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Americans just caught a glimpse of their future -- and it is terrifying - by Thom Hartmann [View all]
Americans just caught a glimpse of their future — and it is terrifying (Thom Hartmann) - Alternet.orgOn Tuesday, here in Chicago, America caught a glimpse of its possible future, and it was terrifying. Federal agents, dressed like soldiers and armed with the weapons of war, rammed a civilian vehicle on 105th Street, using a maneuver outlawed by Chicago police, and then fired tear gas into a crowd of bystanders and local officers.
The air filled with smoke and screams as parents fled with babies in their arms, teenagers were slammed to the pavement, and a young girl was struck in the head by a gas canister. One boy was detained for hours, denied his rights, his family left in the dark.
This was not a foreign regime or some distant “law-and-order” fantasy. It was an American city, in broad daylight, and it looked more like a militarized crackdown in a third-world dictatorship than traditional American law enforcement.
The question we have to ask is simple and chilling: Is this America that we are becoming, one where democracy dies behind clouds of tear gas?
The air filled with smoke and screams as parents fled with babies in their arms, teenagers were slammed to the pavement, and a young girl was struck in the head by a gas canister. One boy was detained for hours, denied his rights, his family left in the dark.
This was not a foreign regime or some distant “law-and-order” fantasy. It was an American city, in broad daylight, and it looked more like a militarized crackdown in a third-world dictatorship than traditional American law enforcement.
The question we have to ask is simple and chilling: Is this America that we are becoming, one where democracy dies behind clouds of tear gas?
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