Ten Steps To Facism

If you watch the Naomi Wolf video below you know that this is the topic of her new book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot where she goes in depth about how eerily close this country is to completing those steps. Today we shall discuss these ten steps and without having read the book yet determine how close we really are.

The Ten Steps are the following:
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create a gulag.
3. Develop a thug caste.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Declare all dissent to be treason.
10. Suspend the rule of law.

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and/or external enemy usually as the result of some actual event. Well, that is well documented as having been done with our "war on terror" after 9/11. Since September 11th this administration has done nothing but fear mongering under the guise of combating this great and terrible foe.
2. Create secret prisons where folks are tortured is well documented as well since the CIA and others are already doing this across the globe on a fairly large scale. Sadly they never seem to get anywhere with it since the big names are still out there at large, so my question is what good does it do?
3. Create your own private army that is only controlled by one group and not the entire government. Blackwater was created in this exact image. It is nothing more then a mercenary army at the beckon call of whatever their corporate and administration masters would have them do.
4. Set up a system to spy on your citizens, not matter if it is against the law or not. We saw this in 1984 and we saw this during the Nazi regime, where children ratted out their families to honor their country. We haven't gone that far, and won't have to since technology has made that useless.
5. Harass citizens group, wasn't that done this week with the assault upon MoveOn.org? That would very much consist of a citizens group that is being harassed, and don't forget groups like those who are routinely arrested for protesting the war, being spied upon, and or infiltrated by the police to be spied upon in the name of national security.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release, basically arresting folks on a whim and releasing them when they feel like it. They have begun this with folks from Afghanistan, excuse "terrorists", and legally all they have to do is declare you a enemy combatant and you have no rights anymore. No right to counsel, no right to a speedy trial, nothing.
7. Targeting key individuals likely means they type of assassinations that Hitler and the like took a part in to eliminate the biggest threats to their power. Thankfully there has not been any of this, least as far as we know. I would like to think the majority of America would revolt as soon as that happened, but so many believe in this war on terror and any lies TV tells them who knows.
8. Controlling the press, maybe Hitler's best talent was how to target the propaganda. It could be argued that this administration does control the press, they already have their own propaganda network. There are so many other networks that don't have the balls to actually stand up to them that in essence save for a select few this government DOES control the media. Hell, it is the center of Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS.
9. Declaring all dissenting points of views treason is happening as well. Perhaps not from those with power to actually prosecute treason, but look at politicians and media folks whenever someone doesn't agree with them. The person becomes unpatriotic, they're committing treason, and lord knows what else. The punishment for treason may not have begun, but the calling of such has.
10. Suspend the rule of law, declare marshal law, things of that nature is the final step. Think of it like Emperor Palpatine, they suspend law to give him power during a crisis and then keeps it until death. This may be what this country is moving to and it scares the shit out of me. I wouldn't be surprised one bit if some attack happens in late October early November if Dubya suspended the election and was granted a temporary status as President until the situation was resolved, which it would never be in his mind, and he would never leave office.

By my determination we have solidly completely six out of ten of the steps fully. Assassinations of opponents, marshal law, detaining of citizens and punishing treason have not been completed fully. There is no reason that our great country should be this close to being the biggest fascist state the world has ever seen. It shouldn't matter which party you are, you should love democracy no matter what kind of bad guy is out there. The Nazis and Soviets were far more of a threat to America then any terrorists are, yet we did not lose as much during those years as we have in the last five.