More on the "End of America."

If you don't have time to watch the video, here's a nice synopsis of Naomi Wolf's 10 steps to closing a society.

The main thing I want to say, connected with yesterday's post about unintended consequences, is that the powers that Bush put into play during his presidency are still valid.

Obama may restrain himself from using some of them, (say, signing statements) but to truly ensure the survival of American democracy, we have to expressly remove certain of these powers, like the ability to declare anyone an enemy combatant, or to use the national guard as a police force, things any president would love to have in an emergency, and keep afterwards.

The question to be determined in Obama's first year or so is, what is he working for? If it is for the good of American democracy, we should see an unequivocal reversal of many of the president's arbitrary and un-american war powers. If it is for the capitalist class, expect no rescinding of these powers, instead some soft words and talk of how it's unecessary to change anything at this point, for whatever concocted reason.

We're in some shit.