On Naomi Wolf's The End of America - A Photo-intensive Summary

[sss1977]

I recently finished reading Naomi Wolf's The End of America and was inspired to summarize her points, in combination with quotes and passages from each chapter along with photos and pics, into something that might perhaps inspire others to also read the book. So here goes...

The Ten Steps to Fascism:

1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat

"What matters to a fascist leader is not to get rid of the enemy, but rather to maintain an enemy." p.37


"A foreign enemy's actions will always be unpredictable. But you can also identify a more reliable domestic enemy in need of surveillance: us." p.44



2. Establish Secret Prisons



"Hitler sought legislation that retroactively protected the SS from prosecutions for acts of torture" p.69



3. Develop a Paramilitary Force



"Blackwater's business model plans increasingly to deploy its unaccountable private army in the U.S.-in the aftermath of natural disasters, and also in cases of "national emergency." p.76



"We haven't had members of a mercenary army on our streets since we won our independence." p.80


4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens

"That is why surveillance is effective-even cost-effective: You don't actually have to monitor citizens--just let them know they might be monitored." p.82



"In that atmosphere, dissent stifles itself before it can develop. Surveillance leads to fear and fear leads to silence. And silence is un-American." p.88


5. Infiltrate Citizens' Groups

"Before the Republican convention in New York in 2004, the police department's intelligence team sent detectives throughout the city to infiltrate groups planning to demonstrate peacefully at the convention. When the New York Civil Liberties Union asked to unseal the records of this undercover spying, lawyers for the city argued that the records should be kept secret, because the news media would "fixate upon and sensationalize them." p.91




6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens

"In 2003, President Bush had the intelligence agencies and the FBI create a "watch list" of people thought to have terrorist intentions or contacts. These agencies gave the list to the TSA and the commercial airlines. 60 Minutes got one copy of the list: It was 540 pages long. That list of people to be taken aside for extra screening had 75,000 names on it. The more stringent "no-fly" list had 45,000 names; before 9/11 there were just 16 names." p.96


"The United States detained Arar when he was changing planes at Kennedy Airport in 2002. He was "rendered" to Syria. Security forces there kept him in prison for over a year, beating him repeatedly with a heavy metal cable. The Canadian government pursued a two-year investigation and concluded that it had all been a terrible mistake--Arar actually had no terrorist ties whatsoever." p.97


"In Yee's case a United States citizen innocent of the initial charges was kept in solitary confinement, this time for 76 days. His name was destroyed, his family humiliated--and he can't talk about it or he will be arrested again." p.100



7. Target Key Individuals

"In a fascist shift, while entertainers are the most visible, civil servants are the most vulnerable to being targeted with job loss: They work directly for the leadership... Victor Klemperer writes of a senior district attorney at the High Court in Berlin who was not a Party member. The government fired him, calling the move 'temporary retirement.' Independent district attorneys across the nation were purged as well, and replaced by lawyers who were loyal to the regime." p.112


8. Restrict the Press

"The U.S military in Iraq imprisoned Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photographer, Bilal Hussein in April 2006, claiming that he was a security threat. Bilal Hussien's images of women and children suffering in the war are famous. But U.S. authorities have never filed charges or allowed a public hearing." p.119


"On a U.S. Army website in 2007, the media is listed as another threat, alongside al-Qaeda, warlords, and drug-cartels." p.121



9. Cast Criticism as "Espionage" and Dissent as "Treason"



"Three years after Ann Coulter's book asked us to imagine this possibility, on October 12, 2006, the Justice Department charged the first American in more than half a century with treason. Adam Gadahn, a young Southern Californian who is accused of helping al-Qaeda create videotapes urging violence against the United States, was charged in a sealed indictment in a California federal court. As in Padilla's case, officials do not claim to have evidence that Mr. Gadahn has taken part in planning terrorist attacks against the United States. His words are his crime." p.138

10. Subvert the Rule of Law

"Is it reasonable--is it really a matter of common sense--to assume that leaders who are willing to abuse signing statements; withhold information from Congress; make secret decisions; lie to the American people; use fake evidence to justify a pre-emptive war; torture prisoners; tap people's phones; open their mail and e-mail; break into their houses; and now simply ignore Congress altogether--leaders with currently a 29 percent approval rating--will surely say, come 2008, 'The decision rests in the hands of the people. May the votes be counted fairly'?" p.143


"Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy warned, though few paid much attention, that the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill would serve to encourage a President to declare martial law." p.147


"If Fascist Germany--a medium sized modern European state--could destabilize the globe in a matter of a few years, and it took a world war to overcome the threat, what force on earth might restrain an America that may have abandoned the rule of law...?" p. 152


"In our own nation, in times of eclipse, patriots have become rebels again and said: 'No; the nation is not going down, not on my watch.'
When that happens, there is no power that can hold these patriots back. I hope this emboldens you." p.155






Thank you Naomi Wolf for your letter of warning to all of us young patriots.

May we take heed before it's too late.