Welcome to The Dystopian States Of America
Professional law enforcement does not behave this way. Not in a democratic republic. But then….
Videos confirm why Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker advised his citizens to know their rights, have their cell phones ready, and document everything done by “[DHS secretary Kristi] Noem’s thugs.” Calling them law enforcement is unjustified. Actual law enforcement professionals must be horrified. Citizens of Chicago filed suit (Axios):
A coalition of Chicago journalists, organizations and protesters sued President Trump and top administration officials over federal agents’ “pattern of extreme brutality” at a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
“Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale,” their filing argues. “The individual acts of brutality by federal officers are too numerous to catalogue.”
The videos tell the tale. Watch this one carefully as this “law enforcement professional” chokeslams a protester.
Is that taught in ICE training? How much training do these armed thugs receive? I ask jokingly if ICE trains its agents over Zoom or over the weekend. Did ICE recruit the man above over Craigslist, from the WWE, or from a prison gang?
Watch this pair of clownish “professionals” sloppily attempt (and fail) to abduct a Latino man near 63rd and Kostner in Chicago. Again, how are these men being trained, and for how long, before sent to the streets of our cities?
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ICE tells Next 9NEWS that its agents are following their policies. Exactly what are those policies? What local police routinely behave this way where you live?
PBS News Hour examined ICE’s increasingly aggressive practices in Chicago:
“ICE acted like an invading army in our neighb’ds,” said state Rep. Lilian Jiménez, a Democrat. “These shameful & lawless actions are not only a violation of constit’l rights but of our most basic liberty: the right to live free from persecution and fear.”
ProPublica published a series of such videos at the end of July. The violence against what Trump dubbed “the enemy from within” has escalated since Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“The assault has become increasingly brutal as Trump and his allies intensify their demonization of all things left of center, by which they often seem to mean anything to the left of the hard right,” writes Thomas Edsall.
Edsall asked political scientist Barbara Walter of the University of California-San Diego, author of How Civil Wars Start,” what the end game is for Trump 2.0:
“Do you think Trump, Miller and other allies are hoping to provoke violence in order to justify further punitive or repressive policies?”
Her emailed reply: “The short answer is yes.”
The longer answer?
The biggest challenge that aspiring autocrats face is that their citizens still have rights, freedoms and real political power. In a functioning democracy, citizens can still vote their leaders out of office and there’s nothing a democratically elected leader can legally do about it. That’s why autocrats-in-waiting often look for ways to get rid of these constraints. They can rig elections, suppress opposition or, as history shows, manufacture a crisis that justifies emergency powers.
Provoking violence is a common way to do this.
Is it working? Walter:
The quickest way to piss people off is to send soldiers into their neighborhoods especially when there’s no reason for them to be there. It’s inherently provocative, and Trump and his team understand this. Research by the political scientist Robert Pape shows that the single most powerful predictor of suicide terrorism is the presence of foreign troops on local soil. People hate, hate, hate that. They hate the humiliation, the powerlessness, the feeling of being occupied.
Brace yourselves. Have your cell phones ready and document everything. If ever there is an investigation and prosecution over these events, videos will be needed. The scene of the crime is far more dispersed than it was on January 6, 2021.
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