Okay folks, Naomi Wolf is sounding the alarm even more loudly. Whether you think she is a contemporary Cassandra or merely a card carrying member of the lunatic fringe, I encourage you all to watch this 27 minute interview, where she discusses the current bail-out crisis and its implications for Democracy in the US.
Naomi Wolf Interview - Bailout is a coup
One of her strongest assertions is that American citizens need to stop acting as though we are living in a democracy and realize that we are in the formative stages of a police state and the window of opportunity for salvaging our few remaining Democratic freedoms is closing fast.
Wolf places considerable importance on Representative Brad Sherman's statement that he and several other members of Congress were told that a failure to pass the bailout bill would lead to a declaration of martial law. The alleged threat proposed the following chain of events: the stock market would plunge precipitously, panic would ensue, and the president would cancel elections and declare martial law. Wolf contends that this scenario was merely a veiled threat and part of the process through which the Bush-Cheney cabal (her term) implemented a financial and maybe political coup.
Wolf says that the Congress has made the classic mistake of trying to placate fascist elements. Wolf contends that Congress should charge Bush-Cheney with treason. Yep, that is right not just impeachment. Criminal prosecution for staging a coup against the US.
She notes that the bail-out bill, in its original form, contained a provision that gives the President full executive discretion over 100 billions dollars (that was news to me). If true, those funds would have certainly financed Bush-Cheney's private army Blackwater for quite a while. Wolf is not sure whether such a provision is in the current 450 page monstrosity but it could easily be buried in the hyperdense fine print.
In this interview, Wolf also embellishes her ten steps to fascism model by further arguing the Bush-Cheney cabal has been engaged in a persistent effort to override the constitution and establish theocratic regime. She sees Palin's candidacy as the next dramatic step in this process.
She also sounds many warnings about the re-assignment of US military personal to a domestic homeland security detail, which began on Oct. 1. She argues that the re-assigned 3rd brigade was the muscle behind the martial law threat that cowered Congressional opponents.
Perhaps her most disconcerting argument is that Americans should not take false comfort in the idea that our soldiers would not turn against fellow citizens and that the common decency of Americans stands as the ultimate protection against any police state abuses. After all, these soldiers are our kids and raised on our values.
Alas, she points that as a matter of history, soldiers follow orders even when commanded to do terrible things that history will judge as atrocities. Even more to the point, she goes through a litany of illegal actions and atrocities that US soldiers have been ordered to do as part of the war on terror (torture, civilian harassment, and other violations of the Geneva convention). She further adds that having to undertake these brutal acts is exacting a heavy toll on our troops and that many are returning psychologically scarred as a result. She also notes that militarized US police had no reservations in violating the civil rights of journalists and protesters at the RNC, which she sees as the mere trail run for bigger things to come.
As a side note, the US Army's suicide rate has been steadily rising over the course of the Iraq war/occupation and is now approaching record levels.
US Army Suicide rate
Wolf also lays out an action plan of what American citizens can an should do to before it is too late.
Personally, I have many suspicions and anxieties that align with Wolf's warnings. Whether or not the situation is this dire, the worst mistake that relatively free citizens can make is to blithely assume that "It can't happen here." One thing Wolf and other historians have shown is that "it can't happen here" fosters complacency and thereby enables fascist forces to gain power. Constant vigilance, skepticism, and activism is the best prevention.
The nation just got taken for $700 billion and counting re-distribution of public wealth into the global financial sector even though public opinion was totally mobilized against it, the bill was passed so quickly few really understand, a growing consensus among economic experts is that it does not redress the problems it ostensibly was meant to solve.
To get a sense of just how much of a scam this bill is, check out this analysis from Counterpunch:
The grassroots rebellion that failed
That happened right here, right now and no one is rioting in the streets.
We have had not one but two Presidential elections stolen consecutively. Mark Crispin Miller's book Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the Election, leaves little doubt about 2004. No one is rioting in the streets.
We shrugged our collective shoulders at illegal domestic spying being undertaken by the government with the assistance of major telecoms. No rioted in the streets or even seemed to care very much when those complicit to the crime were granted immunity.
We are trapped in a costly, costly, horrific Occupation that almost everyone acknowledges was initiated on the basis of faked intelligence and strategic misrepresentations at the highest level of government.
Has this massive violation of the public trust led to any riots in the streets or any consequences what so ever? The Democrats take impeachment off the table at the first possible opportunity they had and all their apologists said, "well, they need to stay focused on more important matters," as if something could be more important than protecting the integrity of the constitution.
Heck the biggest liar of all Karl Rove, who outed a CIA agent among other treasonous acts, is now a high paid media pundit. No street riots here either.
Who can be so sure that a canceled election or some other police state action (with the our "trusted leaders" and mass media taking heads providing soothing explanations for why this is all absolutely necessary and nothing to worry about), would not be tolerated with a similar degree of resigned frustration -- "Oh well, what can we really do any way? I guess it will all be okay. At least we are not living in Russia or something. Hey, did you hear the Boss is playing the Superbowl?"
When push comes to shove, Americans have proven to be quite docile.
Certainly, there is more vigilance and preventive action being directed at Republican dirty tricks to steal the 2008 election but does American society have a Plan B just in case Wolf is reading the ominous signs correctly?