Though it also depends on the part of the west and the time. The 50s to 80s was a good time for muddy state work in the west too.
In the 60s and 70s the Italians had certain pesky activists commit "suicide" by jumping off of police building and similar methods [1].
Delegating a murder or disappearance to the mafia (which in 80s trials was found complicit with the government) was also an option, as was using the far right organizations [2].
The Belgians had someone like Lumumba executed and dissolved in acid, something the French agencies were also known to be fond of and also had common criminals working for them when they wanted to git rid of a "state enemy" [3].
The Greek deep state of the 60s and 70s just used hired thugs, who acted "independently", like those that murdered peace activist Lambrakis in 1963 [4] (that was still under democracy, the Junta just continued the tradition).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Pinelli [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_Fontana_bombing#State_s... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Mesrine [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigoris_Lambrakis
In the eyes of many Trump is probably a dissident, haha :) (Obviously, Trump never opposed real oppression, and is not a dissident)
I'm sure one could also call Bernie Sanders a dissident, as he opposed real oppression. And he was elected to the senate many times.
Well, depends on how you see it. Hillary was the typical hawk ready to continue the war business as usual like Obama. Trump pushed for a more isolationist policy, which after Bush and Obama continuous war making is a breath of fresh air (and made some progress with SK instead of mere aggressions).
And for many people (not the 10% that benefits for such things and which most on HN would belong to) globalization itself causes a race to the bottom and oppression. In fact before the "left" (term used loosely) went full-on Democrat-lite, it used to protest globalization (remember Seattle, Genova, etc).
You can disagree with Obama, even about facts, but you were not oppressed. Trump claimed Obama was a terrorist. Yet, he was not oppressed.
For crying out loud Trump was invited the correspondence dinner when Obama was in office. He was rightly mocked, but he was not disappeared :)
But let's get real there were people in America who faced real oppression in the 60'ties civil rights movements. Bernie was one of those, and many of them served as elected politicians later.
True, my interpretation is objectively right, but I wanted to put it more mildly :-)
Though, if you don't believe on God-given rights and wrongs, it still falls on "how you see things" (and your interests), which is the whole point of politics.
>You can disagree with Obama, even about facts, but you were not oppressed. Trump claimed Obama was a terrorist. Yet, he was not oppressed. For crying out loud Trump was invited the correspondence dinner when Obama was in office. He was rightly mocked, but he was not disappeared :)
Well, people don't disappear under Trump either, so there's that. I made some specific points under which Trumps politics could be seen as better (being against the constant after 9-11 wars and interventionism and the pro-corporate globalization).
In any case, as a non-American, I mostly care about the foreign policy: stopping the hawkish attitude, and making a stand against "race to the bottom" globalization. I remember a time when the "left" were for those things too, instead of against them because Trump peddles them.
About that: there's a lot of parents looking for their children at this very moment.