Op-Ed: Naomi Wolf’s The End of America, a book never reviewed in America

Naomi Wolf has too much guts to be a conspiracy theorist. She’s also too intelligent. The End of America is about a series of principles of democracy which she sees being destroyed in America by political subversion. Nobody's reviewed it.

This raises the slightly bland question whether America’s media is worth the paper it’s printed upon. Try this for a hypothetical situation: Every single principle of democratic government is supposedly being undermined by a series of legislative maneuvers calculated to create an essentially Fascist state, and nobody supposed to be a critic can be bothered to check it out? Now another hypothetical: The world’s biggest media have no opinions on the subject, and even the “liberal” press, which has spent so much time saying exactly the same thing, however inarticulately, won’t touch it? Wolf’s idea deserves scrutiny because it exposes a pattern of actual historical weaknesses, and potential weaknesses, in democracy. Even a critic should understand that. The whole idea of modern media is scrutiny of information and ideas, whether you agree with them or not. The principle of Wolf’s idea is a process of power politics in ten stages: 1. Create an external threat. 2. Create a “gulag” system, outside normal law. 3. Create a mechanism like the Brownshirts to intimidate. 4. Create an internal surveillance system to monitor citizens. 5. Attack citizen’s groups. 6. Arbitrary detention 7. Target individuals, like academics, civil servants, etc. 8. Control the media, and therefore the news 9. Equate dissent with treason. 10. Suspend the rule of law, invoke emergency law. One notable example of this process was the rise of the Nazis in Germany. I don’t agree that the Weimar Republic was anyone’s idea of a working, let alone healthy democracy, but that was the pattern. If the critics can’t be bothered reviewing the book, others have. Two very different views, both worth reading, have emerged. The US site Right Wing News doesn’t agree with a word of Wolf’s idea, and says so, and explains why it disagrees. It’s not flowery language, by any means, but it’s a rebuttal. The British paper The Guardian, historically a left wing paper, agrees, and goes into a lot of detail about why it agrees. I saw an interview with Australia’s SBS Dateline, in which Wolf is very articulate on the subject of her ideas. What struck me was that what she’s talking about has fallen right off the American ideological landscape. The principles she’s talking about are those of the original democratic structure. *** Note: the Dateline video is currently a preview, because the show was broadcast tonight. A full podcast will be available later. Her actual objective point is that whoever does it, that’s how those principles are put at risk. The parallels she draws are hardly likely to make much ground with the right wingers, but it should be remembered that real conservatives do believe in democracy. They may have nothing in common with liberals, but they do uphold a lot of the things Wolf says are being destroyed. It’s their problem, too, and those with an education would understand the major points she raises. It’s the nutcases on both political sides that wouldn’t. She’s not actually taking a specific political position, despite her solid liberal background. Obviously, she’s no admirer of Bush, who she refers to as “like Hitler”, and explains why she thinks that. Which leaves the question open whether the American media understood the message. Most conspiracy theories are based on scandal and innuendo, not political science. It is possible that some highly educated, highly paid, collegiate-choir boy media moron didn’t get it, but all of them? If Ann Coulter can get coverage for playing Scrabble with political ideas, why not Wolf, trying to establish some working principles for an argument about democracy? Is this blacklisting, bitchiness, or sheer gutlessness, not willing to bring up some tough legal and constitutional principles? Most major authors wouldn’t have the guts to bring up the subject, because it’s too tough, commercially, and in terms of career. The safety zone for controversy among most liberal writers is something which usually leads to a lot of appalled people doing remarkably little, but not a drop in sales or levels of comfort. The toughest critics of America are Americans. Wolf is taking a very difficult course, but it’s in the best traditions of American criticism. Unlike the book industry critics. This is either cowardice on a colossal scale, or it’s a blacklisting worthy of McCarthy. Which is it, cupcakes? Or should I say doormats? ****Note: TRV Rose pointed out to me in the thread below that the Guardian article was actually written by Wolf. I didn't notice it, and neither did anyone else. I was looking for an articulate pro article to balance the negative. (Not easy, by the way. Even the net's been relatively quiet, for it.) It's probably about as close to a review as the book has received, but as TRV says, she probably wouldn't be disagreeing with her self.