Wolf: I don’t have a direct line to them. If your readers want to check at district offices and get some feelings from them, that would be fantastic.
But what I have to explain to people about the nature of the coup is: you don’t have to see bodies in the streets for the coup to have happened, in the sense that, all it takes at this stage is a sudden action, even a small one, and people will go quiet.
In Italy it was still a parliamentary democracy when the Black Shirts were lined up around the walls of the Parliament. They were still debating. It was like, the First Brigade could just as easily line up around the halls of Congress right now. It was still a parliamentary democracy, but people got intimidated and closed down.
Same thing with Germany. It was a parliamentary democracy when the Brown Shirts were sent, since Hitler’d studied Mussolini, to intimidate the parliamentarians in the Reichstag. And all it took in Italy was one violent murder by Black Shirts of one politician, and in Germany it took the Night of the Long Knives, this action by Brown Shirts, and everyone went absolutely quiet. So it doesn’t take much.
In Zimbabwe, they just had a close election, and Mugabe sent the military to intimidate voters and the opposition. In Azerbaijan, the military are sent to intimidate voters. So what I fear--and the reason I’m raising such a hue and cry about this, because this is the way to stop it--is that—and I’m relieved that we haven’t seen them yet, but people have to not stop this hue and cry, not stop their legal actions, among other things--but what I fear is that, in a close election, they’re priming us for “chaos and confusion.” Angry Obama voters find that they’ve been purged by the millions from the rolls, whoever, they’re going to speak up. Well, if they speak up, or if they are upset, all it takes is one citizen tasered to death—and these tasers kill people—and footage of it replayed again and again on the nightly news, for us to still have the First Amendment, but everyone to be scared to speak. And then, if he (Bush) can deploy the First Brigade, he can deploy the Second Brigade, or the Third Brigade—I mean, Karl Rove works by inches. So that’s why I say a coup has taken place. It’s like being a little bit pregnant: Once you have the military in the streets, it’s not a democracy anymore; it is by definition a police state.
Kall: But it’s not just that. You’ve got that list of ten different stages. What’s that list? Can you run through that quickly?
Wolf: The first is to invoke a terrifying internal and external threat; often it’s a real one that will be hyped. The second is to develop a prison system outside the rule of law where torture takes place. The third is to develop a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the people. The fourth is to create a surveillance apparatus aimed at ordinary citizens. Fifth is to infiltrate and harass citizens’ groups. Sixth is to target individuals like Dan Rather or the Dixie Chicks with job loss or recrimination – Valerie Plame is another.
Seventh is to restrict the press, you start to arrest journalists as you see at the RNC, at or threaten journalists with prosecution under the Espionage Act. Eighth is, you start to recast criticism as espionage and dissent as treason. Then (ninth) you start to subvert the rule of law – you know, ignoring subpoenas, ignoring Congress when they say where are the missing e-mails, ignoring Congress when they say where are the destroyed tapes, just simply disregard the law, and that’s how the First Brigade got deployed: it’s against the law, and Bush issued a signing statement to say he doesn’t feel bound by it.
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