General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "US worse than the USSR"? American Amnesia of the worst sort [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But we are definitely headed in that direction.
A free press cannot exist without freedom of access for journalists to sources including whistleblowers who tell us about what they believe to be corruption or wrongdoing in the government for which they work.
Gulag Archipelago -- How about Guantanamo? Suicides and life sentences without trial are not that unusual there. And now with new legislation, the administration claims the right to detain us indefinitely without trial. It isn't yet the reality for most of us. But our country is moving in that direction -- deliberately, but all you need is a crisis and jailing people for speaking up or having the wrong friends is not far away.
Denunciations -- who needs them when the government collects and can get easy access to ALL OF YOUR ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS. This is worse than denunciation. This is self-incrimination, possibly for laws that have not been passed since the records are kept permanently and can be accessed at some future date (or at least that is as far as we know the plan). And all of this is in violation of our Constitution.
Collectivization is not the trend today. Today, we have "free" markets, free for the very rich. If you have a small business, hold on tight because the laws will not favor your company as they do the big banks and the companies that Wall Street and the politicians favor.
Instead of collectivization, we have corporatization. Remember: corporations are now people for real with the same rights as the rest of us flesh and blood beings with, some believe, souls.
Times have changed since the Gulag, and we have a good president at the moment. But the stage is set. All the furniture is in place. We have to turn around and head in the direction of freedom before we do become a corporatist version of the USSR.