The End of America is Naomi Wolf's call to arms. I'm pretty sure there's not anything in the book that hasn't been said on some thread in ReaderRant, but she runs through the steps of democracy sliding into fascism clearly and bases her concerns on events about which Americans today need to be aware.
She tackles our complacency and contrasts our belief that democracy will win out with the founders' overriding fear that leaders—even American leaders yet to come—will create monarchies if the checks and balances do not work. Thinking of the Bush administration shredding the constitution while reading that section was more than a bit scary, particularly when she stressed that in her opinion our time to halt the progression is rapidly running out.
She discusses the steps a democracy moves through as it becomes fascism.
1) An outside enemy is necessary to help people unite. We have one of those. Our outside enemy, as the Bush administration so often points out, is "Islamofascism." (page 36.) That's why we're fighting the war on "terra."
2) Freedom of speech is being restricted. She refers to an op-ed piece in The New York Times that holds "professors who introduce partisan ideas in their lectures deserve to be fired. Academic freedom … does not include the right to express such ideas in the classroom." (page 108) I read the academic freedom sentence and laughed. Briefly.
3) One branch of government controls more and more power. "Signing statements" are discussed here, and Wolf believes that if people really understood how the statements are used, they'd be appalled. I think she's optimistic.
4) She also makes some very good points about how lying erodes truth, a happening greatly needed for fascism to take hold. Her point is that when there are enough lies, no one believes anything, and truth, then, is diminished. She never mentions the creationism/evolution battle, but it seems to be a darn good illustration. They're both theories; they're both therefore equal. But what about scientific proof behind evolution? Does it prove evolution completely? Not completely, but there's—. Not completely? Then they're both theories. And equal. And American education fails.
All in all, The End of America is a short, sad and scary read. I wish the people who'd never read it would. We might be better off.
