In addition to pressuring the corporate media, the Administration has used sympathetic outlets such as Fox News to present uncritical stenography of their view of the world such as when Fox's Brit Hume allowed Gen Petreaus use his program to give an extended power point briefing on the Surge.
And lastly, they've actually used government agencies to generate literally fake news. Paying for favorable reporting from the likes of Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, Micheal McManus and Dave Smith - not to mention completely fake "journalists" such as Jeff Gannon/Guckert - and then used government facilities to release imitation local news reports that are then rebroadcast nationally as if actual reporters had generated them.
9. Dissent equals treason
Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor".
It has been quite common for anyone who criticizes the tactics of the Bush Administration to be labeled as "Traitor" or "Aider and Abetter". I have documented this in detail here and here - noting that time and time again, whether it's Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Delay, Dennis Hastert, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney or George Bush himself - the language of "treason" is always not far from the tip of their tongue.
Naomi argues that this salty rhetoric is not just a reflex, not just a political pose, it's meant by quite literally those who invoke it. Eventually we will see an American Citizen tried for Treason simply because they said the "wrong thing" at the wrong time. (Arguably, it may have already occurred with one particular attorney of a terrorism client whose name I don't currently recall) But then again, maybe there won't even be a trial, maybe they'll simply be deemed an "Enemy Combatant" with no evidence, hearing or access to Habeas Corpus and disappear into our modern day Gulags. And if it did happen, how would we even know?
10. Suspend the rule of law
Final stop, all aboard on this well paved road to hell.
The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and it's citizens.
This of course is in direct violation of the Posse Commitatus act which restricts the ability of the Federal Government to use Military forces against it's own citizens. In effect, Posse Commitatus has now been nullified, just as Habeas Corpus and the War Crimes Act had been previously.
There is now literally nothing standing in the way of Martial Law other than the President making a determination that he will or will not invoke it.
He can do this any time he feels like. Congress granted him this power, just as they granted him the authority to invade Iraq and the eviscerate FISA. This happened on Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's watch, not when the Republicans had control of Congress and considering how incredibly ineffective they've been so far at ending the War they helped start in Iraq, once we cross this rubicon the likelihood of our ever coming back remains extremely remote.
This has been like a bolder rolling down the hill toward our Constitution for the past 30 years, ever since Nixon resigned and many Presidential "powers" were severely curtained by oversight and laws intended to protect the public from the abuse of power by the government such as FISA.
Now it's at full speed - and we will not manage to stop it on a "dime". Even if we do manage to recognize the danger in time, even if we do manage to muster a million man human chain of activists, journalists (and a few genuinely brave politicians) to stand in the way of this behemoth and either slow it down or change it's inevitable course toward full-on fascism, we won't do so without taking casualties.
We aren't leaving this fight without putting some skin in the game. We will have setbacks, as we have this week with the failure of the Webb "Dwell Time" amendment, the collapse of Habeas yet again, Reid-Feingold going down in flames only to have Levin-Reed bar-b-qued right beside it. Congress is simply not going to be able to end this war with a snap of their fingers or by attempting the disastrous strategy of cutting of the funding for the troops.
That ain't gonna happen, largely because we have yet to recognize exactly what it is we are truly fighting against. It's not just about the War, it's much, much more than that.
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