illumined horizon

I really don't want to take up blog space to highlight too many books, but this one looks like a must read. Here's some excerpts from a review, scary stuff:

Printed by the socially conscious Chelsea Green Publishing House, "The End of America" describes the "ten classic steps dictators or would-be always take when they wish to close down an open society." Wolf makes abundantly clear that "each of those ten steps is now underway in the United States today."

Wolf warns: "John Adams wrote, 'Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.' We stand at a defining moment for America. If we do not act now, we risk the freedoms that sweat, blood, sacrifice, and loyalty to inalienable rights have earned us over the past two-hundred thirty-one years."

More bone-chilling reading:

In a letter to booksellers and librarians, Wolf wrote: "We in America have been letting democracy run on autopilot, trusting 'the pendulum' of reason and fairness to swing back. But the pendulum is broken in an unprecedented way. It turns out that liberty, like nature, requires a relationship with us if it is to sustain us."

In short, we have failed the test of vigilance.

Naomi Wolf reminds us that freedom cannot be taken for granted. If one doesn't fight for it against the forces of oppression, we will be like the slowly boiling frog that doesn't realize that it has been killed until it is too late.