Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, discusses the American Constitutional crisis, the steps that have lead societies to totalitarianism in the last century, the point of no return, the state’s war on the media, the combination of private interests and public power, the President’s grandfather’s financial dealings with Fritz Thyssen, her fun with the TSA no-fly list and Ron Paul’s American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007.
MP3 here. (17:32)
Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.
The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller. She followed that with Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change The 21st Century, published by Random House in 1993, and Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, published in 1997. Misconceptions, released in 2001, is a powerful and passionate critique of pregnancy and birth in America. In 2002, Harper Collins published a 10th anniversary commemorative edition of The Beauty Myth.
This is great. This whole site is great. Off to a bad start in this one, with the dead line single, but good recovery and great guest.
Naomi is great. Good interview. So what are we going to do to make sure the White House is taken over by Clinton in 08? Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton? Time to put this part of American presidential history to rest. Time for a change. About face. Let’s put these guys to bed for good.
IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY AND SAVE THE COUNTRY. IMPEACHMENT IS THE ONLY SOLUTION.
you are simply an idiot – it amazes me how uninformed you liberals really are. You read headlines, pontificate with each other, fear anyone with independant views, believe all of America is evil and if we just love the terrorists enough everything would be fine, if you had any power or had in WWII would be doing a goose step on the way to school everyday
Jim, you’re spot on with the flaming liberals. Most of them aren’t able to think on their own, they listen to pundits and spew the same thing under the illusion of original thought. Honestly, what if everything was perfect? What meaning would your life have then, with nothing to whine about…….?
And if the honestly concerned patriot can tap into that perpetual discontent to achieve worthy ends, then so be it.
RP08
To Amy, why don’t you check in at the nearest “reality theory” classes and impeach the bad guys like we should have clinton, and never vote for Hillary who 50% of American can’t stand.
Realty lesson no. one deal with truth not your imagination
Naomi Wolf talks the ‘hippie language’ which is the language of parasites.
If we all followed her example of how she lives, it would bd “THe End of Civilization”
Let’s put this gal to rest in the nearst graveyard
Yes, America has more to offer than Bush and Clinton but it will not come without a fight. Remember Bush Senior, Cheney, Rumsfield. These guys are in trenched in Washington with contacts and authority. They can an will use their power. We must take control of the supervision of the voting process, become part of the process to vote out machines that can be compared. Get the corp. out of our elections. We need critical mass on the backsides of our elected official. Better yet out source them to China.
After Feinstein and Schumer decided to vote for torture, I cannot but wonder if the liberal Democrats, along with all of the Republicans (other than that “flaky” Ron Paul) can get up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror. If there is a God, and there are times I do indeed wish there is, these inhuman devils will spend eternity on a water-board. I am so disgusted with the United States, and I’ve been here for a long, long time, that I might just pack up and get out while the gettings good.
I couldn’t agree more with Istep…but where where would you go?
We will never get Ron Paul elected because he’s not part of the power elite, and he will simply be marginalized.
I’ll still vote for him, because I can’t bring myself to vote for one of the Hobson’s choices.
The only reason I registered as a Republican was to vote for Ron Paul..I love him even though I’m not a “free”-trader..( We seem to have bigger fish to fry-or at least expose).
ron paul will never make it the media will destroy him
Why Ron Paul? I’ll admit he’s more honest about war than most of the Repub’s, but he’s entirely in favor of complete privitization of the commons. This is fully in keeping with Bush-Cheney. I’m not saying Hillary is a world better (maybe 1/3rd to 1/2 of a world better), but we do have Dems who are a world better: How about Kucinich? Yes, he’s marginalized. But no more or less than Paul, so why do people keep trumpeting Paul’s case when we have Kucinich? I can’t think of one thing I disagree with Kucinich on. Please quit this Ron Paul frenzy.
Paleocons and Libertarians.
Listen to the rest of the Goyette and Horton interviews and you’ll see why Kucinich isn’t really an option, as well as seeing what all of the Ron Paul fuss is about.
Let me know when Kucinich has an ~$3M one day money bomb
Or, for another answer as to why antiwar.com likes Ron Paul, read the blog of the editorial director of the website.
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/Raimondo
Enjoy
Yar,
You just don’t get the Freedom thing, do you? Most of the people supporting Ron Paul are doing so because he has a consistent record of defending their freedoms. Try to get over the idea that top down government “solutions” are the answers to all that ails us. This country is about freedom, not massive government programs.
