Pig Ignorance In Wolf's Clothing

Thus is the style of Naomi Wolf in this frothing at the mouth diatribe published by the good folks at the UK Guardian. According to Wolf we are half way to a Republican led fascist state. Let us see what she calls fascism, shall we?

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

Right off the bat the irony is overwhelming as the Guardian has gleefully published anti-Semitic pieces over recent years. In fact, it is the Left that likes to complain about a shadowy cabal of Jews pulling the strings behind the scenes, or haven't you heard that the Israeli lobby controls the US press?

Wolf compares 9/11 to the Reichstag fire of 1933, so I'm assuming she thinks Bush orchestrated the mass murder of over 3,000 Americans, which isn't surprising as Howard Dean always thought that was an "interesting" idea.

2. Create a gulag

Hmm...last time I checked the Gulag was a communist invention. Let's see the track record there:

-720,000 executions, 680,000 of which were carried out in 1937-38, usually after some sort of travesty of justice by a special GPU or NKVD court.
-300,000 known deaths in the camps from 1934 to 1940. By extrapolating these figures back to 1930-1933 (years for which very few records are available), we can estimate that some 400,000 dies during the decade, not counting the incalculable number of those who died between the moment of their arrest and their registration in one of the camps.
-600,000 registered deaths among the deportees, refugees, and "specially displaced."
- Approximately 2,200,000 deported, forcibly moved, or exiled as "specially displaced people."
-A cumulative figure of 7 million people who entered the camps and Gulag colonies from 1934 to 1941 (information for the years 1930-1933 remains imprecise.)

(The Black Book Of Communism, Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 206-07)

Since roughly one quarter or one third of these prisoners were purely political prisoners (Ibid., p. 206) that means 1.75-2.33 million domestic political enemies were "neutralized" in leftist Russia.

Please show me a single Democrat imprisoned in such a manner, or are the leftys claiming the Guantanamo detainees as their very own?

3. Develop a thug caste

Who takes to the streets in efforts to intimidate people in America, the left or the right? The only mass demonstration I've ever heard of in living memory that would have contained more Republicans than Democrats would be the Right to Life marchers in DC every January. When have they displayed violence exactly? (Individual nutjobs of all stripes do despicable things, so that isn't at issue.)

Compare it to any lefty march at a G8 summit and tell me again who has the "thug caste."

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

So Naomi has never heard of the Stasi, huh? Maybe the NKVD? Never read any Havel either? Interesting fact, "in 1939 the Gestapo employed 7,500 people in contrast to the NKVD's 366,000 (including Gulag personell; and the Commuist Party made denunciation an obligation, whereas the Nazi Party did not." (Ibid. p. xvi)

So an internal surveillance system is as integral to the extreme left as the extreme right.

Once again, I'm looking for a single imprisoned Democrats resulting from the so-called equivalent systems here in the United States.

The only places I see speech compelled in the United States is by leftist on college campuses (such as incidences at Michigan State, and presently at Rhode Island.)

5. Harass citizens' groups

Heaven forbid we actually keep an eye on people advocating violence in the name of their pet causes, whether it be radical environmentalism or radical animal rights. I never knew one of the core tenets of the Democratic party was to firebomb housing developments or medical research labs you don't care for.

The poor dears.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

I'm sorry, this might be a complaint about the inherent inefficiency of bureaucracies but the left loves bureaucracy. In fact, the more the better, right? Following a leftist prescription such activities do not decrease they increase.

7. Target key individuals

I couldn't make this up if I tried. Wolf's section entitled "Target Key Individuals" mentions no present day individuals by name, making double checking of her claims impossible.

How "key" can these individuals be if no one has any idea who the hell you are talking about?

8. Control the press

Even Wolf can't come up with a way to claim this bit of nonsense is true, so she obfuscates. She must long for back issues of that bastion of true press freedom Pravda.

9. Dissent equals treason

Lord knows no communist has ever, oh I don't know, been put to death for dissent. But what is a couple of million souls anyway? Yeah, criticizing the Dixie Chicks is the equivalent of that.

10. Suspend the rule of law

This section begins (I swear to God) with the following:

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard.

This is the only "example" of "suspending the rule of law" given.

Which begs the question, are there any of the words in the phrase "rule of law" Wolf actually understands?

If anyone is really interested in what might actually count as being "fascist" one might want to turn not to Naomi Wolf, but maybe to some academic work. Here is a list of fascist attributes taken from Lyman Tower Sargent's Contemporary Political Ideologies 7th edition (Dorsey Press, 1987)

1. Irrationalism

If the near hysteria in Wolf's piece can be taken as a general indication, then the left has this in spades these days.

Indeed much of the left seems to be taken with the notion that everything is merely a matter of political will. The irony is that they have taken to referring to themselves as "progressives" when actual progressives were very rationalistic in their approach. The progressives of the 19th century certainly had their blind spots and excesses (things like coercive state sponsered sterilization programs, and other eugenic programs touted as science), but they were amenable to reason.

2. Social Darwinism

I think you are gonna have to work hard to make those who believe that all people should have a right to a democratic society (however ill prepared they are to make that idealistic vision reality) into Social Darwinists. And how are you gonna make the religious right Darwinists of any variety?

Good luck with that one.

3. Nationalism

"The individual does not exist apart from his or her existence in the nation. There is almost no such thing as an individual within Fascist ideology. An individual is one small part of the nation. The individual and the nation are inseparable." (Ibid. p. 163)

Such a view is simply non-existent on the American right of today, although the "collectivity of everyone" is a staple of the left.

4. Glorification of the State

Who has this tendency in the United States today, left or right?

5. The Leadership Principle

"The underlying theory is that the Fuhrer is not absolute, but the only limit on the leader's power is that the Fuhrer must reflect the collective will of the people. This does not limit power because the leader's will is, by definition, the same as the collective will." (Ibid, pp.167-68)

There is simply no analog to this in the United States, left or right, although it does have some inspiration from the work of JJ Rousseau who appeals to many on the left. What party has made the most consistent effort to create a cult of personality around its party's Presidents? There is a little of that about Reagan, but it pales in comparison to the FDR and Kennedy-aphiles.

6. Racism

This is of course why people like Wolf like to call people Fascists. It is a two for one opportunity. But only a blithering idiot could claim that the Republican party is built upon racism as its founding principle, especially when, historically speaking, the Democratic party actually did have racism as a founding principle.

7. Anticommunism

This of course also helps explain why people like Wolf are so interested in calling people who disagree with them fascists, they are still wedding to the communist "ideal" even after the clear knowledge of the tens of millions who have perished at its hands.

Than again, maybe it is the history of mass murder that appeals to her.

Or you could look at Roy Macridis' Contemporary Political Ideologies 3rd edition (Little, Bown, 1986) where the important components of fascism are presented as:

1. Elitism
2. Irrationalism
3. Myths and Violence
4. Social Darwinism
5. Group Mind
"As we pointed out, liberalism freed individuals from all attachments to groups and status that defined and structured their activities." (Ibid, p. 186) Hmm...so it is the right that mandates that what matters most is your social, racial or gender group? Funny. I could have sworn that was the left's mantra.
6. Escape from Freedom (This is akin to Nationalism, but from the individual's perspective.)
7. Against the Bourgeois Mentality
Once again this is a hall mark of the left in this country, not the right. The right celebrates "middle class-ness" (as do most Democrats). You tell me, who in America is against, "The peaceful but unheroic existence of the citizen; the constant search for material gains and satisfactions; the compromising spirit that democratic liberalism fosters" (Ibid., pp. 187-88)

Sounds like complaints about "selfish acquisitive conservatives" to me.