12-05-2017, 01:44 PM
(12-05-2017, 11:58 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Indeed the only sure lesson of history is that corrupt elites do everything possible to entrench themselves in power and, to the extent possible, either corrupt their possible competition or opponents or obliterate those opponents. That is why rebels were broken at the wheel and witches were burned at the stake. The usual command of an oppressor is "Suffer me, or die horribly!"
I can see the current bare majority in power in America resorting to mass murder to keep their economic and political power. They have crossed into the zone of infamy. That is why Stalin's courts so readily issued the sentence "ten years without the right of correspondence". The person receiving such a sentence was quickly shot with no ceremony or appeal. He certainly never corresponded with anyone after that, did he?
This President better resembles infamous dictators than any prior President of the United States in practice. This Crisis could give us an America with torture chambers, concentration camps, and sites of mass killings. This President better resembles Slobodan Milosevic or Ferdinand Marcos than any prior President of the United States. He4 admires dictators -- not even conservative leaders like Reagan or Thatcher.
What amazes me is that the attitude of "it can't happen here" is so firmly into the psyche that most people I talk to just give me a dumb look when I say things can get much worse. Everyone knows the barbarity of the Nazi's and most know about Pol Pot, but they can't adjust their thinking to see it could happen here, all too soon. This is why objectifying people is so self destructive, most Americans here would read your statement about the death camps, and think you were bonkers, because they 'know' the German people of the '20s and the Khmer Rouge were just animals. Just this morning there's a report out that Trump wants to set up a private intelligence service with his old bud Erik Prince. I can't decide if they'll mutate into 'right wing death squads' or a new Praetorian Guard. Either way, not good.