getting angry with naomi wolf

wolf has been touring the country with a talk developed from the themes (or should i say horrors) in her book, the end of america. i got an invitation to a special taping of it last night at pace university, and i will shamefully admit to accepting the invite in the spirit of “well you never know who you might meet and i’m tired of being single so what the fuck”.

if you’ve been to any antiwar protests since the dawn of iraqi slaughter, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the kind of crowd lined up outside the Schimmel auditorium. two twentysomethings in front of me compared notes about their upcoming weddings (apparently it is now a Big Deal to choose Your Songs — nary a moment of these $50,000 extravaganzas is left unscripted). other attendees tooled up in wheelchairs. we ran the gamut. inside, preshow music clearly handpicked for the occasion played on a kickass sound system.

a nameless MC delivered the disclaimer — if your ass is in the seat when naomi is onstage you’ve granted permission for us to use your likeness “throughout the galaxy and in perpetuity,” followed by an applause sound-check: first, on a scale of 1-10, give up some level 5 applause. okay, once more. okay, now a level 7. we let it rip. i wonder, is he gonna ask for 10 and how stupid are we going to feel carrying on like that for a sound check. then he says, “ok, ready? 10 - barack obama is president of the united states!” everybody goes nuts, and i think i like this guy, who the hell is he?

there’s some confusion after wolf is introduced and she doesn’t take the stage for a while. there’s a quickie do-over on the intro (we all know the purpose of this lecture is to get the tape — hollywood-quality cameras are everywhere, even one swinging ominously back and forth on a long boom over our heads) so we are patient. when finally she takes the stage i find myself strangely disappointed at the fact that she’s beautiful and wearing a smart orange-red suit that flatters her excellent figure. isn’t the author of the beauty myth supposed to be all hairy armpits and muddy birkenstocks? when she starts off with an audience warmup asking us what are the best things about america — shouts of  “the right to criticize the government” “separation of church and state” “economic freedom” “freedom of the press” — encouraging and inciting with people hooting and shouting and clapping like mad, i slump in my seat thinking what the fuck? we don’t even really have most of these things any more, is this some kind of a gimmick?

her talk begins with an apology and a joke about bringing us valium. then she launches into it, and for the next forty minutes i was riveted. and furious. and scared shitless.

the 20th century history of fascism reveals a ten-step blueprint that every dictator has followed — and which has not, as yet, been known to fail. each of those ten processes is in place right now in the united states. wolf did not offer any conspiracy theories; the question of who benefits from transforming the US into a dictatorship is not addressed. frankly, if what she says is true — and i believe it is — motives are irrelevant.

she related her experiences as an early member of the TSA security list - which included the head of the ACLU as well as ted kennedy - which had about 700 names on it at the time she learned of its existence. there are now over 700,000 names on the list, no known way to get your name removed (and naturally no way to know how it got there in the first place). what else might this list be used for? every dictatorship maintains a blacklist; there’s a good chance that either the security list or the no-fly list (or both, and yes there are two) is an american version of that. and it’s not as if it hasn’t happened here before. remember mccarthy?

i won’t go on and on about it, you can get a better gist at naomi wolf’s blog on huffingtonpost.

two moments were particularly chilling. first, when she asked “the $150,000 question” — name a state which, once having authorized the use of torture on those at the margins, did NOT subsequently use torture on its own citizens. no one could. no one at any of her talks has been able to name such a state.

second, when she talked about everyone having limits and used herself as an example. “when a public speaker or journalist with a profile similar to mine is hauled off to the gulag without charges, that’s when i’ll shut up.”

gulag, guantanamo, the area of LAX that is considered “not part of the united states” — what does it really matter where they put you? our government has already given itself the power to do that to any one of us, at any time, for any reason. or no reason.

listen to her tell it (though the quality of this video makes it clear why a formal retaping was done last night). but take some valium first. oh, and buy the book. buy some extras. let’s make this required reading.

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