Mostly because Kucinich is out, he didnt take to the charge like Ron Paul and his supporters have. The ideas Ron Paul discusses are far more detailed and intellectual than Kucinich ever could employ. Ron Paul REALLY understands economics, and his discussion of History is unmatched with any candidates, he’s also been a doctor delivering over 4,000 babies which is the most Humanitarian job a person can hold, and knows the healthcare system and its problems perfectly. Kucinich is against the 2nd Amendment, he’s not a hardcore constitutionalist, he believes in way too many social programs that are corrupt as hell. He doesn’t have any platform to disolve the Federal Reserve, the most powerful Cartel in the world. But mainly Kucinich has failed to rile enough support from the people which is the most important thing now. Ron Paul can really win, he is the only one with any chance of offering any challenge to the Democratic Nominee, and he growing steadily, never dropping, but growing oh so slowing under a foundation thats ROCK solid. We need to unite to Win against special interest poster children “Top Tier” candidates, not seperate. Ron Paul has taken the absolute lead among the outsiders. We need to show our real convicition to win now and side together with him.
Kucinich is against the war but very much in favor of the cause of war – big, powerful, save-the-world-by-violently-minding-everyone’s-business
What do you mean, he is in favor of the cause for war?
Socialism dead! To the contrary it is very much alive in America for the Rich, The Defense Establishment etc… etc..I am not going to waste my breath in explaining since you seem to be blind! and a single payer Health insurance system is not socialism…
Kucinich is against the war but very much in favor of the cause of war – big, powerful, save-the-world-by-violently-minding-everyone’s-business government.
Ron Paul is the opposite. That is why Ron Paul is winning ever more supporters and Kucinich isn’t and won’t. Ron Paul does not want to privatize the commons, but fools like Kucinich do want to govern what is private.
Please quit this Kucinich absurdity. Socialism is dead. Coercion is a polite word for violence against the innocent. Kucinich and his fans are violent-hearted busy-bodies hoping to take over control of the country. They want to end the war in Iraq only so they can continue the war on capitalism and free trade here at home. Get used to freedom. It is coming to a planet very near to you.
Let’s be honest—
Ayn Rand libertarianism was very cool when you are 16 (insert Ron Paul)–
You can be a hero for being a complete azzhole. Is that cool or what when you are 16.
It appears Paul is sincere in his views, and does try to respect personal freedom, but has bought the “Free Market is the Chosen Path” meme, and of course Capital is God, and the individual, even within a superstition based economic and political system, has the right to destroy anything he or she has acquired from this delusion.
During most of human history, your fellow tribal member would of killed you for such behavior.
Paul holds this as a action that should be rewarded.
If you want to hasten your extinction, vote for Paul-
I might, I want to see what is on the other side of the wall we are about to crash into.
Greetings:
I have mulled the economics of ecomony for years without getting in the dogmatics of this school or that one. From my observations the free market has alway been around either by barter or some other methodolgy and it is a truism, people trade for any number of reasons, mostly survival. During the past 50 or years and before, the transition of what may have survived as free markets have been democatized by goverments and transformed intentions of a free market into a corporate entity (rightly termed corptocacy ). To even discuss a free market in the presnt police state if you will or what ever you want to call it is a contrdiction. Free markets are just that free from control of any entity. It makes no difference wheter it is a “legal or constitutional” intrution such intrutions change the nature of the market. As for Paul, I think his libertarian position is probally dictated as to the limitations presently acceptable standards that may be somewhat watered down since the early days but still understandable and revalant to some of the electorate who no longer want to be sheep……Frankly, I would suspect that 90% of the voters have any idea of what a free market is or entails since they are so into the cult of democracy that has shorted out any modality of critical thinking……..FM
English please!
You just made absolutely NO SENSE.. What do you have against “Free Trade”? Or are you like so many confuseing Free Trade Capitalism wih Corporatism. Can you tell me on example of Free Trade that is bad, one that doesn’t involve Government Subsidies (Corporatism)? I highly recommend two great docs to show how Free Trade works to improve both healthcare and education. Lookup on Youtube, “Sick in America” and “Stupid in America” both are excellent 20/20 documentaries representing the true benefits of how Free Trade works, which we have very little true free markets in America because Government subsidizes thus promoting monopolys like Walmart, Enron, Clear Channel Radio, Oil Companies, etc.. none of those are free market, the WTO is as far from Free market as Communism is from Democracy, same with CFR, NAFTA, and many other Government entities that misuse the ideas of Free Trade to cover their own shadey deals. Wake up man, its good to have freedom to compete with your business on an even playing field.
