Nezua, who was at the front lines of the power trip show that was the reaction to the protest cries at outside the RNC, has some amazingly scary images of police presence. Then I came across this image, and the similarities were striking.

The line given to us living in the United States is that it’s for our protection, our safety, our order, so that we can go one with our lives, meaning swallowing whole the lies fed to us via the primetime coverage. But who is included in this Our?

In Latin America, at least the places I have lived and visited, it’s taken as a given, a militarized police, carrying automatic weapons. It has been normalized, and is directly linked to U.S. intervention and imperialism.

And that moves here….well in many communities it has always been here. The invasion of homes, the invasion of streets, the inability to ever be at peace, to stand on your own street corner, in front of your own home, even inside your own home.

It is not coincidence that as a line of police came down on people outside the RNC, in parts of Chile fires burned in the middle of the streets as the election of its first socialist president, Salvador Allende, was remembered and police in Chile, “pacos” to our “pigs” came down hard on them.

There are no coincidences when it comes to the display on control between Santiago de Chile and St. Paul.

See more images of the militarized response at The Unapologetic Mexican.