdraw the Nazi version of § 175. Some homosexuals who had been liberated are required to serve the remainder of their sentence in a "normal" prison. § 175 remains in force in the Federal Republic of Germany (West!) until 1969. The German Democratic Republic (East!) adopts the "milder" pre-Nazi version.

more: http://www.gedenkort.de/eng-chronicle.htm

Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (LSVD)

[Octafish]

28. W Bush Fulfills His Grandfather Prescott's Dream

These are the same people who backed eugenics, Hitler abroad and the Klan at home,
the Cold War and the permanent American national security state.



W Bush Fulfills His Grandfather Prescott's Dream