The End of America (Director's Cut) [DVD] [2008] [NTSC]

Some will believe this is an anti-Bush polemic, but it absolutely isn't. Naomi Wolf appears non-partisan - her problem is with the American government, and with what it's become.

We can watch films like The Matrix and V for Vendetta and superficially acknowledge in a slightly thrilled-desensitized way that there are philosophical and political similarities now. I'll qualify that a bit: The Matrix asks people to choose - open our eyes and admit that, as scary as it is, the world around us isn't what we've been lulled into believing. Or, we can keep our eyes closed and pretend all is well. V For Vendetta, meanwhile, depicts a government who have become fundamentally corrupt, where the people are needed to take control once again.

Nowadays, acknowledging the world isn't what we've been told opens you up to being labelled a conspiracy nut... and this is where The End of America is so eye-opening. It doesn't talk about the Illuminati, or the Bilderberg Group; the CFR doesn't get a mention, and the Rothschilds are nowhere to be found. But what it does show - with verifiable, irrefutable documentation and fact - is how fascistic the American government has become and how America is fast becoming a "closed society". It's been a gradual slide, incremental and insidious and Wolf takes us through it methodically, examining the 10 clear steps that all dictators have followed, including - starting with - Hitler:

1) "Invoke an Internal and External Threat" - "The War on Terror" was the method. It allowed the American government to introduce The Patriot Act.

2) "Secret Prisons Where Torture Takes Place" - Guantanamo; rendition. Torture camps that break both domestic and international law and are accountable to no-one... ones we ourselves can be thrown into without justification now. Be labelled an "enemy combatant" on no grounds whatsoever, and you can be kept in an illegal prison indefinitely.

3) "Develop a Paramilitary Force" - "Blackwater", who have free rein to operate outside of the law and when the FBI tried to investigate, the US State Department blocked them. Most worryingly, they are increasingly involved in monitoring protests, on American soil.

4) "Surveil Ordinary Citizens" - does what it says on the tin. But, even more than the obvious, if we believe we're on a watch-list of some sort, we can be controlled and kept in line.

5) "Infiltrate Citizens' Groups" - one example is secret agents went undercover and infiltrated a citizen group campaigning to have the death penality abolished in the state of Maryland. Upon discovering nothing illegal was happening, they continued monitoring every aspect of this group. What the government did is against the law.

6) "Detain and Release Ordinary Citizens" - remove and reinstate basic freedoms arbitrarily on a whim, and it fosters a primal sense of fear. James Yee is one example, and the documentry cites others, also.

7) "Target Key Individuals" - a trend startd by Goebbels. Of the examples given, the most frightening is the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative who was purposefully "outed" by the government to punish her husband when he blew the whistle on the president's lie about "yellow cake uranium". The American government committed treason in putting her life in extreme danger and their willingness to do so fosters further fear, and ensures people don't speak up.

8) "Restrict the Press" - the media is still the quickest way to disseminate information. Prevent the press from telling us what's going on and we're in the dark. Under the "Espionage Act", reporters for The New York Times were accused of Treason when it detailed something dishonest done by the Bush administration. Treason is punishable by death.

9) "Recast Criticism as Espionage and Dissent as Treason" - more and more laws have been introduced that limit free speech and dissent. The Patriot Act has redefined protesting as a form of terrorism, for example. In 2008 at the Republican convention, 400 protestors were arrested. In a park nearby, 200 people who weren't even protesting were also arrested - *for no reason*.

10) "Subvert the Rule of Law" - secretly remove all the attorney generals and replace them with insiders, and there's still the veneer of democracy. Meanwhile, the White House can openly defy parliament using "Bill Signing Statements" and can give itself as much power as it wants, until it has become a dictatorship.

This has turned into a synopsis, I suppose, but the point of the documentary is to get this information out there and Naomi Wolf spends about 5 or 10 minutes on each point, explaining how they have already been enacted in the States. It's all a little scary, and it's important that this documentary be seen by non-Americans, too. American policy profoundly affects Britain, not to mention virtually every other nation, so we certainly have a vested interest. At the end, she gives her organisation's URL but it's specific to Americans, so for the rest of us I guess the question is, what do we do now.

I am heartened that this information is percolating into mainstream consciousness, and bless the brave people who are not afraid to speak out against the tide of fascism that is taking over the world.
Please watch this, and ensure as many of your tribe watch it as possible. It is all coldly factual, coherent and starkly truthful.
So many people are still asleep, unaware and unsuspecting, many willfully so.
But as the months go by, more and more are waking up to reality, or being forcibly awakened by the actions of the Elite. And many people are having their worst fears confirmed by such information as is contained in this documentary.
Unless you are determinedly blind and deaf, you must be aware that democracy, human rights and civil liberties are being eroded in the so-called free world at a terrifying rate, not only in those distant, war-torn lands you watch on the evening news. You can no longer count on your cocoon being inviolate.
For the sake of your children, and the world they will have to live in, you must become informed of the truth, no matter how frightening it is, and you must become active in opposing those whose agendas have no care for you or your children...or the health of your world.
Naomi Wolf isn't the kind of human the mindless media love to portray as a deranged conspiracy theorist - everything she has to say is irrefutably true and self-evident.
It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
And it is high time we remembered that we, the 'ordinary' people, have power. And it is high time we took that power back, for the sake of all the children everywhere.
Wouldn't you love to live in a world where children weren't murdered each and every day?
Well, stand up and make it so.

First off I am absolutely gobsmacked that there are only TWO reviews as I write this. It states in ways that I cannot just how far we have to go to wake up to the world around us. The film is very clear in its approach, direct and resists the urge to demonise. Nothing in it is earth shattering, or really new, but the way it makes its point is; its not trying to convince, but get you to think. There are no easy targets, or answers, just the call to take repsonsibilty for what is done in our name. Her admission that she is afraid adds to the tension of the piece; although her admission that she will shut up just when voices need to be raised shows how well propoganda and coercion work. As she implies in the film, when thinking for yourself makes you a 'conspiracy nut' and facts are for 'geeks', we all need to take a deep breath. Definetly worth watching.