You should only vote for a candidate that represents what is good for and about the People of the USA, and you should never think that this means that you wanted your vote. Instead, you are gaining power for principle.
I like Kucinich but I love Ron Paul – his policies are the best.. most are opposed to some of his social policies, but if the big problems (foreign policy, IRS, Federal Reserve) are solved then the other problems like health care won’t be as bad – and his policies in those areas are indeed the best.
..And all this negativity about how the media will stop him from being elected – it’s a new age! The internet has shattered the mainstream media’s grasp just as it did to the music industry. Just look at how popular Dr. Paul has become – he’s been saying the same stuff for 30 years and now he finally has a voice.. thanks to the internet!
He CAN win! pessimism won’t help though..
Socialism is what it says. It is a philosophical ideal of government of the people, by the people and for the people… somewhere I’ve heard that idea before!
As it’s so popular to be against it with all our elite media brainwashed multitudes falling into lockstep, it nevertheless still represents the ideals of some of the greatest men of history from Christ to Kucinich.
Ron Paul has part of the idea right–putting a stop to all of America’s arrogant lust for world domination. But with his “small government†idea, my only fear is he would let the quick-buck money changers have full sway like the run-away, disastrous, more of the same, capitalism we have today.
Kucinich I believe would control the lust and the greed with the power of what good government is all about- checks and balances of a socialist group—representing the people. It’s called United States representative democracy!
Is this satire?
I wonder what the response would be if about 25 million voters wrote Ron Paul in on the Feb 5 primary ballot. We probably would never hear a word about it from the corporate media. Ron Pauls campaign raised about 42 million this week, but I’m afraid he will still be stifled by the corporate elite. We are at a point where we are told who to vote for;sad but real..
Make that 4.2 million in a day…
This woman is NUTS!! Anyone read her last book? I think she believes aliens are controlling us from Pluto too. Geeeeeeezzzzz….
IN the 1970’s when I was a younger man, on one of my various trips to Mexico I met an american, Richard Jones, who had moved to mexico to avoid the imminent collapse of the constitutional republic we call the USA.
For those of you who are old enough to remember, the 70’s followed the 60’s. George Carline says, If you remember the 60’s you probably weren’t there. Drugs, sex and rock and roll, race riots, anti war riots, the Kent State shootings, bombings, Nixon’s resignation, assasinations,etc…
I lived through all this.
Ms Wolf could have just as appropriately, or inappropriately, applied her blueprint in any of those other decades.
But you could have applied the blueprint in the 40’s when President Roosevelt rounded up american citizens of Japanese descent and forcibly relocated them to interment camps in the desert.
Or you coud have applied it in the 90’s when federal agents, using military weaponry, battle gear and tactics with the active support of the military, including Delta force assaulted and laid siege to a religious communtity in Waco, Texas which culminated with the incineration some innocent children.
Then there were those photographs of similarly dressed federal agents using the same tactics to forcibly deport little Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. (Ruby Ridge ring any bells?)
There was a democrat president named clinton in office, when these injustices occurred, with a female homosexual US Attorney General whom Bil Clinton appointed at the insistence of his wife. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t her name Hillary Clinton and isn’t she a front runner for the democrat nomination for president. So tell me ms wolf, how will electing hillary, or any other democrat presidential candidate change things for the better? How will electing a republican change them for the worse?
I remember reading somewhere that people are willing to suffer evil while it is sufferable. I guess for the majority of americans, the evil, if such exists, has not yet exceeded our comfort level.
When I see or hear or read that ms wolf has mysteriously disappeared or is being charged with sedition or treason for things she has written or said, or for carrying a picket sign advocating equal protection for human fetuses, then I will seriously consider her blueprint.
For now I am comfortable in allowing this experiment we call a constitutional republic to continue. Vote your conscience, then remain vigilant.
