She isn’t her usual eloquent self here, but Naomi Wolf is on the money all the same. I think the recent student occupations across UK have set a precedent. And the overly bureaucratized and unrepresentative irrelevance that is the NUS is already being mobilized to eliminate the last vestiges of student democracy. This must be resisted.
Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America, argues that bureaucracy has killed effective protesting because mass social protests in the U.S. now have a feeling of “Disneyland activism.”
“It feels fake, because it is fake,” she says.
Prominent feminist writer and political commentator Naomi Wolf discusses her latest book Give Me Liberty at the Hudson Union Society.
Give Me Liberty is a handbook for political activism and the sequel to The End of America.
Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller. She followed that with Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change The 21st Century, published by Random House in 1993, and Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, published in 1997. Misconceptions, released in 2001, is a powerful and passionate critique of pregnancy and birth in America. In 2002, Harper Collins published a 10th anniversary commemorative edition of The Beauty Myth.
Ms. Wolf’s latest book, released in May of 2005, is The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from my Father on How to Live, Love and See.
Naomi Wolf is co-founder of the Board of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, an organization devoted to training young women in ethical leadership for the 21st century. The institute teaches professional development in the arts and media, politics and law, business and entrepreneurship as well as ethical decision making.
She lives with her family in New York City.
P U L S E 
Naomi Wolf is one of my favorite people ever. I admire her greatly. She has the courage to say what no one wants to hear. She says the truth as she sees it, and her vision is better than 20/20. She is spot on about the nature of our protest, and I know how much courage it takes to come out with that news. When I mention it, I get blasted with stuff like oh-great-blame-the-victims and well-at-least-they’re-out-there and, of course, worse. This makes me want to tear my hair out because WHEN do people finally look up and acknowledge that these wimpy email campaigns and sideshow demonstrations are being UTTERLY ignored? The POINT is to make the fascism and warmongering go away, NOT to give people ways to identify themselves as concerned citizens at virtually no risk of succeeding.
Great Post, Pulse….
The real point in Naomi’s expression is that our time, our labour is our resource – withdraw that for a period of time and then we will see change – initially of course the POWER will respond with propaganda and violence, as they always have done.
But if we withdraw our labour. even for a few weeks, we can shock the system to it’s core – and in doing so we will deprive those who NEED our compliance of that essential element.
That move requires comfidence and planning – both of which can be done by individuals using common sense.
Example : if one is kidnapped, and an explosive necklace is placed around ones neck, with instructions to carry out some act, how does one win?
By refusing to comply. One may well lose one’s life, nonetheless the kidnapper is stumped, and has to find another victim. Victory.
The humourous hippie answer is of course to hug the kidnapper, real tight…. if I go, you go! lol!
Winning this battle is not about our lives, but about the lives of children to come for a long time to come.