Naomi Wolf: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

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.

Selection Bias

[sam_handelman]

When people try the ten steps and it doesn't work, they don't get much press.

Not to mention, of course, they always deny that they tried any such thing.

Put another way - we never know what horrors we have averted in history, we only know those horrors we *failed* to avert. On that basis, it looks like we have a pretty bad track record of averting horror, but in fact, I think that the opposite is true.

This is not to say that there are not people trying to turn the US into a functiona

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Smedley Butler and the "Business Plot" against FDR. Check 'em out.

Re:

[ces]

I'm inclined to agree. The thing is "We the people" still means something in the USA. For that matter so does the Rule of Law.

For all of the whining, post-9/11 things never got nearly so bad as they were during the hight of the Red Scare days.

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

No. Much worse now.

Habeas Corpus, Private Military Contractors, Haliburton in the WH, US Intelligence Complicity in 9-11, AT&T "vigilance", etc.

Just you wait. When the noose they braided is slowly tightened...

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[ces]

No. Much worse now.

Thing is not that many US citizens have gotten fucked in quite the same way as happened during the Red Scare. Shit just look at the Dixie Chicks. In the 50's they would have had _all_ of their records pulled from stores, nobody would play them on the air, and they sure as hell wouldn't have won a Grammy.

Just you wait. When the noose they braided is slowly tightened...

The current kleptocrats have far less freedom of action than they did say 3 years ago. One hopes that some of the BS is rolled back a bit with a new President (who likely won't be the same party as the new