• Laser@feddit.org
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    22 days ago

    A secret police is something different from officers without uniforms. A secret police is an instrument of the ruling party to oppress opposition and are part of a “justice” system outside of the official one, e.g. secret police can arrest you on whatever charges (don’t have to be revealed) and you’ll be put into a secret prison where your relatives can’t find you. The fact that they don’t wear uniforms goes beyond why regular police goes it: it’s to create an atmosphere of fear that everyone around you could be secret police, and that they can just arrest you, and there’s nothing you can do.

    • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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      22 days ago

      Yes. Secret Police makes people never relax. You never know who’s watching, you never know who’s listening. Your neighbours and teachers could be informants too. Apartment buildings are built with thin walls so you are not safe even within your own home. It’s a constant source of terror.

      It’s also why people older than me don’t talk to strangers, and especially, to foreigners.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        22 days ago

        Last couple of evenings has been cool enough to not have window units running. The neighbor’s drunken bellowing has been off the chain. Yes, I heard it over the AC but without is truly revealing, and impossible to sleep.

        • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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          22 days ago

          Mine gets drunk and talks to people on the phone. When she gets drunk, her soft tissues swell up and she sounds like a troll. That also doesn’t stop her from finding men to get drunk with and have loud sex with, but she never manages to keep them around for long, and I occasionally get a night of drunken crying.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
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            22 days ago

            I mean the drinking isn’t the issue. The relief they seek from underlying issues is not the issue. The despair and sadness and rage are problematic. Address the despair and other issues can be resolved.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Apartment buildings are built with thin walls so you are not safe even within your own home.

        Pshaw. Next you’ll be claiming that our phones are built to listen to our conversations.

        • Justas🇱🇹@sh.itjust.works
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          20 days ago

          We call the neighbour I mentioned in this thread The Slug. My wife keeps getting a suggestion “Slug removal tips” on YouTube.

          • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            I went to Lowe’s the other day and just looked at cabinet/drawer handles - I didn’t touch them or say anything about them. That night when I went to Amazon.com I got a bunch of ads for cabinet handles. I’m assuming they can link my phone to store camera footage, which is better than assuming that they’re just reading minds at this point.

    • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 days ago

      secret police can arrest you on whatever charges (don’t have to be revealed) and you’ll be put into a secret prison where your relatives can’t find you

      Like the CIA blacksites, Gitmo, the Fed vans that pulled and kidnapped protestors during the BLM protests? Or the fact that police can get away with murder in broad daylight and people who fight it are labeled terrorists who hate the country?

    • basmati@lemmus.org
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      22 days ago

      Yeah, plains clothes officer in the US. You’re repeating the meme.

      • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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        22 days ago

        Yeah their distinction is completely arbitrary and meaningless. Of course the widespread knowledge that anyone you could interact with could be a plainclothes officer or a federal agent instills a certain amount of paranoia in Americans, the difference is that just we have massive and effective propaganda machines convincing us that America secret police are all good guys while also telling us that non-Western secret police are mustache twirling villains.

    • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      If you’re getting arrested by secret police, then you fight to the death. Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing you did.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        22 days ago

        Typically they have the guns and you don’t, or if you do they’ll kill you then disappear you rather than the other way around

        • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          If that’s the case, it’s gonna happen regardless. That’s the point. You’re either going to die in a “workers prison” or you’re going to die fighting. Might as well hurt someone on your way out right? That’s what I learned in my time in the army. I have gained so god damn much respect for Ukraine in the last 2 years. They’re defending themselves so perfectly, I only wish they had more help.