Its not so bad…
Not much to add here, as the article is quite fun! If not a little prophetic. Though the ten step process is in the article, I’ll highlight some of the more… uh… engaging ones.
1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
Hmm… Done and done!
2 Create a gulag
Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal “outer space”) – where torture takes place.
8 Control the press
The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he threatened “critical infrastructure” when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration.
It’s worked before, it can work again. Unless the people do something.
#30 – That doesn’t apply to me.
#31 – I had a son out of wedlock and I’m divorced. I’m pretty much gonna get smeared in the primary 🙂
32. if thats the total number of skeletons in your closet, I dont think that would stop me. Remember, most of the Xian nutbags have been discredited.
I read here “Coorelation does not equate to causality” and that is definitely the case here. Thats why conspiracy theories always sound plausible. Where and when did you have these items happen in a verified documented reputable media story.
But there is documented instances of the word traitor being used to describe dissent.
Sticks and stones.
“I’m just scared shitless of flying in again with the (10 digit) fingerprinting at the border, biometric passport, restrictions on carry-ons, executive powers, …”
You forgot to mention the part where you have to get down on your knees in front of the 30-foot statue of the Chimperor in the arrivals building, and swear total fealty to him.
Allright this article tipped me over the edge of my patience, can there be one refuge from the inane political crap? It’s the same crap everywhere, the same arguments, the same jokes, the same CRAP EVERYWHERE. Bye Dvorak.org/blog I hardly knew ye.
OFTLO is right. No one here appears to have read the article: at least, no one is discussing it. I would fail my students on a sight passage test for doing the same 😛
So can we return to the matter at hand? I never had much respect for Naomi Wolf in the past. She was a ‘pretty girl’ feminist lightweight academic, but I have to admit, she’s some good talking points here.
39 – BgScryAnml
Bush and those that follow, be they Democrat or Republican, will be giving us an empire.
Interesting thought, considering that the world has been without any leadership for the last 6 years, even though there is only one superpower remaining, and the US could have easily assumed that role. If you are suggesting that the US can establish an Empire via force, the events of the last 4 years prove that to be a completely false fear.
The world under Bush does not have to fear an empire… it is the citizens of the USA that have to fear the emperor and it’s fundamentalist court.
Rome was only an empire when it was well led. Then as it is now, those outside of America see nothing to fear, because as with Nero and Caligula, the USA under neocon leadership is self destructive at best, and no threat at all to those outside the confines of the most immediate US influence.
Who on the Supreme Court is “a fundamentalist”, “Awake”?
Doesn’t anyone remember that Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpse during the Civil War? and FDR supported putting Americans in camps? The traditions of democracy in our country are not so easily over turned and as long as we can all still vote and change leadership they will remain in place.
The traditions of democracy in our country are not so easily over turned and as long as we can all still vote and change leadership they will remain in place.
Yes. The main problem we have now is that there are only two viable political parties, and of them, one has only been able to nominate viable presidential candidates in 3 of the past past 10 elections, and only one was able to be re-elected.
#43 – You have a funny definition viable. Bush barely skating by the skin of his teeth doesn’t actually paint his opponets as “not viable.” Hell, Gore beat him.
Not per the US Constitution, OFTLO.
#45 – That is a problem that needs to be fixed… but the point is, Gore and Kerry both proved very viable… and were it not for the politics of fear Bush would have just been a hapless, ineffectual one-term president.
43: The main problem we have now is that there are only two viable political parties, and of them, one has only been able to nominate viable presidential candidates in 3 of the past past 10 elections, and only one was able to be re-elected
Um, why is that the main problem? Was America under Clintonian democracy ‘opening’ in the terms that Wolf sets out in her article, or ‘closing’ at a slightly slower rate than under Bush? Does the NSA etc not operate under both regimes? Yes yes I know that the Partiot Act is an unprecedented extension of evil, etc, but did Clinton undo any of the power grab of the Reagan era of executive powers (eg. REX 84 preparations for mass detention over planned invasions of Nicaragua etc)? If not, then the electoral system is a red herring, no?