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A review by jmanchester0
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries by Naomi Wolf
4.0
I had an epiphany reading the introduction to Wolf's book. We don't need to know explicitly what the founding fathers intended. Because we can make it better. She may not explicitly say that, but I think that's what she's getting at when she talks about liberty.
And in this book, Naomi Wolf calls us to revolution. It is us who are responsible to rise up in rebellion and fight against tyranny.
It turns out that the Declaration of Independence is about our continual duty as Americans to rebel‰Ы_
This is interesting! And it makes total sense!
‰Ы_activism is a lot like sex: if you can never act on the impulse of the moment, the moment is much more likely to pass and never present itself again.
One thing we forget - we are the government. It's supposed to be us. We're a democracy. We have to remember that. The government isn't some big "other" organization. It's us. Or it should be.
Naomi Wolf talks about our Core Values as Americans.
For example, we are required to speak freely. This isn't just a right. It's a duty.
When you are a real American, the desire for liberty of thought and action, the desire for justice, burns in you as it did for the founders and as it does for dissidents. And when it burns, you need to speak out in protest and assemble.
We are required to fight against injustice and oppression.
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
-Benjamin Franklin
I've never really understood the depth of the first amendment. The right to peaceably assemble isn't about having the right to gather in private spaces.
For assembly to be "free", it must have the potential to stop a town or city from engaging in business as usual. The freedom to assemble is meaningless if it can be so managed that everyone is able to entirely ignore it.
And the last part of the book is almost a ‰ЫПhow to‰Ыќ for revolutionaries. (Though some of it is a bit dated.)
Be the media.
Protest.
Assemble.
Deliberate with each other.
Wolf suggests, addressing the citizens of the US: You need to be the pundit.
We have to keep liberty alive. And spread it to other parts of the world.
The American DNA holds that liberty is universal and transitive - that everyone in the world is equally entitled to it.
And in this book, Naomi Wolf calls us to revolution. It is us who are responsible to rise up in rebellion and fight against tyranny.
It turns out that the Declaration of Independence is about our continual duty as Americans to rebel‰Ы_
This is interesting! And it makes total sense!
‰Ы_activism is a lot like sex: if you can never act on the impulse of the moment, the moment is much more likely to pass and never present itself again.
One thing we forget - we are the government. It's supposed to be us. We're a democracy. We have to remember that. The government isn't some big "other" organization. It's us. Or it should be.
Naomi Wolf talks about our Core Values as Americans.
For example, we are required to speak freely. This isn't just a right. It's a duty.
When you are a real American, the desire for liberty of thought and action, the desire for justice, burns in you as it did for the founders and as it does for dissidents. And when it burns, you need to speak out in protest and assemble.
We are required to fight against injustice and oppression.
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
-Benjamin Franklin
I've never really understood the depth of the first amendment. The right to peaceably assemble isn't about having the right to gather in private spaces.
For assembly to be "free", it must have the potential to stop a town or city from engaging in business as usual. The freedom to assemble is meaningless if it can be so managed that everyone is able to entirely ignore it.
And the last part of the book is almost a ‰ЫПhow to‰Ыќ for revolutionaries. (Though some of it is a bit dated.)
Be the media.
Protest.
Assemble.
Deliberate with each other.
Wolf suggests, addressing the citizens of the US: You need to be the pundit.
We have to keep liberty alive. And spread it to other parts of the world.
The American DNA holds that liberty is universal and transitive - that everyone in the world is equally entitled to it.