Provocative article in the Guardian
 

Naomi Wolf, in the Guardian, has an article called "Fascist America, in 10 easy steps" that details the easy slide from full democracy to a substantial loss of freedom in America. Perhaps too provocative for The Coat Room (so I make no comment), but an interesting and slightly shocking read nonetheless. Rather long, but stick with it.

Jup it's easy to start the slide downhill.
Here in sweden there is a case where the police has arrested a journalist and impounded his computer. The problem is that he says that he has many documents which depicts sources and methods and these the police are specifically prohibited from looking for by our "constitution and amendments".
Well should a journalist just be able to claim that? Should the police have a right to look in the computer and say oops I will forget that XXX told you you this about the police. How to resolve that?

I can see it's easy to draw parallels with history's dictatorships, but I can't believe that it is a conscious progression on Bush's part. I'm no bush fan-boy (nor will I be voting for his self-appointed deputy John Howard but that's another story) but I can see that combatting terrorism is no easy task and certain freedoms when extended to those who want to kill you make their job so much easier. I know it erodes the freedom that you wish protected but what are the alternatives? Lets keep the freedom and just restrict arabs. Oh better add the Pakistanis... oh and Indonesians... oh and Indians... and do-si-do your partners.

Anyway I don't have an answer. Either way you've got problems. There is a very real threat that needs to be addressed and an angry population that demands protection. If they're not happy with the resulting erosion of freedom then there's always the next election.

I think you're missing the point. It isn't about Bush's consciousness or lack thereof. The problem is that he has set certain events in motion, and powerful economic forces exist that don't want their interests in those events affected.

As for combatting terrorism, there are many ways to do that far better than what has taken place. Forming meaningful partnerships with other countries would be a good start. Instead, we've got a cowboy going it alone in places he clearly doesn't know anything about, using methods and tools he has no experience with. All the while his condescending, divisive rhetoric has been causing our enemies to hate us more while making our allies lose respect for us. To compound the injury, he hasn't even attempted to do any of this with the kind of fiscal responsibility that a true Conservative would insist upon.

I agree totally. As the elected representative he doesn't make a good international face for the average US citizen. If they want to change that face it's still within their power at the next election.

The problems as I see them (and I agree that it is not a conscious plan nor a nefarious plot) are these (and I mean no disrespect, these are my observations from the perspective of a 70 year-old guy who lived in the US for 37 of those years but has lived here in Canada for the past 23). Rebut if you disagree.

Starting with Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" perhaps, folks in the USA have increasingly believed that they should not be subjected to any risk at all, that the government should defend and protect them against all risk.

Politicians, ever willing to be our "big brother" watching over us, have unleashed a crowd of regulators who have tried to do the impossible: to assure the public that they were living risk-free. Caveat emptor and normal responsibility for your own actions is out the window; somebody else is responsible for my safety and well being.

This is reinforced by intense litigation that prompts warnings on everything, all kinds of things forbidden; packaging that is impossible to open because once, long ago, someone tampered with with a bottle of aspirin or whatever it was, a fruitless effort to protect the irresponsible from their own idiocy, innumeracy, and illiteracy.

Bad scene when folks don't take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions because "big brother" begins to intrude, and you don't even notice - you asked for it.

Companies won't make those bouncing walkers any more (my kids loved them) because some idiot left their cellar door open and their kid was injured or killed falling down the stairs in it, kids can't enjoy a ride anywhere because they have to be strapped down as if they were being launched to the moon, on and on it goes.

Now add a real, consequential threat: terrorism. Never mind that the probability of a terrorist act happening to you is minimal - almost as low as the likelihood that the next major act, if there is one, will be predictable or a repeat performance - never mind that the probability that you will be killed before your time has many more probable outcomes - we must instead virtually destroy the airline industry in the name of safety. My wife and I are simply giving a huge accumulation of points away to our family -- if we can't drive or take a train there, we don't go; neither of us willing to endure the invasive and needless searches, probings, strictures on what you can have with you, and a barefoot walk on arthritic feet over a path trod by thousands but not cleaned.

Build a walled America, make crossing the borders damned near impossible. Add the risk of being on some black list somewhere and having your trip stopped cold. One of my kids missed a flight home from a conference in Florida and was interviewed and searched out of sight of her husband because her name was on some list. Only her age not matching let her catch the next flight and hop her way home having missed all her connections.

A huge overreaction, flames fanned by political opportunists, big brother is further into your life.

In my mind, there is no finer institution than democracy and it's being threatened by unreasonable fears fanned out of all proportion to the risks.

I agree with most of what you've said, except for this. The flames have been fanned not by the government, but by political opportunists. Dick Cheney said during the las election that voting for his opponents would make us less secure. That was Dick Cheney the candidate speaking, not the Vice President.

I agree with that entirely -- I changed it in my rant to political opportunists -- much better.

well, honestly, I doubt that Hitler thought he was doing anything wrong, either. History is filled with ignorant, unthinking atrocities. sad thing is (and I know this is hard to imagine, but...), if Germany had succeeded in securing Europe, we wouldn't remember Hitler as a monster at all - he'd be the Julius Caesar of a revived Holy Roman empire, and the genocide of the Jews would be an uncomfortable footnote next to the decimation of the American Indians and the rape of the Sabine women. I think Bush was hoping - and maybe still is - that he can pull off a legacy as the decisive statesman and leader who set a new direction for our nation. God willing, he won't...

Kurt Godel, a great logician also stated on different terms that America could slide in dictatorship due to a loop hold in the constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del
http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9802/hyp.html

In case people haven't heard of Godel, he is also the one that proved that in any given closed system, you will always have the chicken and egg type questions that can never be proved or disproved.

It was the egg.

sure, blame it on someone else - you're such a chicken... :p

There is no easy answer to that kind of problem.

I just would like to share a quote from Benjamin Franklin.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

What do you think would have been the outcome if this had been attempted in the states?

Chaser @ APEC

They'd be enjoying a tropical vacation at Club Guantanamo.

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With an eye on Forum policy, I am not entirely sure I’m comfortable with the discussion here. The most problematic thing, in my opinion, is the naming of antagonists.

So I humbly suggest we take a few steps back.

-- ArcticStones

My apologies to the egg.

one of the sad truisms of the world: bullies thrive on the civility of others. be assured that the people who dish out crap in the world (without naming antagonists, of course...) are entirely comfortable doing so, and comments like yours make them smile.

Having grown up reading Robert A. Heinlein, it's easy to see how the slide could happen.

The chicken did it first.... and the egg is proof of that.

The egg was laid by something that was almost a chicken, but not quite. The egg came first. ;)

Simultaneous, spontaneous genesis?

I do worry about what seems to be a constant erosion of individual liberties, but I don't believe it is a conspiracy. As the wise man once said, never blame a conspiracy when simple incompetence can explain it all.

True now more than ever. :(