How to Stop a Fascist Shift

Erin Shaw

In a new video by Conscious Media Network, Naomi Wolf outlines the ten classic steps taken by would-be despots to shut down a democracy. Although America seems to have many of the qualities of a free society, Wolf points that a series of tipping points, starting with invoking an internal and external threat, can lead to an end of democracy as we know it. As the list goes on, she describes more eerily familiar steps such as establish secret prisons where torture takes place, develop a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the people, infiltrate citizens’ groups, and restrict the press until ultimately the law is subverted and a formerly democratic society is a police state.

According to Wolf, the McCarthyism of the 1950s is a “cake walk” compared to what’s happening today because the current war is defined as “global in scope and eternal in space.” So even though freedoms have been restricted before, the current war has no defined endpoint, and there is no guarantee that democracy will be restored. Awareness of all these parallels to dictatorships is crucial now because history shows that the months leading up to an election are especially turbulent. If unchecked, the governing forces behind this shift could render the upcoming election meaningless. To learn more about the American Freedom Agenda and the legislative proposals that aim to stop the subversion of law, visit the American Freedom Campaign.

To read more about these ten steps, read Naomi Wolf's The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.

Story suggested by Cherie.

Creative Commons Image: "US Constitution" by kjd on Flickr.