I once worked with a woman who immigrated from Russia who had learned computer science on punch cards. She was always full of energy and happy to be working on interesting project in the USA, because that kind of thing did not happen in the USSR. In that environment, you learned to "not be noticed". Bad things regularly happened to people that were noticed.
Her attitude changed in soon after the Bush administration started their wars in the middle east and the PATRIOT act was passed. When that came up in conversation one day, she suddenly got really serious and quietly said, "It's happening again." The same environment she had fled from the USSR was happening here, and it terrified her.
There was a change. The USA has always had problems, but there defiantly was a change that happened somewhat recently. I've been trying to fight it ever since, but all that has done is convince me that it's going to get a lot uglier before it any true reform is possible.
Her attitude changed in soon after the Bush administration started their wars in the middle east and the PATRIOT act was passed. When that came up in conversation one day, she suddenly got really serious and quietly said, "It's happening again." The same environment she had fled from the USSR was happening here, and it terrified her.
There was a change. The USA has always had problems, but there defiantly was a change that happened somewhat recently. I've been trying to fight it ever since, but all that has done is convince me that it's going to get a lot uglier before it any true reform is possible.