The conflation of “concentration camp” with “Nazi Death camp” is pure historical ignorance. The English used concentration camps extensively during the Boer War. And they were pretty awful (and recognized as such).
Arguing that AOC meant death camps is inaccurate, and arguing that because they aren’t death camps they are “not bad” is absurd. It’s like a rapist saying, “at least I didn’t kill her.”
Concentration Camps were a bad practice in the 19th c., in the 20th c. and the 21st c. Good on AOC for speaking truth to power.
We handled much much larger waves of people seeking asylum in the past without this kind of malicious action. Back when we didn’t have a white supremacist in the white house.
The media needs to really get on the right side of the language wars. They’ve been know-towing right wing talking points with barely an inquisitive glance which then becomes the general national dialogue, most of which is half-ass backwards.
Also…
a good solid portion of trump’s base doesn’t believe that 6m Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
that same portion is 100% a-ok with putting non-whites into concentration camps.
If the politicians were looking for solutions, rather than an opportunity to bloviate and stir up their base, they would be appointing more judges to hear assylum and immigration cases so that people could have their cases adjudicated in a timely manner.
I think that “refugee camp” and “concentration camp” are not mutually exclusive terms. A refugee camp doesn’t have to be a concentration camp, but these ones sure are.
The manufactured outrage over some idiots not knowing or caring about the difference between ‘death camps’ and ‘concentration camps’ is just that: manufactured. It is part and parcel of the Republicans’ need to be the aggrieved, perpetual victims in all things.
The GOP saying “These aren’t concentration camps” rhymes rather well with their contention that “That’s not torture,” Yes, language and terminology can be important, but pedantic definitions used to excuse evil are… well evil.
Yeah, trying to move the language we use to obfuscate meaning is a tool of fascists (like Orwellian doublespeak). I’ve long found it infuriating when right-wing people talk about how bad “political correctness” is when they are the ones manipulating language. When someone uses female pronouns to refer to a trans woman, they aren’t being politically correct, they are being correct. But when we call citizens of a country “taxpayers” of that country we’ve adopted a political lie that shifts the focus of what it means to have a stake in the government.
They don’t want us to call these “concentration camps” because they know that’s bad for them, not because they aren’t concentration camps.
The only reason they’re not calling them refugee camps is that someone in the regime understands that doing so would make the U.S. accountable to the provisions of the 1967 international protocol on refugees. That would open the camps up to UN oversight and recognise that those in the camps have certain rights that the regime would prefer not be available to them.
It’s the one point of discussion about these concentration camps where technicalities and semantic games matter. Everything else is BS hair-splitting and attempts to deny what these places really are. Anyone who’s studied history in good faith didn’t need Ocasio-Cortez to spell it out for them and didn’t have a moment’s hestitation in naming them properly.
In other words, if they weren’t doing what they wanted to be doing, they wouldn’t be doing it.
Vote them out, then put them on trial for crimes against humanity. Assuming “vote them out” is even a realistic option given how well they’ve rigged our elections.
The way I see it, these are “camps” where people are being crammed in with no regard for their well-being, “concentrated” if you will. They are – at the core if not more – concentration camps.
Their purpose is heartless and soulless no matter how you look at them. That kind of thing is easy to escalate, especially the longer they get away with it.
I didn’t know, but according to this timeline, it looks like the Vietnamese were classified under the domestic Refugee Act of 1980 and the Mariel Boatlift Cubans were brought in under a different combination of statuses that essentially fast-tracked them to residency without being classified as refugees.
Which brings up the additional point that domestic legislation providing rights and expectations of treatments can also kick in if those in the camps are called refugees. Make no mistake, despite all the buffoonery there are some White House officials who understand that if they want to fulfill the camps’ real political goals without interference they have to be very careful about these things.
Never thought I’d see the USA do something like this. When I was growing up World War 2 was 20 years ago - closer than the nostalgic '80s. All that systemic imprisonment and murder was all too recent and real during my childhood. Although I’m not jewish myself I grew up in a community that was at least 60% jewish, and all us kids knew exactly what had gone down. I can’t tell you how sick it makes me feel to know that the USA has done this, even taken one tiny baby step towards this - no we are full in with both feet, as if Germany and the Nazis never happened.
Trump has got to go, even if we all have to show up with pitchforks and torches.
What’s amazing to me is not only is there that denial that they’re concentration camps (which falls apart, because they’re conflating concentration camps and death camps), but also those that accept that they’re concentration camps, technically, but insist we not call them that and anyone who does so is trying to score cheap political points because the word is so emotionally charged. (Leaving aside that it’s emotionally charged because concentration camps are bad, even without Nazi associations. Also leaving aside that the Nazis started out with concentration camps to dehumanize the people in them and pave the way for death camps.)
At this point, that may be the least of it… I never thought I’d say this, but the “concentration camps” are going to turn into “death camps.” Deaths from (deliberate) negligence are going to increase - it’s just going to be a matter of scale.
This was always America, though. The Nazis looked to US practices and policies as guides for their own.
Even dousing captive people with Zyklon B happened in the US, first - on Mexican immigrants. Everything old is new again.
The whole idea is to paint the people as hysterics who cannot be taken seriously because they are using such a loaded phrase. The people who employ those arguments are just deflecting scumbags. Pure and simple.
Dehumanizing, check. Inhumane conditions, check. Physical, sexual, emotional and mental abuse? Check. Concentration camps. CHECK. Death camps? “Only a little bit deathy” “We don’t intentionally kill them, they just seem to die!” Yeah, check on that too.
