A lot of us have been worrying about the fascist tendencies of the Bush administration and the refusal of the courts and Congress to do anything about it. Naomi Wolf, writing in the Guardian, suggests that we're a lot farther along that path than most of us realize.
"Beneath our very noses," she says, "George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society."
She outlines 10 steps that Bush & Co. have used, including:
1) Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
Think 911 and the eternal 'War on Terror.'
2) Create a gulag
Guantánamo Bay
3) Develop a thug caste
Brownshirts in Nazi Germany are the model. Today we have "America's security contractors" in Iraq, and hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And back in the 2000 election, we had groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menacing poll workers counting the votes in Florida.
4) Set up an internal surveillance system
Done.
6) Engage in arbitrary detention and release
Think the No-Fly list, which snared Senator Kennedy among others. Unlike Senator Kennedy, most of them can't get off the list. "It is a standard practice of fascist societies," Wolf says, "that once you are on the list, you can't get off."
8) Control the press
The corporate media needs little control. They are, in the popular and accurate phrase, 'stenographers of power,' conveyor belts for Bush administration propaganda. "As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol," Wolf says, "the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded."
A very disturbing article. Read it:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/24/708/