I totally agree with what you have outlined, We aren’t entering a fashist state, we’re already there, It goes back to daddy bush, and billery clintons, and just keeps perpetuating. We saw
crimes of constitutional violations way back including some notable ones like ruby ridge, and waco, with violations of the
posecamatatus act, and of 5 ammedments of our constitution.
Lists, I have also had my baggage searched, been selected several times while traveling to extra scrutany by TSA. The only way for americans to get the country back now is unfortunately by force, but I honestly don’t think you could get enough citizens to rise up and take it back.
It would really be good if we could get copies of the TSA lists,
and the RED,BLUE YELLOW AND GREEN lists too. They are all secret
i have a friend who has worked as a sniper for black water, and they killed many citizens in New Orleans. He is normally a fine fellow, but????? I wonder about his choices when picking jobs.
We are not just watching fashism, but also the new world order, mentioned in so many of daddy bush’s speeches.
God Bless You, Keep sounding the trumpet and call to the true colors of America… or we will soon be called CANAMERCO
I only wonder what the flag will look like.
You have to be kidding. How could you believe that Blackwater just went around killing people in New Orleans? What would be the point????? Sometimes the things people in this country are willing to believe is beyond comprehension. And by the way, this woman has as much knowledge about facist states as Billie Bob does.
the Author is most correct. however, torture is systemic, and institutionalized within the varied systems, which deal with the disenfranchised. the fuzzy white, never known need. wont see it. so, the real war here seems to be, the institutional Naxis’ Vs. the Back woods organized Nazis’ ! and the ones in power, have, and will continue to use the most extreme tactics to rule their peice of the Rock. its gone on forever, and is too ingrained to ever get truly out. it would take a “Revolution” or something akin. and I hope to not see that. however, good it may be ? ? ? ?
Naomi Wolf
1. Give me the names of the Fascists who gave tax cuts and supported the free market economy during their rule?
2. She claims that there are many definitions of Fascism, which give her an escape from the subject, if confronted on the historical facts. The idea that Fascism was the invention of Mussolini or of the Italian mind is a fable. A group of students formulated this idea at Oxford University and named it under the guise of Guild Socialism, which was a total failure from it’s beginning. It was Mussolini who adopted it and renamed it Fascism. The other definitions come from the socialist left who refer to it as right wing capitalism, as for instance, Stalin referred to Nazi Germany as botched up capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth! Nazism was complete at the turn of the 20th century, not in the 1930’s.
3. Rights have been slipping away for decades now, not due to President Bush and his administration, but rather, due to the so called progressives.
A. Group rights undermine individual rights under the guise of more freedoms, and thus, undermines the Constitution and the rule of law.
B. Diversity: As in Germany, if you spoke outside the box, you were sent to a retraining camp. Today we send them to sensitivity classes, not just in our universities, but in the work places also.
C. Women’s rights were enhanced by the professors of the 1960s by preaching the writings of Bebel’s book,“ Women and Socialism.’ published in the latter part of the 19th century. It promoted free love in Germany in the rise toward Nazism.
4. The Formal Rule of Law: Law before action and with blind ends for all, and thus, not for group rights! Naomi uses this word a lot loosely without defining it at all.
5. Firing of attorneys: She never mentioned that Clinton fired all Ninety three!
6, Torture and interment camps: This Administration has suspended less rights than any war time president in American history. Prisoners in out own penal system are treated worst than the terrorists. If anything, we’re too easy on these terrorists.
7. Founding Fathers: What would the think of hate crimes, gay rights, open boarders, smoking bans and the government telling us what we can say, eat and drink? What would they think of affirmative action? What would they think of raising a minority group to a majority status? Naomi talks as though she’s all for the views of our Founders, but she never really talks about what they believed in. It seems to me that she twists thing toward her make believe world. Here’s what our Founders thought of national health care as they read about its failure in the fall of the Roman Empire. This was written in the early 1700s in the Cato’s Letters:
The definition of liberty was well accepted, I think by Tories and Whigs, on the continent as well, and we find, perhaps our best definition today, in terms of the harmonizing sentiments of Jefferson today, in Cato’s Letters. These were a series of newspaper articles, written in the first part of the eighteenth century, ( published between 1720 and 1723), by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon and they became one of the foundations, the staples of the literature of liberty, when one of the early firebrands of the revolution, Josiah Quincy died, he left his letters of Cato, as they were called, to his son with the admonition, “May the spirit of liberty be upon youâ€. And these letters, Cato’s letters, as they are called, named after the great Roman patriot, who defied Caesar, defined liberty as the right to live as you choose, as long, as you harm no one else. It is freedom to live your life to enjoy the fruits of your property, to do what you know to be right and without being obliged to do something you know to be wrong. So upon this concept of freedom, I think we would be generally agreed of life and liberty, and freedom to live as you choose. But Cato’s letter and I think Jefferson, as well, go on to add to this. For Cato’s Letters, it is a fundamental denial of freedom to be restricted in your actions, when you do something that harms no one else.
