Naomi Wolf listed ten steps toward totalitarianism in her book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot 

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law  

You have probably seen this.  Naomi says she finally thinks it's time for... gasp... "impeachment!" sigh. And of course she keeps it positive and upbeat and assures her audience that it all has a happy ending if we all pull together and diddly ding dang do something.

I want to grab the microphone and say, "nice shot, Naomi." good summary... precise analysis... but... it doesn't have a happy ending. There is nothing we can "do." We're hosed. Game over. Too late. No window... it closed... they bricked it shut. We're hosed. Got that? You cant "save amerikka." It's bloody gone. stolen. pissed away... because we were too gosh darn bizzley buzz buzz bizzy to notice.

Of course I'm always captain bringdown with my darn negative attitude and never offering "positive solutions." how about this... don't get on the train. Remember "9-11?" Was anyone the least bit curious about who did it and why? Was anybody asking for a REAL investigation? No... everybody was "busy" baking an amerikkan flag cake... putting on Home Depot "power of pride" bumper stickers.

I talked to several people who were donating blood. Are you insane? Donating blood? Those people are pulverized. Well... I gotta do SOMETHING. For real. How about doing NOTHING until we find out just exactly whathefuck happened? We had to get busy and have a war. That wasn't enough so we had to get busy and pass the "USA PATRIOT" Act. Still not enough... so we had to get busy and have another war. I'd say we've been busy enough. And it's too late to get busy and undo all that other busyness. But I DID go to
http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/ and signed the "petition." What the hell. 

I just got a kick out of Wolf's video because for years I've been just like Naomi's friend saying, "...they did this in Germany... they did this in Germany... " and got much the same reaction. Unfortunately, none that I know of turned out to be a Naomi Wolf (yet) and absorbed the material.  If the USAns were capable of "doing" anything, the last administration cabinet meeting would be quite grim. 

Many of us were shouted down for saying there was now no "party" difference... and now here are bright minds like Wolf... finally aware of what has been going on for years... saying... "...we have to tell our representatives..." huh? This is like telling your toaster to do brain surgery. Wish we could save Naomi and all the other well-intended folk some wasted effort and inevitable grief. Not only are "our representatives" incapable of getting a clue... they're there precisely BECAUSE they're clueless. It's way past time to stop it... we can only IMAGINE how to adapt to it. That's the problem now. We can't IMAGINE.

Who knows if occupying the factory and building Solidarity Bicycles is a way to adapt to the approaching economic tsunami, but it's LIGHT YEARS ahead of anything the average USAn can even IMAGINE. Prediction: in a few years, everybody will be saying, "I saw this coming, but no one would listen to me." Kind of like, "...there were no Nazis here." Yep, everybody huddled around the burn barrel under the bridge is going to be a fucking sage, so we may as well eat our martyrdom twinkie right now. gulp. yum. The pay for telling people what they don't want to hear aint never been that great. That's what made Dennis Kucinich a "flake." 

And that, ladies and germs, is why the USA is toast. We want somebody to hand us a "to-do" list so we can turn off our brains and get busy. Well... fascists are REALLY good at handing out "to-do" lists... do this guy... now do that guy. Now we're getting "paid," and we're all really busy. Life is good. Isn't it? Of course come payday... there's Milo Minderbinder's IOUs... and chocolate-covered cotton. All those "gimme money" pop-ups, phone calls. junk mail, spam... gonna go away when "money" is worthless. Then what? Nobody wants to hear that, do they? That's why Naomi's gotta say there's a light. Does she KNOW it' s the oncoming train? The door of the krema? Oy, the Irony! Busted by our own "busyness." 

Is there a prescription for survival?  We can't even imagine it.