Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Is America going fascist?
Oh come now...it couldn't be. Could it?
Author Naomi Wolf argues that we have a nascent fascism, and had better start resisting while we can. Here's a particularly interesting quote:
"Obama has done things like Hitler did. Let me be very careful here. The National Socialists rounded people up and held them without trial, signed legislation that gave torture impunity, and spied on their citizens, just as Obama has. It isn't a question of what has been done that Hitler did. It's what does every dictator do, on the left or the right, that is being done here and now. The real fight isn't left or right but between forces of democracy across the spectrum and the forces of tyranny."
And another:
"I met Muslim immigrants in Brooklyn who were swept up in 9-11 raids, held in abusive conditions, beaten, denied rights. That's how things started in Germany. Guantanamo was modeled after what Stalin developed for the Gulag. Why are we engaged in psychological denial that it's not a concentration camp? In terms of martial law, my god. Since the book came out they deployed a brigade in the U.S. and suspended the Posse Comitatus Act. There is no question that it's something to take seriously."
Again, I don't particularly care whether we call this fascism or something else -- the important point is that America is heading in a very dangerous direction. George W. Bush started us on this road, and Barack Obama is continuing the drive. But then, growing authoritarianism, combined with a rapid expansion of government control over the economy... what the heck are we supposed to call it?
Author Naomi Wolf argues that we have a nascent fascism, and had better start resisting while we can. Here's a particularly interesting quote:
"Obama has done things like Hitler did. Let me be very careful here. The National Socialists rounded people up and held them without trial, signed legislation that gave torture impunity, and spied on their citizens, just as Obama has. It isn't a question of what has been done that Hitler did. It's what does every dictator do, on the left or the right, that is being done here and now. The real fight isn't left or right but between forces of democracy across the spectrum and the forces of tyranny."
And another:
"I met Muslim immigrants in Brooklyn who were swept up in 9-11 raids, held in abusive conditions, beaten, denied rights. That's how things started in Germany. Guantanamo was modeled after what Stalin developed for the Gulag. Why are we engaged in psychological denial that it's not a concentration camp? In terms of martial law, my god. Since the book came out they deployed a brigade in the U.S. and suspended the Posse Comitatus Act. There is no question that it's something to take seriously."
Again, I don't particularly care whether we call this fascism or something else -- the important point is that America is heading in a very dangerous direction. George W. Bush started us on this road, and Barack Obama is continuing the drive. But then, growing authoritarianism, combined with a rapid expansion of government control over the economy... what the heck are we supposed to call it?
Comments:
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I think that excerpting Naomi Wolf's comments on possible signs of 'Fascism' under both the Bush and Obama administrations may have misled readers as to her real views:
JS: Well, more generally, you talk about the possibility of concen-tration camps and martial law.
NW: I think we have gone very far down that road. I met Muslim immigrants in Brooklyn who were swept up in 9-11 raids, held in abusive conditions, beaten, denied rights. That's how things started in Germany. Guantanamo was modeled after what Stalin developed for the Gulag. Why are we engaged in psychological denial that it's not a concentration camp? In terms of martial law, my god. Since the book came out they deployed a brigade in the U.S. and suspended the Posse Comitatus Act. There is no question that it's something to take seriously. People have a histrionic view of what martial law will look like.
I'm not worried that tomorrow there will be a battalion outside your Greenwich Village apartment. I'm worried about things like the McCain-Lieberman bill that would define enemy belligerents so loosely it would include Americans, which is just like Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini. If Obama tries people with military tribunals, setting that precedent, that is what a military state does. That is what martial law looks like. From a constitu-tional point of view Bush passing through the Patriot Act is no worse than Obama renewing it.
JS: Well, more generally, you talk about the possibility of concen-tration camps and martial law.
NW: I think we have gone very far down that road. I met Muslim immigrants in Brooklyn who were swept up in 9-11 raids, held in abusive conditions, beaten, denied rights. That's how things started in Germany. Guantanamo was modeled after what Stalin developed for the Gulag. Why are we engaged in psychological denial that it's not a concentration camp? In terms of martial law, my god. Since the book came out they deployed a brigade in the U.S. and suspended the Posse Comitatus Act. There is no question that it's something to take seriously. People have a histrionic view of what martial law will look like.
I'm not worried that tomorrow there will be a battalion outside your Greenwich Village apartment. I'm worried about things like the McCain-Lieberman bill that would define enemy belligerents so loosely it would include Americans, which is just like Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini. If Obama tries people with military tribunals, setting that precedent, that is what a military state does. That is what martial law looks like. From a constitu-tional point of view Bush passing through the Patriot Act is no worse than Obama renewing it.
# posted by 
: 20:33
: 20:33
Hmm. I don't see how the excerpt misleads. The additional parts you cite expand on her thinking, but don't change the implications. I do not understand how you think I've misled. Please explain.
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