So we wonder how an eighteenth century Whig, the authors of Cato’s Letters or Jefferson himself, might respond to laws about second hand smoking, or the demand that we wear seatbelts. Are we really harming others? In fact, in an effort to reduce the idea of government intervention to an absurdity, Cato’s Letters say, “What if we went to the extreme of having every person looked after by a national college of physicians, now that would be true lunacy. The idea that it’s the government’s Prerogative and need to take care of people’s health, surely that must be the individuals decision.â€2
But we have moved very far from those notions, very far from Jefferson’s concept of liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When we looked at the Declaration of Independence, we saw how the concept, pursuit of happiness was chosen pacifically by Jefferson, not property, but the pursuit of happiness. The mandate that we finalize, that are a benefit to ourselves and the community. Natural law is also founded on an ideal of universal truths and absolutes, absolute right and wrong, absolute justice.
These are concepts we no longer accept as society . As a society, we believe that actions and values and what is right and wrong is determined by the circumstances, that there are no absolutes. So it challenges the very concepts of natural law, in fact, it denies the essence of natural law. To speak of the law itself, for the great jurist Blackstone, “natural law was expressed through the common law, no law could become a true law if it violated reason, justice or common sense”. But, to us as a society, the law is not a set of absolutes, but a set of tricks. And yet, it was in the diverse, multicultural empire of Rome, with many sects of religion, philosophies and ideas, that natural law based on absolute truths, that provided the binding nexus, and that set of shared values essential to the survival of a free nation. And natural law offers that same challenge today, if we have the courage to grasp it.
BY: J. RUFUS FEARS 1
WORLD HISTORY: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
8. Chili: Naomi leaves out the rest of the story of this subject and slams the United States. She is totally slanted on the history as to whether they were better off after the coup or before and where would they be today without the coup.. I don’t think she cares! Watch these two short videos and understand the rest of the story:
Part one:
Windows Media:low high
QuickTime 5:low high
RealVideo:low high
Part Two:
Windows Media:low high
QuickTime 5:low high
RealVideo:low high
Anyway as always,
From your old friend,
Dennis Lamb,
May you and yours have a very Merry Christmas and a rewarding New Year!
Enjoy!
.
I’m reading her raitorous book now. This unhinged liberal scum should be charged with treason and beaten in the street lika a dog.
There is another way. Check out http://www.realityinfo.org to get a handle on it:) Loved your work Naomi.
I saw the book review and the video, the only thing that I was hoping to see was more discussion about not a paramilitary force like blackwater, but discussion on how societies like Hilter’s Germany, Stalin Russia, and Stasi East Germany, first turned large portions of their populations into Citizen Informants.
This is the heart and core of how these societies are able to be turned into fascist societies. It can not happen without this factor. Without this they can not do it. I would have hoped that Naomi Wolf would cover the fact that this is happening in many countries outside of America and this is what is required for all these other factors to come about.
I come from a community of people who have been targeted for years, average citizens Targeted in various countries, by something that is being termed as Gang Stalking. What that means is that in our countries and communties we are under surveillance 24/7 and it’s citizen informants that are being used.
Mark. M. Rich covers this factor on his site the http://www.TheHiddenEvil.com. Without our fellow citizens and their allegance to these types of programs, I do not believe a fascist shift can happen. However people have turned into the eyes and ears of the state, in large numbers in many cities around the world. That is how people can be followed from one community to the next, one country to the next. This is the core of shifting a society, and this is the core of the gang stalking phenomenon many of us have been complaining about for years.
A societal structure that is capable of this kind of surveillance is nothing new. In fact it’s as old as time, that is what is used to keep the people in line. That is really where the silence comes from and the none disclosure agreements they sign. It’s all aspects of society taht are inducted this way first, and then the shift starts.