Naomi Klein's new book demonstrates the United States is well on it's way to a fascist police state.
* Naomi Wolf
* The Guardian, Tuesday 24 April 2007
Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.
They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
Stumble It!
So when a corporation can go to the courts in BC and get an injunction against protesters for stopping their work, but the protesters have no legal recourse to argue the corporation is damaging their environment, that is fascism, for example. When a mayor can 'buy' a huge SWAT team from the RCMP to round up protesters in who are preventing the construction of a highway interchange that they argue will devastate the local ecology and destroy First Nations artifacts, a force that then turned that part of my neighborhood into a police state, with roadblocks, id checks of citizens trying to just drive home from work, ect... that is FASCISM.
You would think that corporations and government working together would be a good thing. Well, it is, until somebody objects. Then the goon squads, illegal imprisonments, control of the media, ect.. all come out swinging. Fascism is best implemented with an authoritative police state.
You mean, like Exxon and the Exxon Valdez fiasco.....?
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureo ... xonvaldez/
You mean, like Exxon and the Exxon Valdez fiasco.....?
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureo ... xonvaldez/
No, like ACTA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Count ... _Agreement
or Montebello Jellybeans
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/search.php?q=montebello
or Bill C-61
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3117/350/
or how the Hollywood and Record Labels get whatever they ask for
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/443867
despite their own figures being incorrect.
I could go on . . .
Yo mean I can't count Exxon among that hallowed list..........?
Of course, but there are better examples of Government favouring Corporations above Citizens.
1. First, attract bigots and obscurantists to your cause.
2. Control the media, as it is always the enemy.
3. Control the information flow concerning government
action.
4. Always play to popular myth.
5. Begin to build a powerful ministry of information.
6. Encourage fear within the population and hype it as much
as possible.
7. Throw the people a bone or two to alleviate hyped fear.
8. Characterize all opposition in degrading terms.
9. Seize any opportunity to eradicate opposition.
10. Remove legislative impediments to the Party by first
degrading them.
11. Remove creative cultural grants as it encourages free thinking.
12. Encourage followers to despise intellectual thought, revere
radio talk shows as truth.
13. Focus media attention solely on the leader and emphasize
the importance of his leadership.
14. Build a substantial military force to focus on might and
power, and relate it to decisive leadership.
15. Build a sense of heroic times by reviving pageantry and
colourful flag displays. Show the leader in heroic contexts
as a warrior sympathetic to the sacrifices of his people.
16. Control large Olympian sporting event pageantry so as to
project the leader?s vision to the world