These days, Godwin’s law of Nazi analogies is something of a liability, as a lot of people are quick to assume (sometimes in bad faith) that a comparison to actual nazis is hyperbolic. I’ve taken to applied Godwinism, that is getting very specific in my comparisons.

That brings us to the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence service of the German Reich that was run by Reinhard Heydrich. The Behind the Bastards podcast two-parter on Heydrich gets deep into the starting of the SD. One of the things it highlights is that in the investigation and persecution of Jews, it was only supposed to go after known felons, but it went after anyone it could plausibly nail. It was an open secret within its own ranks, but by the time anyone on the outside wanted to check Heydrich’s methods, he’d have enough dirt on them to keep them mum.

Cut to NSA and PRISM, which is the massive internet surveillance program that monitors traffic between Americans and foreigners. Yes, it’s only supposed to be counterterrorism (Islamist terror, specifically) but from the beginning, it ruled-in any internet packet that crossed the US borders, even when the sender and recipient were both in the US. And since the mid 2010s, NSA has been allowing the mission to extend to all law enforcement, including letting local precincts know about large amounts of liquid assets in transit to be intercepted and confiscated. Some searches of the blog website Techdirt should yield you dozens of examples of incidents that made it to courts, to civil rights watch organizations and investigative reporters. The FISC was always a joke, known even by the FBI as a rubber stamp court.

Incidentally, ICE also engages in the same kind of ignoring (or reinterpreting) mission parameters. Ordered to only arrest and deport undocumented persons who’ve committed violent felonies, they go after everyone they can, including locking brown American citizens in a room with no phone and no resources and order them to prove they’re a citizen. People deported, often shores alien to the deportees are quickly swept up into human trafficking rackets with which ICE closely operates.

So no, it’s not as bad as we imagine. It’s far worse.

Right so just be greatful the nazis are only going after your neighbors right?

I don’t think anyone is advocating violence but when no one can afford food or rent, the writing is on the wall

It’s headed in that direction, but we’re not quite there yet.

There are two ways to fight the autocratic takeover. One is opportunistic: The US is immense and has a lot of interlocking and often conflicting systems in place, which makes for a lot of chaotic complexity. So the way that dinosaur clones were able to breed, escape Isla Nublar and survive despite a lysine addiction (all contrived to contain them) we need to find opportunities to impede their takeover or creatively disobey.

The other is in creating local mutual aid organizations. Make sure that your marginalized and outcast locals are getting fed, keeping warm and otherwise having needs met, and the police will find it harder to push them out. Whatever you can do to allow strikes and protests to last longer will tax the goons of the plutocrats, and tax them until either they retreat and rally elsewhere or ratchet up the violence so that it becomes too atrocious for the neoliberal public to ignore.

The Arab Spring was kicked off by a Libyan street vendor who was so tired of paying bribes, fees, and ‘fines’ he set himself on fire instead of choosing another day at life. And enough of his countrymen saw that and said “Agreed. There’s no future anymore, let’s burn it all down and get a new government”.

The US has been in trouble for a long while - you have to wonder how long until the body politic is picked clean by capitalism and people are done with this project we call America. When all the political oxygen is consumed by the loudest fringe voices who achieve nothing of substance, while entrenching their power and prestige. There’s only two ‘viable’ parties, and they want it that way, all while we pretend with the illusion of choice.

But please, tell me how I need not give up, that all I have to do is get involved more local politics, or ‘play the game’ and throw campaign elections at my problems. Gerrymandering, dark money, DNC/RNC funding choking out 3rd party candidates, etc etc. the fix is in, and you and I aren’t in on it.

I don’t see it turning around otherwise at this point.

The last 20 years have made clear these people can’t can get away with literal murder, have it in the news, and nothing happens. From JFK, to Ruby Ridge, the “suicides” of Jeffrey Epstein, et al.

Blatant violation of law by those in office without repercussions.

I’m not saying it happening tomorrow, but we only have to look at things like the French Revolution to recognize a line has been crossed, and these criminals have no fear of the law, as it’s been captured right along with so many regulatory agencies.