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      police violence

      A police flag flies from a pickup truck.

      How the War on Terror Helped Cause Us to Turn on Each Other

      It injected fear and the weaponry that goes with it into a country where relatively prosperous, connected communities like mine would have had the potential to expand and offer other Americans far more robust support.

      Andrea Mazzarino
      Aug 22, 2023

      Blame Donald Trump and all too many of his followers, but don’t just blame him or them. Yes, he was indeed responsible for the nightmare of January 6, 2021, and, in his own fashion, for the incitement of right-wing militia (terror!) groups like the Proud Boys. (“Stand back and stand by!”) But in this country, in this century, violence has become as all-American as apple pie. In these years, it’s been violence and more violence all the way, literally in the case of the Pentagon. But let me start a little more personally.

      Having lived several years in rural Maryland along the Virginia border, I’ve watched the local political landscape gain ever-deepening fault lines (as is true in the United States at large).

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      Opinion
      war on terror
      Marion County Record

      The Raid on the Marion County Record Was an Attack on the Free Press

      The case is a reminder that the United States is no stranger to local powers using their authority to silence what is left of critical journalism.

      Ari Paul
      Aug 16, 2023

      As the police raided Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer’s home August 11 (Committee to Protect Journalists, 8/12/23; AP, 8/13/23; New York Times, 8/13/23), his 98-year-old mother was aghast, watching the cops rummage through her things. “She was very upset, yelling about ‘Gestapo tactics’ and ‘where are all the good people?’” Meyer told FAIR. He said that after the raid she “was beside herself, she wouldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, and finally went to bed about sunrise.” Meyer’s mother, a co-owner of the paper, eventually told her son that the whole affair was “going to be the death of me.”

      And it was. She died the next afternoon. And Meyer blames the police (Daily Beast, 8/12/23).

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      Opinion
      free press
      A participant holding a Black Lives Matter sign at a protest.

      We Live in the Sunlight: End Permanent Punishment Now

      I am an elected representative of my community, and I have been removed from an office I was duly elected into, because of a prior conviction.

      Karl Ferrell
      Aug 11, 2023

      One thing I know: Corruption only withers under the sunlight.

      In Illinois, 3.3 million adults have been arrested or convicted of a crime since 1979. Right now, there are 1,189 permanent punishment laws and regulations in Illinois that restrict people with records. Often these restrictions are permanent punishments. I am an elected representative of my community, and I have been removed from an office I was duly elected into, because of such permanent punishments.

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      Opinion
      criminal justice system
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