STATE TERROR - M. Gessen

[Sparkly]

This sent chills through my body. I read it after a few minutes on the FoxNews message board where people are inventing ways to blame Alex Pretti's murder on anyone but the men who killed him. "If he hadn't," "If he didn't," "If he weren't."

Gessen dissects and explains this from a well-informed life perspective. Yes, we want to feel a little control over random events with reasons for hurricanes or cancer (my words, not Gessen's). The reasons for "Why Minneapolis?" seemed to be its immigrant population and its Democratic government. But Gessen shows State Terror as a broader canvas for fear.

I will quote and share a free link (I hope) - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/state-terror-has-arrived.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HFA.FaG4.Ne3EaYvwr-XW&smid=url-share

(We imagine that) (i)f we don’t talk back, if we alter our routes to avoid protests, if we are lucky enough to be white, straight, natural-born Americans — or, if we are not, but we lie low, stay quiet — we will be safe. Conversely, we can choose to speak up, to go to protests, to take a risk. Either way, we tell ourselves, if we can predict the consequences, we have agency.

But that’s not how state terror works.

(snip)

For this was the secret about the secret police that became clear when the K.G.B. archives were opened (briefly) in the 1990s: They were ruled by quotas. Local squadrons had to arrest a certain number of citizens so they could be designated enemies of the people. That the officers often swept up groups of colleagues, friends and family members was probably a matter of convenience more than anything else. Fundamentally, the terror was random. That is, in fact, how state terror works.

The randomness is the difference between a regime based on terror and a regime that is plainly repressive. Even in brutally repressive regimes, including those of the Soviet colonies in Eastern Europe, one knew where the boundaries of acceptable behavior lay. Open protest would get one arrested; kitchen conversation would not. Writing subversive essays or novels or editing underground journals would get one arrested; reading these banned works and quietly passing them on to friends probably would not. A regime based on terror, on the other hand, deploys violence precisely to reinforce the message that anyone can be subjected to it.

I hope you'll take the time to read all of it.

[Tumbulu]

1. Thank you for sharing this with us

It rings true.

[orangecrush]

2. K&R

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[StarryNite]

4. K&R

[Initech]

5. And the fucking ghouls on the Fox yak box are sounding like the terrorists we once declared war against.