Reading The End of America

Naomi Wolf's The End of America is an essential tool. Every U.S. resident should read it. Yes, it has flaws, but they hardly diminish the book's impact. Please read it. ASAP. I finished it over the weekend: 155 pages and not very dense.

One of the great things about Wolf's call-to-action pamphlet is that, without succumbing to conspiracy theory or hyperbole, it paints a dire picture of the ways our civil liberties have been trampled in the last six years. Rhetorical comparisons between Bush and Hitler have always irritated me -- there's no quicker way to lose credibility than to throw the world "fascist" around willy-nilly. Wolf is careful, however. She compares ours with societies that have experienced "fascist shifts," and the "echoes" she identifies are quite resonant. Whether or not the steps taken by the Bush administration have been deliberate, we should be in a state of alarm.

To get a quick look at ten steps that fascist regimes take, and how our administration's actions fit, take a gander at this April Guardian article.

I do think that The End of America would have a broader appeal if it acknowledged explicitly from the outset that Americans have not experienced "liberty" equally. Noting the inequalities that were built into the Constitution, the run of the mill rights violations that are connected to racial and economic disparity, and the way in which the FBI has historically violated individuals' rights as a matter of practice would not diminish her argument.

Really, Wolf's is the privileged perspective of someone who (like yours truly) has always taken her rights for granted. But the fact of her alarm is telling. If an elite, white, former Rhodes Scholar is gravely concerned about her own basic liberties, the possibility of an America truly committed to justice and equality may truly be on the wane.

Read it!

~~ The End of America