Squashing Democracy: 10 Things You Must Know

Not should know; must know!

"The blueprint is predictive."

Naomi Wolf does have a new book:

And now...

10 Components of Closing an Open Society
(I add some of my own notes or links that I recall.)

1. Invoke terrifying internal and external threat and the threat may be real and/or (doctored/fake/created) "hyped threat." See From Prohibition to War on Drugs ("Public Enemy Number One!").   See Yellowcake. See the WMD timeline. European leaders have said that terrorism is an event (due to a tactic), not a cause (War on Terrorism).
2. Create secret prison system (a.k.a. gulag) where torture takes place and that is outside the rule of law and that may have military tribunals that strip the justice process. The abuse eventually gets turned against its own citizens -- a fascist shift (technical term) starts with abusing "marginal people" but before long, the lines blur (can term anyone an "enemy combatant" and your innocence or party affiliations will not protect you and take you for up to three years, maybe even putting you in solitary confinement in which you're removed protections). Tipping points in which democracy can't heal democracy comes swiftly. One "vertical line" was when the kid was tazered in a university of FL.
3. Create a thug caste, as in create a paramilitary force (Blackwater, Brownshirts). You can't close down a democracy without a paramilitary force and it doesn't even have to be a majority party that uses paramilitary! With these folks in your face intimidating or worse, people become too afraid to utilize the protections of democracy and remember, due process means "notice and opportunity." This is why Witchvox posted this news article in Wren's Nest a while back and it scares me that a lot of Americans don't get the import.  Blackwater has already been operating on American soil, such as in New Orleans after Katrina, and in the future with any public emergency. See second amendment.
4. Internal surveillance system -- create a surveillance appararatus for ordinary citizens. In America, this is driven by profit motive. If we're the enemy in need of surveillance, this generates profit. Billions of dollars of profit. Naomi Wolf is considered high risk when traveling by plane. She's on "the list" (no fly or watch list). Richard Murphy, Constitutional scholar, is on the list. Leader of Code Pink is on the list and not allowed to cross the boarder into the U.S. A decorated war hero and his whole family are on the list. Consequently opportunities (benefits, job opportunities) close down when you're on the list.  Update:  "The nation's top spy, Michael McConnell, thinks the threat of cyberarmageddon! is so great that the U.S. government should have unfettered and warrantless access to U.S. citizens' Google search histories, private e-mails and file transfers, in order to spot the cyberterrorists in our midst."
   
5. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens.
6. Infiltrate citizens' groups. Anti-war groups, animal right activists, environmental groups, and other various non-terrorist groups.
7. Target key individuals.  Scholars, journalists, personalities, students, U.S. attorneys. The trust level necessary to work together as citizens is crippled. Definitions expand, entangling more and more people. Bush/Blair emphasis frequently switches from or is confused between terrorists and extremists and extremism is conveniently loosely defined as any deviation from what they strive to portray as "the norm." See 9-19-2006 Headline on CNN: "Bush: Fighting extremism our 'calling.'" Terrorism is a tactic. "In contrast, the European Parliamentary Assembly is more precise in its definition of "extremism", focusing on its conflation with "political extremism": "Extremism, whatever its nature, is a form of political activity that overtly or covertly rejects the principles of parliamentary democracy, and very often bases its ideology and its political practices and conduct on intolerance, exclusion, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ultra-nationalism." [Resolution 1344]
8. Control the press. This has been done to American press in Iraq and through cronyism here.
9. Dissent equals treason. That's been bandied about all over major media and via various pundits and it's nothing new. Ah, the Price of an Opinion!
10. Subvert/suspend the rule of law. Normal events give excuse for crackdowns. A closed society really has a lot of the trappings of normal societies. There are elections; they’re just corrupted. There is changing of the guard (new people elected); it’s the same cabal in power. There is judiciary; they’re not free to adjudicate freely. Academics watch what they say. Newspapers know how far they can push an inquiry.

Participation is a Refresher on Democracy

American Freedom Campaign is a grassroots organization which insists on rule of law and a working system of checks and balances in government.  It can be a crucial addition to Ten Things You Can Do To Fight The Religious Right.  It has at least 5 million members but needs more and states the American need to ratchet up our efforts by seeking to impeach and jail when appropriate because that is part of keeping the rule of law! So is exercising our civil duties because the founders didn't intend a special class of people to defend the Constitution, no, they intended ordinary American's to assume the patriot's task: to know our constitution, to will it into being on a sustained basis, and to dare to seek the rule of law and the continuance of our system of checks and balances.

Note:  This page may have links and examples added to it.
Update:  Jan. 16, 2008 to add update with link http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/feds-must-exami.html.