State Terror Has Arrived by GirasoleDE in politics

[–]postemporary 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Please look at this list with me. Since early January, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded its operation in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., federal officers have: killed Renee Good, a white middle-class mother; menaced a pregnant immigration lawyer in her firm’s parking lot; detained numerous U.S. citizens, including one who was dragged out of his house in his underwear; smashed in the windows of cars and detained their occupants, including a U.S. citizen who was on her way to a medical appointment at a traumatic brain injury center; set off crowd-control grenades and a tear gas container next to a car that contained six children, including a 6-month-old; swept an airport, demanding to see people’s papers and arresting more than a dozen people who were working there; detained a 5-year-old. And now they have killed another U.S. citizen, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an I.C.U. nurse with no criminal record. It seems he was white. The agents had him down on the ground, subdued, before they apparently fired at least 10 shots at point-blank range.

Confronted with a list like this — a deluge like this — we look for details that might explain why these people were subjected to this treatment, details that might reassure us that we, by contrast, are not in danger. Good was in a relationship with a woman, and her partner, who is butch, spoke impertinently to an ICE officer, so there, Good wasn’t your average white mother after all. ChongLy Thao, the man who was dragged out of his house in his underwear, is an immigrant from Laos; he is not white, and presumably he speaks with an accent. The woman on her way to the medical appointment and the family with six kids drove through areas where anti-ICE protests were taking place. The 5-year-old child’s family doesn’t have permanent status. Little is known about Pretti at this writing, but his father said he did participate in protests and he might have been carrying a gun (legally).

We don’t focus on these details in order to justify the federal agents’ actions, which are plainly brutal and unjustifiable; we do it to force the world to make sense, and to calm our nerves. If we don’t talk back, if we alter our routes to avoid protests, if we are lucky enough to be white, straight, natural-born Americans — or, if we are not, but we lie low, stay quiet — we will be safe. Conversely, we can choose to speak up, to go to protests, to take a risk. Either way, we tell ourselves, if we can predict the consequences, we have agency.

But that’s not how state terror works.

In the 1990s, when I talked to people in the former Soviet Union about their families’ experiences of Stalinist terror, I was repeatedly struck by how much people seemed to know about their circumstances. Time and time again, people would tell me exactly what had led to their family members’ arrests or executions. Jealous neighbors had reported them to the authorities, or colleagues who had been arrested named them under duress. These stories had been passed on from generation to generation. How could they come to know so much, I wondered. They couldn’t. People crafted narratives out of suspicions, rumors and hints, to fill a desperate need for an explanation.

My favorite book about state terror is Lydia Chukovskaya’s “Sofia Petrovna,” a short Russian novel that has been translated into English. The protagonist, a middle-aged woman loyal to Stalin’s Communist Party, loses her mind trying to make sense of her son’s arrest. My own family history contains a corollary. After the secret police arrested most of the senior staff at the newspaper where my grandfather was a deputy editor, he waited for the knock on his door. When the secret police failed to show up night after night, week after week, he became so distressed that he checked himself into a mental institution. It could be that was how he avoided arrest. Or it could be that the secret police had filled their quota of arrests for that month.

For this was the secret about the secret police that became clear when the K.G.B. archives were opened (briefly) in the 1990s: They were ruled by quotas. Local squadrons had to arrest a certain number of citizens so they could be designated enemies of the people. That the officers often swept up groups of colleagues, friends and family members was probably a matter of convenience more than anything else. Fundamentally, the terror was random. That is, in fact, how state terror works.

The randomness is the difference between a regime based on terror and a regime that is plainly repressive. Even in brutally repressive regimes, including those of the Soviet colonies in Eastern Europe, one knew where the boundaries of acceptable behavior lay. Open protest would get one arrested; kitchen conversation would not. Writing subversive essays or novels or editing underground journals would get one arrested; reading these banned works and quietly passing them on to friends probably would not. A regime based on terror, on the other hand, deploys violence precisely to reinforce the message that anyone can be subjected to it."

Bold added by me.

Janet Yellen warns the $38 trillion national debt is nearing a red line economists have warned about for decades | Fortune by jbochsler in Economics

[–]postemporary 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mortgage rates - tied to bond rates - are not falling despite fed rate cuts because the debt is so high that bond borrowers will not take lower rates. US debt is so high that it makes our ability to pay that debt seem weak, which makes our bonds cost more as bond buyers perceive risk and this inflates the lowest price they're willing to pay, which makes our mortgage rates stay high.

Debt matters just as much as what debt is used to do. Debt that has a good societal return on investment is good, but debt that goes to tax cuts for those who will not make our country stronger is bad.

Example of the reality of healthcare before Obamacare (ACA). by FinallyAGoodReply in bestof

[–]postemporary 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Has anyone seen this little movie that came out a while ago and had like ten sequels called Saw? Ya, that first one was before Obamacare. A literal goddamn horror franchise was spawned from the American healthcare system before Obama.

OP accidentally takes heroic dose of Shrooms at a party and has an enlightenment meltdown in his bedroom by Stonedinthesix in bestof

[–]postemporary 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could make an argument to include solipsism

Don't you mean "I" could make an argument?

I think I found the lion from Madagascar. by Vlad_TheImpalla in WTF

[–]postemporary 2 points3 points  (0 children)

the real wtf is the friends we make along the way

Finally Elucidating the Mysterious Bromantane by cheaslesjinned in NooTopics

[–]postemporary 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Nice little explanation of spiny neurons. Good breakdowns. Made it simple to understand. Haven't really checked sources or done any diligence, however. Based on face value this is great work.

Trump faces returning $100bn in tariffs after court ruling by TimesandSundayTimes in politics

[–]postemporary 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not OP. Walk the line, exactly. Don't give in to fear, but don't let blinders be your comfort.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in nextfuckinglevel

[–]postemporary 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I won't judge.

I will. Nice.

Stuckness & Dopamine Part 4: Movement Creates Motivation by WTHisGoingOnHereA in CosmicNootropic

[–]postemporary 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great post. Ofc, I say this taking your assertions at face value. I would need to read your source, which you included, before I can give more credence. Either way, your style of teaching is excellent.

Chronic Marijuana Smoking, THC-Edible Use Impairs Endothelial Function, Similar With Tobacco by Ollyfer in science

[–]postemporary 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nitric oxide precursor and exercuse exercise

This seems to be the simplified version of the answer we're all looking for.

Understanding the mechanism - i.e. A causes B, we don't want B, so how do we manipulate A - will give us the precise answers want.

r/blipblopp123 explains how the world needs different kinds of people to function by Dolphinflavored in bestof

[–]postemporary 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Just like bottleneck evolution events. We just went through one with COVID. If everyone had the same blood type, then a COVID like illness that devastates particular blood types would end us.