A distrurbing view of America

Hey guys, I came across this and thought it would be an interesting discussion starter. It's a big read so bold effort to anyone who has the inclination.

"Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all "

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "global war" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe out civilisation". There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda notes, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space - the globe itself is the battlefield. "This time," Fein says, "there will be no defined end."

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.

3. Develop a thug caste

When leaders who seek what I call a "fascist shift" want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched.

In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny.

5. Harass citizens' groups

The fifth thing you do is related to step four - you infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, have been left alone.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the investigative reporters who wrote China Wakes: the Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, describe pro-democracy activists in China, such as Wei Jingsheng, being arrested and released many times. In a closing or closed society there is a "list" of dissidents and opposition leaders: you are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list.

In 2004, America's Transportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list of passengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried to fly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela's government - after Venezuela's president had criticised Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens.

7. Target key individuals

Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line. Mussolini went after the rectors of state universities who did not conform to the fascist line; so did Joseph Goebbels, who purged academics who were not pro-Nazi; so did Chile's Augusto Pinochet; so does the Chinese communist Politburo in punishing pro-democracy students and professors.

Academe is a tinderbox of activism, so those seeking a fascist shift punish academics and students with professional loss if they do not "coordinate", in Goebbels' term, ideologically. Since civil servants are the sector of society most vulnerable to being fired by a given regime, they are also a group that fascists typically "coordinate" early on: the Reich Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service was passed on April 7 1933.

8. Control the press

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.

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.

9. Dissent equals treason

Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalise certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor". When Bill Keller, the publisher of the New York Times, ran the Lichtblau/Risen stories, Bush called the Times' leaking of classified information "disgraceful", while Republicans in Congress called for Keller to be charged with treason, and rightwing commentators and news outlets kept up the "treason" drumbeat. Some commentators, as Conason noted, reminded readers smugly that one penalty for violating the Espionage Act is execution.

10. Suspend the rule of law

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens.

Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spears's meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole's baby, the New York Times editorialised about this shift: "A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night ... Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any 'other condition'."

There is more to each rule, and you can find it here if you like;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

It's nothing new.

Conspiracies, conspiracies, like when one says
'that's just an excuse' - an excuse it is, but is it
intrinsically incredulous?

I know it's nothing new, but sometimes it takes a person to shed light upon that fact this kind of oppression could be happening again.

The ones that stand out to me from the list, are the points about creating a enemy, which the Bush Administration surely has done, and one which it can then use to justify all kinds of things which normally wouldn't be allowed.

And the other important one for me is the control and partisan influence over the Media, which in our modern world has such a huge influence. Go watch the documentary "Outfoxed" to see what I mean.

Ps, I don't think this is a conspiracy theory Neuovo, not when it's backed up by the evidence the author gives.

And yet america voted for this idiot again, the second time around...frankly they deserve him, at least the 48+ million that allegedly pulled the lever.

^Ever since Al Gore really won the election, I wonder about the validity of any of it....and the second time? I question that too....

Do you really think the "UNIT" is only a tv show...

^...and what about the stuff on 24? Our government is crooked as they come and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot...I don't trust any of them!

"And yet america voted for this idiot again, the second time around...frankly they deserve him, at least the 48+ million that allegedly pulled the lever."

Have ya ever watched South Park...

I think the word they used is "Giant Douche" and "Tard Sandwich"...for the politicians that always run for office...Lol.

Kevin: Another conspiracy, but a really detailed and well thought out one...

Where did you find it...I would like to research on it more...

Noir, see the web link at the bottom of my first post.

Like most accurate news about American politics, it comes from a Uk Newspaper, the Guardian.

I didn't lock one of his thread because he was insulting, because he isn't, he wasn't saying anything new, nothing.

He was going over and over old points that no one wanted to address because they had already been discussed at length. As he said, it was an indulgence that he found amusing, which to me is not a valid reason to restart a thread of discussion which has stopped producing anything of worth.

If you seriously think I was abusing his rights, then by all means complain to Janis.

Indeed Nicko.

The difference I think, between being a dictator and being a Moderator, is that we try to make decisions that benifit the whole website, and not just ourselves or anyone's agenda's.

If you look at the end of the 2 larger Ddavid posts, you will see that almost everyone, except him and his fake accounts [I think] wanted the thread closed, and so i did, thus serving the website users best interests.

You can be forgiven for thinking I was being dictator like because I was strongly involved in the debate, but that had nothing to do with it.

Wow...

I guess Bob was right in making an "Attack a Mod" thread....

Say it to me in the other thread...Next time Frooghe...

I don't mock your language, I just think it's highly strange a woman 32 years young from USA..Would have a problem writing in English.

I mean English is my third language and I speak it more well than you...I am from a different origin as well...So don't preach..."I can't write because I am an ethnic minority!!"

Please!

Lol...

Aww really inane...

Lol...It's quite fun, playing with you, and seeing you saying that talking to me is degrading...

News flash: Were you not addressing me in the other thread...So again, you sunk yourself to that pit already.

Quite frankly, I don't see any other person calling me inane or my posts for that matter, but the same can't be said for you.

Lol...I truly feel sorry for Kevin...

Heat these useless wrestles and I never leave the sanctuary of my silence to respond trash talks. Noir because of the small misunderstanding we had the other day you had to go and mention my name here. okay then buddy I think you are a disturb individual with lots of suppressed emotion inside. Coming out of the closet might help. Please do not refer to my name anymore. I don’t want to have anything with your stresses."

Lol...Really...

My God, you really sound similar my man, you saying that it's because I'm in the closet...

Well hey, let me enlighten you on something, I am bisexual buddy, and being bisexual is nothing to be ashamed about. So me being inside the closet...Please! I am attracted to both sexes, does that make me even less of a man...Hmm?

Well then I am guilty of loving...Also thank you for calling me disturbed, that's the exact word for me to call you "Arash" or do you go by "Ddavid" or should I call you "Froogie"...Man you're sad!

But you know what, thanks for saying I need to come out the closet, I think I need to really come out of it. If people like you are in here with me in the dark....Ew!

Lol...Sorry Kevin for ruining your discussion!!

Now Arash was it, I reworded and reworked your post, so please learn from it, and next time make it more scary and more of an argumentative insult. Ok...Now if you made your post like this, it would be more of an insult:

"I hate these useless tiffs and I usually never leave the sanctuary of my silence to respond trash talks. Noir because of our small misunderstandings we had the other day you had to go and mention my name here. Okay then Buddy I think you are a disturbed individual with a lot of suppressed emotion inside. Coming out of the closet may help. Please do not utter my name anymore. I do not want to have anything 'to do' with your stresses."

Here's a suggestion, can we get back on topic please.

I don't think it is a conspiracy either.

I think the word conspiracy was created to shroud and dump the world's atrocities on, so the unthinking masses can comprehend it without ever knowing the truth of the matter. YEAH, generalization, whateva 'bruv'.

Look, I made a happy poem and it made my girl friend happy which made me happy. I say, **** the world and live it in your love's gaze. Then all is well.

I wish that were so Nuovo, I really do.

I worry when I look in my loves eyes, not because I doubt anything about her, or us, but because of the world we live in and how fragile it seems to be right now.

My girl wants to have Kids, and so do I someday, but to bring a child into a world where almost nothing is fair or as it should be....it's a real concern to me.

So... regarding conspiracy theories, has anyone seen the Southpark episode on the subject?