If this ICE-American Gestapo crap

[moniss]

keeps up I see a day in the not too distant future where they expand their paranoia about "non-citizens" and start setting up offices where everyone in the country is required to go and "present yourself" and bring proof of your citizenship. I could see them also asking you "loyalty" type questions about your politics. Your responses and whatever info they already have on you will be used to determine what kind of "targeting" will be done on you with opportunities or repression. They will likely "mark" your children's files also.

Autocratic dictators/fascists love the idea of "marking" people and pigeonholing them. Control. Ultimate control of reward and punishment. Acclaim and retribution. Suppression of dissent by making "examples" of others. John Bolton etc. They aren't demanding all voting records from states for a benevolent reason. They are going to do the crosschecking of records and use the results for targeting people for the purposes of repression using any means they can whether it is spreading misinformation, making false accusations, contacting employers, denying benefits etc.

I know some people will think this is farfetched but those of us who are old enough remember very well that Hoover and the FBI were doing these things to activists already a long time ago. COINTELPRO should ring a bell. Hoover didn't have the computerization to take it to a huge massive scale but what they did do to people was bad enough. So now Musk and DOGE and the fascists have made sure they have all of your tax, health, benefits info etc. all cross referenced and ready to go. Now once they tie in voting records, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses etc. they can run their big AI program and the targeting can begin.

So is the day of having to "report" to a "verification center" really so far off or have they more or less bypassed the need for you to physically show up? Either way they don't do what they do in order for good things to happen to us.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. They have power, but they will never have control

Will you comply?

Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless.

[moniss]

4. The point is that a good deal of the targeting takes place and

people may not even know. During the days of Hoover it was very common that they went after activists behind the scenes with employers etc. So you got let go or you didn't get that new position or raise. The employer is not telling you they were contacted by the FBI they're told they can't disclose anything.

Lists of "problem" people start being developed for local police etc. but all kept very quiet. So you keep getting targeted for traffic tickets until your license is in jeopardy and your insurance is going up. You just think it's your bad luck. Your VA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Assistance benefits are suspended because of some supposed "discrepancy" in the records. Not just once but multiple times with lengthy, repetitive "appeals" before it is resolved. Until it happens again.

All of this kind of thing went on in the '30's through the '70's and never really stopped. They just rename the program once they get found out.

The point of bringing in the DOGE aspect is that, combined with voter data etc., they negate a certain amount of the need for people to "comply" because they already have the info necessary to target people for repression and misinformation. That's why I began the post with what would perhaps seem unlikely to many and then I showed that actually your physical presence to "report" isn't really any longer needed. They don't need your "compliance" because all of us have already "complied" and given them all the information they need to carry out large scale targeted repression and in fact we may not even know it happened we might just think it was our "bad luck".

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. Again, while they may have tremendous power...

It’s still not enough to control 300 million people, no what matter high tech dystopian scenario you might imagine.

Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless.

They can’t make private employers not dependent on government contracts fire “disloyal” employees.

This administration is evil, but it’s also filled with bumbling idiots.

[moniss]

7. You're missing my meaning here. They don't need to control

every last person and employers fired or repressed workers during the Hoover years who didn't have government contracts. Many of them were right wingers and thought they were "patriots" etc. or were just scared of what the government might do to them if they didn't go along. You can also control large numbers by making an example of smaller numbers.

Someone doesn't need to be omnipotent to create catastrophe. Hitler was not omnipotent. Yes the states and people can act but much of what I'm talking about is the institution of repression using propaganda, deception and behind the scenes action. All 3 of those things are easy to deny and can be hard to prove. Meanwhile during our "proving process" and "taking action when we have the proof" and "getting the courts to take action" the clock ticks on and the damage continues as well as their unfolding evermore atrocious moves.

I'm not saying there is no hope. I'm saying, by posing a scenario and showing we are even further, that this is what is coming to us, really never left even once COINTELPRO was outed, and can and will happen on a much larger scale. Also to a large extent the information needed to target us has already been given by us to the government.

I have written before about the privacy assurances we have all been given along with assurances that our info is only accessible and to be used for legal purposes. But Roberts et al have said anything is legal if it is an act of the President in his duties. The fascist argument simply put is that they view their duty as repressing anybody and anything that in their judgement goes against the "values" and well being of the country. Therefore their argument is that the repression is legal. It is not unique or the first time the argument has been used.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Ultimately, facism without complete control is merely temporary domestic terrorism by the state

They will wreak havoc and destruction, but ultimately will fail and fall.

[moniss]

9. That is our hope. nt

[wnylib]

11. I remember Hoover and COINTELPRO.

I think that you are on the mark about Donny Deficit's obsession with control and attempts to gain absolute power.

But we can fight back. If we don't fight now, we won't be able to eventually.

[wnylib]

10. I don't think that your concerns are farfetched. This is how dictators gain absolute control.

They do it incrementally, always pushing the envelope a little farther. Each time it's "just this one thing" so even though the people don't like it, they don't rise up together against it. After a while, all those incremental steps add up and there's an absolute dictatorship that only some people realized was happening.

[Klarkashton]

2. This is what you have to do to get a "real ID" now.

It's already happened. It's all bullshit that got started after 911 and it gets worse every year.

[moniss]

6. Yes and the farcical part about the "Real ID" is

that in actuality if someone wanted to they could give their birth certificate etc. to someone, perhaps for a price, and that person could go to the DMV etc. and claim to be the person on the documents, have their picture taken and voila they are now that person in the eyes of the government even though the reality is something else.

So the government notion that the person holding a "Real ID" is in fact that person is not so much a matter of fact as it is faith in a process. A process easily subverted.

[BannonsLiver]

3. "BUt wE'rE iN cOnTrOl!!!1"

“Just cLiCk YOuR hEels 3 tIMEs aNd rePeAt iT oVer AnD oVer ANd iT wILl bE tRuE!11”

SiNcErEly,

- ThE ReAliTy BaSeD cOmMuNitY”

(in case it’s not clear)