Biscuit Compendium Of Pessimism, #6

Via Pandagon, Blogger Unfogged on what's happening:

Just this: Now we know how it happens. I remember, as a kid, seeing news footage of people on the streets in Moscow, wondering what was wrong with them, why they were willing to live under a repressive regime, what about the Russian (or East German, or Romanian...) character allowed them to become repressors and repressed. But, of course, there was nothing special about them at all. In "response" to whatever threat, they and their government allowed some curtailing of freedom, and the logic of that move (threat necessitates greater control and less liberty) is inexorable. Most people, because they're not directly affected, don't think about their liberty at all; some people (like me), are upset, complain, but do nothing substantive; and a few people (always too few), try to make a difference.

Sometimes I get the sense that people are waiting for the skies to darken, as if the heavens will signal when we've become a repressive society; but that's not going to happen, and, in fact, it should already have happened. The difference between the U.S. now, and those repressive regimes is just one of degree: the policy, already implemented, of this government is for indefinite detention without charge; torture while in custody, and court proceedings which make use of information extracted by torture.

None of this needs to make a difference to us; the folks writing and reading these blogs. In all likelihood, none of us will be picked up, locked up, and tortured. But that's not the way to judge what's happening.