4 ms·
I spent a bit of time living in one of the post-Soviet central asian states, and after a while there this was a conclusion I came to, too. Living in a dictator
by Frondo 7y ago
I spent a bit of time living in one of the post-Soviet central asian states, and after a while there this was a conclusion I came to, too.
Living in a dictatorship, but feeling more personal freedom than I ever had in the US.
On a day-to-day basis, there's significantly more curtailment of personal freedom in the US than there was in one of the stans.
The one thing I wouldn't feel safe doing there? Openly speaking against the government. Here, however, if I were part of a movement that was gaining any strength or public good will against the political and capitalist powers that run the US, I'd still be afraid for my life.
Like how nearly every leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, MO, has been killed over the last few years. That's not a coincidence, not a random series of killings.
- smsm42 7y agoWikipedia says that BLM founders are: Alicia Garza - alive and well Patrisse Cullors - alive and well Opal Tometi - alive and well Under "key people" - Shaun King, DeRay Mckesson, Johnetta Elzie, Tef Poe, Erica Garner. Of those, only Erica Garner is not alive - she died in 2017 of two heart attacks and the following brain damage. BLM is a decentralized movement, so there are a lot of people that could be called "leaders", but clearly claim that "nearly every leader" has been killed is false. I suspect none were actually killed for any activities related to BLM (I did not check that but consider it plausible), though in large enough group of people there would always be people that die prematurely, either due to illness, or accidents, or crime (many BLM activists live in places where crime situation is not very good). I think you'd better to put down the conspiracy Kool-Aid for a while.