Melanie Morgan dusts Naomi Wolf. Ping to Today show list.
Um, Naomi dear, sort of like when Xlinton took office in '93 and "purged" every one of the U. S. attorneys? Hmmmm??
Go Melanie Morgan :)
Like Bill Clinton did when he took office?
Here’s a response to miz Cry Wolf:
We’re Becoming A Fascist Society? How Ridiculous.
Remember Naomi Wolf, the feminist who taught Al Gore how to act like a man or in femspeak, an “alpha male?” Well, she’s back and it looks like she’s so eaten up with Bush Dementia syndrome that she’s having a public mental meltdown and claiming George Bush is turning America into a fascist society.
Now, this is particularly noteworthy, because even a lot of the nutty netroots crowd stop beating the “fascism & rigged elections” drums quite so hard after the 2006 elections, but apparently, that didn’t even phase Wolf’s rock hard noggin’.
Here are the 10 steps to fascism that George Bush has taken according to Wolf (followed by my comments).
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy Of course, we have a terrifying external enemy, terrorists, so this one would be a given no matter who was in the White House.
2. Create a gulag. By this, she means Gitmo and other prisons for foreign terrorists. Setting aside the fact that they’re prisons, not gulags, isn’t the point to set up a gulag to put YOUR CITZENS into? I mean how do you create terror among the citizenry by sticking a bunch of Saudis and Afghans in a prison in Cuba?
3. Develop a thug caste. This she defines as mercenaries in Iraq, private security guards hired in New Orleans after Katrina, and Republican protestors in Florida after the Goracle tried to lawyer out a victory. Of course, this makes for pretty thin gruel if you’re trying to come up with a “thug caste.” As a matter of fact, black block protestors at anti-war rallies would probably be closer to the mark than anything Wolf came up with, but that’s on the wrong side of the partisan divide...
4. Set up an internal surveillance system. The Bush Administration has beefed up security measures, but none of the programs Wolf mentions are aimed solely at internal communications. All of them are designed to capture intel that goes from inside the US to outside the US. So, this is really another whiff for Wolf.
5. Harass citizens’ groups. Wolf’s evidence for this is a church that advocated political positions is being investigated, justly I might add, by the IRS and government interest in anti-war groups. Given that some of these anti-war protests have been violent and advocated treasonous sentiments, it is appropriate to check up on them — and just investigating these groups doesn’t constitute “harassment.” Again, if this is the best Wolf can come up with, it’s weak tea.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. Here Wolf uses the “no fly” list and two people who were looked into for potential terrorism ties and not convicted. Again, this is just an incredible overstretch.
7. Target key individuals This is so vague as to be meaningless; “Target” — target how? “Key Individuals” — why is a person a key individual? As befits something this vague, Wolf flails all over here from college prosecutors to the fired US Attorneys and accomplishes nothing.
8. Control the press Bizarrely, Wolf cites everything from the administration’s pushback against Joe Wilson’s lies to Wolf’s despicable claim that the US is trying to murder journalists in Iraq. Yet, the idea that the mainstream media, which is extremely liberal and implacably hostile to Bush is under his control in any way, shape, or form, is ludicrous and Wolf makes no serious effort to prove otherwise.
9. Dissent equals treason This is a favorite canard of the left, but it’s self-refuting. Liberals always claim to be afraid of prosecution for speaking truth to power, yet they do it anyway, and nothing ever happens to them as a result. If anything, we’ve probably gone too far in the other direction where actual treason is simply shrugged off as another form of dissent.
10. Suspend the rule of law. Here, Wolf is horrified because Bush has been given the power to send one state’s national guard into another state because of an emergency. You may think that’s a good idea and a rational response to the mess caused by Blanco’s incompetence after Katrina or you may think it’s a bad idea, but it certainly doesn’t amount to a suspension of the “rule of law.”
Conclusion: Note that even though Wolf came up with her own 10 terms, her own 10 signs of fascism, she still couldn’t make a case for her argument.
Right Wing News Website
Mel sure put Naomi in her place once again!
Naomi Wolf is eating out too much, and must have overslept while in a tanning bed.
That's going to leave a mark.
I was looking for audio archives of more Melanie, but couldn’t find any, until I found an article on Melanie’s site about someone else who is suing Media Matters for libel.
So i went to Media Matter’s site and found tons of Melanie sound and video bites.
I think Media Matters is a vile organization but i have to give them a backhanded compliment for creating a library of archives of some great people, so check it out.