Replies to post #567906 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[12yearplan]

What happens when democratic states adopt the methods of the regimes they once condemned? Terror is not only masked men and arbitrary detention. It also operates through fear. Policies are designed to make people more compliant, more submissive. As the historian Timothy Snyder warned in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, this is how societies slide into danger: people obey in advance.

In Donald Trump’s US, I have watched CEOs, academics, journalists and government officials allow fear to override decency and moral authority. I have seen this pattern before. It begins with claims that certain people are dangerous. That ordinary legal safeguards should not apply to them. It ends with a society diminished – more compliant, more cynical, more brutal. State terror is rarely announced. In my experience, it becomes normalised. It seeps quietly into the machinery of government.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/08/state-terror-us-israel-donald-trump-benjamin-netanyahu

[janice shell]

Sheesh. What to make of this?

Iranian Parliament member says Trump asked Iran to do a small fake war with them, presumably to please the US electorate. pic.twitter.com/qoxVx7trSA

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) February 8, 2026