I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it; the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must define it.
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America [1835] |
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May 19, 2025
Disappearing People
One of the ways that brutal right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet would terrorize the Chilean people into patriotic submission to his authority was by disappearing people. This was different from simply torturing and executing them. He and his goons certain did that too. But disappearing people was different. With executions and bodies, families at least had certainty with respect to what had happened … |
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