Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries 1416590560, 9781416590569

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A HANDBOOK FOR AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES

NAOMI WOLF AUTHOR OF THE END OF AMERICA AND THE BEAUTY MYTH

Praise for The End ofAmerica —WINNER — 2008 Silver Freedom Fighter Award Independent Publisher Book Awards

2008 Silver Book Award for Social Change/ Activism/Peaceful Solutions Nautilus Book Awards “Most Valuable Political Book [of 2007]. Her detailing of the parallels between steps taken by the current administration and moves made by the 20th century’s most notorious dictators to transform democracies into authoritarian states is as convincing as it is chilling.” —John Nichols, “The Beat” blog, The Nation “One of the most important books that’s been written, certainly in the last decade or two, and perhaps in my lifetime.” —Thom Hartmann, bestselling author and host of The Thom Hartmann Program “Naomi Wolf’s The End of America is a vivid, urgent, mandatory wake-up call that addresses momentous issues of tyranny, democracy, survival: Who are we now? How did it come to this? For enlightenment and hope, we would all do well to carry about and give to all our allies Naomi Wolf’s profound and urgent essay. It is the book we need to carry with us as we regroup and rally for the return of justice and political sanity.” —Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of the three-volume Eleanor Roosevelt and distinguished professor at John jay College

“The framers of our Constitution fully understood that it can happen here. Patriots like Madison, Paine, and Franklin would certainly applaud Naomi Wolf and recognize her as a sister in their struggle.” —Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again “Wolf puts the full force of her considerably eloquent passion behind this ‘letter of warning to a young patriot.’ [A] highly researched chronicle of the frightening erosion of democratic freedoms.” —Lucy Clark, Sunday Telegraph (Australia) “A succinct and engaging explanation of how our civil liberties have been hijacked in the past decade. It is the most poignant, powerful, genuinely patriotic piece of literature I have encountered since Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.” —Carolyn Baker, Atlantic Free Press “The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot should

be required reading for all American patriots, regardless of age.” —The Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review “Naomi Wolf sounds the alarm for all American patriots. We must come together as a nation and recommit ourselves to the fundamental American idea that no president, whether Democrat or Republican, will ever be given unchecked power.” —Wes Boyd, cofounder, MoveOn.org “You will be shocked and disturbed by this book. By the end of this ‘Letter to a Patriot’ you will be driven to action; it’s late but, as Naomi Wolf admonishes us, we can and must act to save our democracy.” —Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and coauthor of Guantanamo: What the World Should Know

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Also by Naomi Wolf The End of America The Treehouse Misconceptions Promiscuities Fire with Fire The Beauty Myth

GIV E M E LIBERTY A HANDBOOK FOR AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES

NAOMI WOLF

Simon & Schuster Paperbacks New York London Toronto Sydney

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SIMON 8c SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 2008 by Naomi Wolf All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon 8c Schuster Paperbacks Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. First Simon 8c Schuster trade paperback edition September 2008 SIMON 8c SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon 8c Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon 8c Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected]. Designed by Davina Mock Manufactured in the United States of America 13579

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolf, Naomi. Give me liberty / Naomi Wolf, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Civil rights—United States. 2. Civil rights movements— United States. 3. Rule of law—United States. I. Title. JC599.U5W63 2008 323.60973—dc22 2008024264 ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9056-9 ISBN-10: 1-4165-9056-0 Extracts from Mirrors of Absence by Faraj Ahmad Bayrakdar, translated by Sinan Antoon. Copyright © 2007 Faraj Ahmad Bayrakdar. Translation copyright © 2007 English PEN. Reprinted by permission of the author and English PEN.

For the citizens I’ve met on this journey, who are holding the line

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/givemelibertyhan00wolf_0

CONTENTS

PART 1: What is “America”? Not a Country, a State of Mind Introduction

3

Freedom Is Intended as a Challenge

13

Fake Patriotism

xg

Fake Democracy

33

PART II: Core Values Principle One: We Are Required to Speak Freely

91

Principle Two: We Have a Duty to Rebel Continually Against Injustice and Oppression

105-

Principle Three: Ordinary People Are Supposed to Run Things

ixy

Principle Four: Americans Cherish the Rule of Law

141

Principle Five: America Establishes No God

15-7

Principle Six: Americans Deliberate with Their Neighbors; We Disagree Without Violence

—ix—

173

Contents

Principle Seven: Liberty is Universal: America Cannot Maintain an Oppressive Empire A New American Revolution

189 109

PART III: America: The 'User's Guide I. DRIVING CHANGE

xis

“Democracy Commandos” [Curtis Ellis]

xiy

Additional Resources

xi8

II. SPEECH

xi9

How to Petition

X19

.Additional Resources

xxo

How to Play Hardball Once You Have Petitioned

xxo

Become the Media Yourself

xxi

How to

Write a Press Release [Lisa Witter]

xxx

Create the Debate Yourself

xx