"When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we often mean and blame our phones. It's easy, it's meant to be easy. One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster, from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government's attempts to terrorize and silence the people of our country continue."
"So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the brink of an authoritarian take-over. In Minneapolis an innocent poet and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terezin concentration camp."
"Intimidation and violence are being weaponized against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled, regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people from another country peacefully living and working here for decades. That is the news we should be paying attention to."
Mass distraction from phones and sensational headlines diverts attention from an overarching crisis: an authoritarian takeover. Federal agents killed an innocent poet and a VA hospital ER nurse in Minneapolis, and toddlers are being sent to detention centers. Videos of children's gyms evoke comparisons to Nazi youth choruses at Terezin. Government intimidation and violence are being weaponized against Minneapolis residents, who fear leaving their homes because they may be beaten, arrested, and shackled regardless of citizenship or asylum status. Other events and scandals are secondary while these abuses continue.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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