Totalitarianism Marches On

The wheels of injustice grind slowly, but they grind increasingly fine. I wrote back in 2008 about marching in the illegal immigrant march of 2006, and how I told everyone there that they were participating in a propaganda performance designed to get Americans to support the Real ID Act. The marches were covered widely on TV. The effect of showing millions of people marching in the streets was no doubt calculated to make Americans feel invaded, in my opinion. Otherwise, they wouldn't have shown them, the way they don't show marches for peace.

A Chilean friend told me then that Pincochet was able to round up dissenters by requiring everyone to show up at arenas to get new ID. They had lists and the dissidents were rounded up easily when they showed up for their ID.

I was reminded of this while listening to Whitney Webb, who recently escaped Chile before a new crackdown. She was talking about the vaccination passports being pushed in various countries around the world, including the USA, and how they are not just about pushing everyone to get vaccinated, but about tracking everyone in a high tech way. No more Old School "Your papers please". No, now your card will show everything about you, including your medical history, your financial status and many others items of interest to your ruling overlords. They are pushing it in the USA and other countries as a matter of "public health", but in Chile they just used the military to push it through. The rulers will do whatever the population will tolerate, as Frederick Douglass pointed out.

It is now 2 decades since 9-11 and the subsequent roll-out of increasingly oppressive security regulations and privacy violations. A whole new generation has grown up accepting repressive strictures that previous generations would have rebelled against. I now see people saying "I have to submit, why shouldn't everyone?", which is the opposite of the traditional "I call for freedom for all" spirit that most Americans used to hold.

The wheels of injustive grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.