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State Terror, American Style

paulkrugman.substack.com

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Re: State Terror, American Style

#11

Post by tdeck »

srean wrote: post #6

What I found so remarkable was Trump's address to the generals. I am a little queasy of throwing the fascism word around willy nilly, but the story of "internal enemies" could not have been more formulaic.

This was after Trump's secretary of war said the following on the same stage:

“We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy,” Hegseth said. “We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

It's not exactly subtle. The message is "we're going to commit war crimes more" and "we plan to use the military against people inside the US".

Re: State Terror, American Style

#12

Post by SkipperCat »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #10

Are they limiting their raids to be within 'blue' states / districts to minimise the collateral damage their reputation may receive from those sympathetic to this cause? Chicago was 77% Democrat in the last election. These behaviours won't stop if there's no blowback from the MAGA base.

100% yes.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#14

Post by lapcat »

evelant wrote: post #2

It certainly doesn’t feel good to have turned out being correct after warning that this is where we were headed way back in the dubyah years. This has always been the plan, it hasn’t been hidden, corporate media has just succeeded in sanewashing it for decades. Abdication of journalistic responsibility in the name of profits has allowed construction of alternate realities for so many people that these atrocities are…

> It certainly doesn’t feel good to have turned out being correct after warning that this is where we were headed way back in the dubyah years.

This has been happening long before W, and the Democrats are complicit too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

Re: State Terror, American Style

#16

Post by SkipperCat »

bko wrote: post #9

[flagged]

> But I've never talked to a person in a rich neighborhood that would turn down more police

Rich people in safe neighborhoods very commonly turn down police because they don't want their local taxes to go up. It's as simple as that. You can also add to the fact that they don't want their children slammed into the pavement for minor infractions such as having an open container beverage or doing 35 in a 25 mph zone.

Its always been rules for thee but not for me.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#17

Post by glenstein »

evelant wrote: post #2

It certainly doesn’t feel good to have turned out being correct after warning that this is where we were headed way back in the dubyah years. This has always been the plan, it hasn’t been hidden, corporate media has just succeeded in sanewashing it for decades. Abdication of journalistic responsibility in the name of profits has allowed construction of alternate realities for so many people that these atrocities are…

The only part I would disagree with here is that there was a plan dating back to the George W. Bush Admin. I think "the plan" in earnest came into being between 2020 and 2024, and I don't think anyone from the Bush years would find a home in the party let alone the current administration. It's not that they had no plans necessarily, they just weren't the ones in charge anymore.

I do think the Bush years were the first major destabilization of rule of law domestically that helped create conditions for today, along with Obama's "look forward, not backward" enshrinement of it as bipartisan consensus. Bush also normalized a kind of partisan unresponsiveness to mass democratic uprisings that people used to believe were capable of influencing the government.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#18

Post by actionfromafar »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #13
bko wrote: post #9

[flagged]

This article, from my reading, is separating this particular behaviour from normal law enforcement behaviour, and within that space of difference is the problem. It is a problem of recent creation.

Exactly. The police may or may not be good, but these raids are like the brownshirts in Germany. Not regular police.
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