The End of America is a 2008 documentary "starring Naomi Wolf" -- as it says on the film's home page. Actually, "documentary" may be too weighty a term. The film's website just notes it as "A film by Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern." The film is basically Naomi giving a lecture based on her book The End of America (covered at this site in 2008) with some cable TV footage mixed in.
Two things stand out watching the movie today. The first is how little any of this mattered to most of the people appearing in the film. Michael Ratner? He's still raising the issues everyone in the film insists they're concerned about. Maybe that's why it's "a film" "starring Naomi Wolf"? Because outside of Michael and one Center for Constitutional Rights attorney, every one else is acting?
Maybe so. It's certainly true that issues like Guantanamo and signing statements and restoring the Constitution and civil liberties no longer seem to matter. The film advertises Naomi's organization that was committed to the battle of our lives, the American Freedom Campaign. They last updated in early 2009.
Was it all just part of an election campaign?
An attempt to hustle voters?
The same con game both major parties have played for years?
What it wasn't was solid information.
That's clear when Joe Pesci look-alike Dave Zirin comes on camera and explains about spying on Americans, "That's the thing that's so upsetting about this -- this idea that some people deserve to be watched and some people don't."
Okay, we can get on board with half of that. We agree that American citizens don't "deserve to be watched." But then crazy ass Dave wants to whine about the government feeling that "some people don't" deserve to be spied upon? What the hell is that hairy back trying to say?
What the hell are most of them trying to say?
Valerie Plame is the CIA agent the Bush administration outed to get back at her husband, former US-diplomat Joseph Wilson, who wrote "What I Didn't Find In Africa" disputing the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium. That much we understand (and understood before seeing the film). Where we get confused is when notorious sexist and simpleton Bill Maher's pops up in a clip from his bad TV show asking in that whiney voice, "That's not treason anymore? Outing a spy?"
We're sorry, when was that treason?
Treason's a pretty serious charge, are the film makers unaware of that?
Philip Agee outed CIA agents. It wasn't treason. He was never charged with treason. It's illegal for a government worker to out a CIA agent (as a response to Agee's work). That's about it.
Treason, repeating, is a very serious charge.
Other than the fact that Naomi's frequently a guest of Bill Maher's, there was no reason to include him in the film and his remarks were neither factual nor accurate.
Not that Naomi would ever know herself.
This is the woman who, after all, is filmed telling an audience that we are headed to secret trials, show trials and that, "In an open society of due process, right, that means that they have to be able to accuse you of something that you've done!"
The hysteria quotient is appalling. Yes, we may be headed towards secret trials. We're probably closer to that now than we were in 2008 when the film was made. However, due process does not mean "that they have to be able to accuse you of something that you've done" -- with or without an exclamation point. You can be accused of anything -- whether you've done it or not. By Naomi's 'understanding' of the law, you can only be accused of what you've done -- therefore, all defendants are guilty!
Hell, that should save a lot of money spent on court fees. Send all the juries home, judges too, everyone accused is guilty . . . as Naomi Wolf 'understands' the law.
Her 'understanding' is frequently questionable. At another point, onstage, she asks, "Why should we care that Brown people with Muslim names are being tortured?" Jose Padilla is a Muslim name? (Padilla is a Latino who converted to Islam.) David Hicks is a Muslim name?
No one's denying that Muslims have been targeted and have often been the sole targets; however, they're not the only ones and if her point is how it starts with one group and quickly spreads, then her ignorance (real or put-on) only results in her making a weaker argument than she could have.
So instead of noting that it's already spread, she insists, "We should care for our own sakes because of the records of history."
History. She intones that word repeatedly, almost as though it's a magical incantation, throughout the film. "All you have to do is read history to know . . ." and "I have read history" are only some of its appearances. You quickly realize she's drunk on a little history and, like most new addicts, eager to proselytize.
A pity her recent efforts at learning history didn't include reading any Gore Vidal. That might have, for example, prevented her embarrassing section on posse comitatus. And, from Gore, she might also have learned about previous lists. But, honestly, we'd assume any adult with a political background would be aware of past lists.
Instead we get Naomi ranting about the TSA list, "I'm on the list? How was Nazi Germany able to round up so many Jews so quickly? Because they had mechanzied the list . . ."
Naomi was a college student during Iran-Contra. So she should be fully aware of Readiness Exercise 1984 which includes a list of 'subversives' (determined by Ollie North and the Reagan administration) who would be rounded up if martial law was declared. Prior to that list, there were many more. Tricky Dick, of course, had his "enemies list."
Or take her emotional defense of FISA. FISA is a rubber-stamp court that does what the government wants. And it's really embarrassing to watch as she and the film glorify it as something more.
But Naomi's embarrassing. Her 'concerns' during the film seem to just fade into the sunset after the 2008 election.
She expresses outrage over the House passing the so-called Protect America Act of 2007 -- the Democratically controlled House of Representatives. Only six people in the House voted against the bill -- three Democrats and three Republicans. If this act was so outrageous (we think it is), why weren't protests held at the DNC convention in 2008? Because a lot of people were running interference?
Maybe.
It's certainly true that Naomi's no longer writing columns and books attacking the PATRIOT Act (which was renewed under Barack) or Guantanamo (which remains open under Barack) or military trials or any of the points made on title cards at the end of the film, shortly after she's calling on the American people to "rise up."
"There's a point and I know it,"she rambles on in the film. "If I open The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal and I read that someone I identify with -- a journalist, a commentator -- has been named an enemy combatant and is in a 10 x 12 foot cell in a Navy brig, it's at that point that I'm going to stop talking."
She gives all these lectures about patriotism but then wants you to know that if someone she identifies with gets named an enemy combatant, that's when she shuts her mouth. What message does that send?
If tomorrow Michael Ratner's named an enemy combatant, our voices don't fall silent. We get even louder. And we do that because Michael Ratner's safety and the safety of all Americans is at stake. How dare this woman preach silence in the face of a political crackdown?
What she is, at best, is a fair weather patroit who will do the right thing as long as it doesn't cause any trouble for her. At worst, she's part of the fear industry -- a full fledged partner in it as much as George W. Bush -- and she worked overtime to frighten people in order to turn out the vote for the Democratic Party.
Whatever her motives were, she's now a full fledged joke and our only regret as the film ended was that this wasn't a sitcom, The Nutty Airhead?, that we could tune into each week and laugh at the latest scatter-brained mess she'd gotten herself into. No, this is real life and her 'antics' have messed up a lot more than just her own life these days.