This is a response to:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/29/us-border-patrol-denounced-...

lisemarie

There is a pattern here that follows the patterns of previous empires – the people are kept comfortably sheltered about the workings of the Imperium outside its borders in as far as they are told that the looting, pillaging and raping are naturally the winnings of a strong and exceptional state. Being from the exceptional state means being superior to the ‘inferior other.’ Things go well enough until it doesn’t and the coffers start drying up due to profligate spending on military conquest bringing fewer benefits and profits to the people of the imperial state. Unrest and factionalism grow amongst the ‘lower orders’ of the exceptional peoples so has to be quashed through heavy-handed policing causing more civil unrest. The cycle repeats often enough that finally the only ones not rebelling are the ones who most benefited from the gutting of the state social apparatuses necessitating the masses be sublimated and subdued. So the techniques used to subdued the ‘inferior other’ now refined and fully incorporated into the state military apparatuses are used to do the same to the citizens of the state. Seems to be true in all declining empires.