The Watch

The Watch is concerned about the increasing pressure towards feudalism in the United States from corporations, social regressives, warmongers, and the media. We also are concerned with future history concerning our current times, as non-truths which are “widely reported” become the basis for completely false narratives.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Our Closing Society


Creating a Closed Society Watch

Naomi Wolf’s book The End of America is interesting not because it claims that America is already a fascist state. That kind of hyperbole always draws out (probably deserved) ridicule. Rather, what she claims is that there are ten clear steps that a society takes when the people in charge are trying to make it a closed, totalitarian society, that they are remarkably similar in all such societies, whether left-wing or right-wing, and that the process is easy to spot. Here are the steps she highlights which the United States has already taken: Invoking a terrifying internal and external enemy, creating a gulag, developing a paramilitary group of thugs, setting up an internal surveillance system, harassing citizens’ groups, controlling the press, targeting key individuals, and equating dissent with treason. The other two steps are engaging in arbitrary detention and release, which I don’t think has happened yet except to non-citizens and Jose Padilla, and suspending the rule of law. Though of course they have suspended the rule of law for themselves already, this step won’t be fully implemented until the next big terror attack/natural disaster/plague, so it’s only a matter of time.

Recently, Ms. Wolf gave an address at the University of Washington. This is a 48-minute speech, including why she wrote the book, details about the historical aspects of the ten steps and how they apply to today’s America, and her recommendation on what we need to do to stop it. Her research indicates that it will not be enough to legislate against Cheney and Bush. They must be impeached, tried, and put behind bars. If you have a few minutes, please watch this presentation. It is chilling and extremely important.

Let’s Invade Iran! Watch

Josh Marshall is one of the best investigative journalists working today, and though he originally supported the invasion of Iraq (having been led down that path by Kenneth Pollack’s tragically flawed book Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, among other arguments), he has since more than made up for that error by committing real journalism. He continues his very important weblog, Talking Points Memo, and has gathered a muckraking staff of investigators who write at TPM Muckraker. He has also taken to creating small video news and analysis broadcasts, under the name TPM Media, which are some of the smartest and most informative out there. Josh has been out front on a number of stories which manage to evade the presstitutes, and was instrumental in bringing to light and sustaining the story of the firing of the US attorneys in swing states.

Last week, Josh and his team took at look at Rudy Giuliani’s foreign policy advisors, all four of whom want the US to invade Iran post haste. So, if Giuliani gets elected (and he seems to be the designated successor right now), the question won’t be whether we attack Iran, but how many hours we should wait. Truly frightening.

Shift and Puzzle Watch

If you’ve ever read the C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, you may have noticed how much Bush and Cheney (or perhaps Rove) resemble the pair Puzzle the Donkey and Shift the Ape in the seventh book, The Last Battle. In that book, the power-hungry ape dresses an ignorant (but good-hearted – here the analogy breaks down) donkey in the heroic/godlike skin of a lion and passes him off as the leonine deity Aslan. As Puzzle mouths the words of Shift’s speeches to the frightened animals of Narnia, they create an authoritarian state where the ape lives corruptly off of the animals’ sacrifice and labor, betrays the animals to a foreign power, and creates a world-ending war. Lewis’ allegory had to do with both the notion of the antichrist and the rise of the totalitarian axis powers. The book was written over fifty years ago.

Playing with Impeachment Watch

Noticing how the media just about wet themselves with the thought of Bush’s Evildoer’s Deck of Cards, some enterprising souls have created Impeach Bush cards, detailing over 52 reasons why Bush should be impeached. Send a pack to Nancy Pelosi today!

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