In Praise of Naomi Wolf's Little Beige Book

I'm primarily a fiction fan, but I do read the occasional nonfiction book, and Naomi Wolf's "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot" was well worth my time this past weekend. Ms. Wolf's book, easily read in 1-2 evenings, employs a straightforward framework: She lists the 10 steps to fascism that are invariably employed by people in power who seek to make that power absolute, and she lists ways in which these 10 steps are discernible (sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly) in the current political climate of the United States.

(For those of you who want to cut to the chase and know what the 10 steps are, look no further: 1. Invoke a constant internal and external threat. 2. Establish secret prisons. 3. Develop a paramilitary force. 4. Surveil ordinary citizens. 5. Infiltrate citizens' groups. 6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens. 7. Target key individuals. 8. Restrict the press. 9. Cast criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason." 10. Subvert the rule of law. )

Ms. Wolf's tone is urgent, but it also bears the dispassionate veritas of factual exposition. Either the 10 steps are historically constant or they are not, and either they (or their precursors) are detectable in the United States today or they are not. She provides ample notes and bibliographies in support of her assertions, and invites the reader to apply his/her own powers of reason and further investigation to her work.

Some sections of Ms. Wolf's book are so alarming that they will keep you up into the wee hours of the morning. Case in point: a quoted interchange between between Senator Arlen Specter and (now former) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in which Gonzales implies that although the right of habeas corpus, if applicable, cannot be suspended except in cases of invasion or rebellion, a citizen of the United States may or may not be entitled to that right in the first place. It all depends . . . . . (I think that the fuzzy concept of "enemy combatant" is involved here, although I'm not entirely sure . . . )

The most frightening aspect of Ms. Wolf's book is the fact that you don't have to be an inherently evil, murderous person or group in order to slowly morph an open society into a fascist regime. The initial impetus of your behavior doesn't even need to involve bad intent. You only need (a) to believe, with uncompromising passion and absolutist zeal, that you have envisioned what is best for your state/country/local school board, etc., and (b) be willing to consolidate and mobilize your power base in such a way as to subdue, silence and/or eliminate anyone who disagrees with you. Come to think of it, anyone who has ever fantasized about using a "trap door button" to eliminate a fellow committee member during a contentious and inane committee meeting has experienced a Mussolini moment.

Read this book. It will make you think.