All The More Reason

Naomi Woolf has identified the ten steps that governments take when they wish to create and consolidate a fascist regime. Handy that it should be exactly ten, eh?

Oh, and did she mention that all ten of them are being actively pursued by the Bush Administration?

See how far you can get with the article. I got to point 3, where Woolf starts to talk about the ‘development of 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.

OK.

‘The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany.‘

Right.

‘ …after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans.‘

I see.

‘The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. ‘

Hmm….

‘Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers…‘

OK Naomi, I have to go now…to do…a thing.

Michael P