Good Twitter thread on the horror of "concentration camps" and the applicability of that term to migrants being detained at the Southern border

[K1052]

I agree on the child separation being a debacle. That was coming from pure Republican hate. But I believe Maher was specifically referring to the use of "concentration camps" as a narrative. It could easily backfire as Maher pointed out. There are enough valid immigration problems to complain about without using what could be easily considered a false narrative. And apparently Savage thinks we are on the road to death camps and fascism. Sounds like many here. When you go extreme like that people just turn it off. It just creates and echo chamber for those complaining.

Given the stories of mistreatment coming out of the detention facilities I don’t think it’s overheated rhetoric in the least. If the government can get away with this brutality they’ll move on to the next level. It has always been that way. Instead of splitting hairs over what to call the camps people are more concerned with what’s actually happening. The language does bring a vivid awareness of the issue though. The indignity of conservatives over the terminology is a distraction that should not be indulged. Again I think Maher is often very wrong and he is here again.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Trumpsters voted for it. Fuck them icky brown invaders & their little kids, too. Fuck 'em all. Make Mexico deal with it.

I get that, but at what point does the country (who for as much as we are aware the non-trump supporters outnumber the trump supporters) stand up and do something about it? Do people have to start being deliberately killed? You don't compare something to the Nazi genocide lightly. I don't for a second believe the intent of that was anything but that comparison. We don't want it to get to that point, but if the dems haven't stopped it by now, it isn't going to stop by the hand of politicians. (I see there was something in the works that might help some though). I just find the 'can't wait until 2020' mentality to be a bit numb if everyone thinks this is as serious as is being claimed.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Then it's accurate to call prisons concentration camps.
The simple reality is that AOC want's every single person who comes to the US border allowed free access through it. That doesn't work. The unbelievably lax security at the border is the reason people show up by the thousands expecting to walk through.
While it's great to have an underclass to oppress, eventually all of the assorted problems that come along with unregulated immigration have to be dealt with, the people we oppress get tired of being at the bottom of the heap and want their cut of the American dream as well.

AOC gets a lot of miles out pointing out whats wrong, but never offers any method of correcting the problem.

Damn, that's a really big pile of straw you've gathered there bunky.



Oh yeah, your slip is showing.

 

[Lanyap]

Yeesh:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/are-rosaries-taken-immigrants-border/

Pretty fucked up.

Really, another Nazi comparison?

The rosaries picture was taken from a New Yorker article dated March 12, 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/p...hings-confiscated-from-migrants-in-the-desert

Here is a more recent article from NYT with more details and pictures with dates between 2013 and 2016. I guess Obama was a Nazi. If you look hard enough you will probably find that CBP has been using this confiscation process for decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/arts/immigrant-belongings-border-photos.html

Mr. Kiefer began working with Customs and Border Protection in 2003, during the George W. Bush administration, and left late in Barack Obama's second term.

When migrants are apprehended, Daniel Hernandez, a Border Patrol spokesman, said agents confiscate items migrants carry with them, much like when a person is admitted to jail. Even as the immigration debate has reignited under President Trump, Mr. Hernandez said that little has changed with regard to what undocumented migrants are allowed to keep when stopped by agents.

Items are cataloged, stored and, later, returned, he said. But possessions are often left behind and end up in the trash: soiled clothing, books, wallets and photographs. Other items are seized, including food, lighters, knives and anything deemed dangerous.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I think references to 'concentration camps' need to be kept distinct from over-the-top Nazi and Holocaust references. The latter seem so overwrought as to make me wonder whether they are deliberate false-flag stuff.

Concentration camps are not just Nazi, us Brits used them in the Boer war, the Spanish used them in Cuba, and I sometimes wonder what exactly the difference is with the 'fortified hamlets' the US employed in Vietnam.

The essence is surely just about 'concentrating' civilians who are seen as potential enemies, in one place, the better to control them. After that they can have varying levels of brutality.

Edit - so it's not wildly inaccurate to call these migrant-detention centres concentration camps.

People understand there is a difference currently (after all the Turmp administration hasn't requested Honeywell, GE, or other corporations for large furnaces for burning bodies). But that's kinda the thing, the one tends to alarmingly often lead to the other, hence why people cite the most well known example of when that happened, because if you don't make a fuss about it before it gets to that point, often times that leaves a vacuum during which horrible assholes will decided to take that next step. Plus, when the people doing this here have so often courted Nazis and white supremacists, it really isn't like there's no legitimate reason to make such connections.

It is pretty weird that you cite examples where there actually pretty much was genocide along with the concentration camps while you argue that we shouldn't just say that concentration camps means genocide. Granted the US does tend to do the genocide before the camps, but no matter who's doing either one, seems that the two just happen to often correlate. Its just right wingers desperate to pretend this isn't really happening so don't want to hear it, or the ones that are loving it and just don't want the alarm bells to go off so that maybe something will be done to put a stop to it.

I guess I really don't get why you feel the need to interject like there's not an alarming amount of these right wingers openly starting to call for us to just start murdering various groups. I'd much rather demonize people that are intentionally putting people into camps, especially when they've spouted a LOT of hate speech and rhetoric demonizing the people they're putting in those camps. But you seem to prefer to wait until they start murdering them at scale before you're ok with people calling out such disgusting, despicable, inhuman (sadly it seems to be inherently human as you're keen to point out) behavior.

Its not only "not wildly inaccurate" its literally the fucking definition of the goddamn phrase.

This is the part I'm confused by....so if no one approves of it, why is it still happening? Surely our politicians are doing the will of the people. Is it revolution time yet?

Because there are people that do approve of it. Plus, its like you've been living in a cave. Republicans don't give a shit about most of America approving or not of something they do.

It might be, but if it is, we're not at all ready for it and it'll just lead to outright civil war as there's enough right wing psychopaths eager for some bloodshed, and I'm not sure that our military will actually stand up for the American people. "Some who work forces, are the same who burn crosses" and there's a bunch of red states that would likely call their national guard (aka, the actual militia that the founding fathers were talking about with the 2nd Amendment) to defend Republicans or stand down if the Republicans start getting violent.

 

[Lanyap]

People understand there is a difference currently (after all the Turmp administration hasn't requested Honeywell, GE, or other corporations for large furnaces for burning bodies). But that's kinda the thing, the one tends to alarmingly often lead to the other, hence why people cite the most well known example of when that happened, because if you don't make a fuss about it before it gets to that point, often times that leaves a vacuum during which horrible assholes will decided to take that next step. Plus, when the people doing this here have so often courted Nazis and white supremacists, it really isn't like there's no legitimate reason to make such connections.

It is pretty weird that you cite examples where there actually pretty much was genocide along with the concentration camps while you argue that we shouldn't just say that concentration camps means genocide. Granted the US does tend to do the genocide before the camps, but no matter who's doing either one, seems that the two just happen to often correlate. Its just right wingers desperate to pretend this isn't really happening so don't want to hear it, or the ones that are loving it and just don't want the alarm bells to go off so that maybe something will be done to put a stop to it.

I guess I really don't get why you feel the need to interject like there's not an alarming amount of these right wingers openly starting to call for us to just start murdering various groups. I'd much rather demonize people that are intentionally putting people into camps, especially when they've spouted a LOT of hate speech and rhetoric demonizing the people they're putting in those camps. But you seem to prefer to wait until they start murdering them at scale before you're ok with people calling out such disgusting, despicable, inhuman (sadly it seems to be inherently human as you're keen to point out) behavior.

Its not only "not wildly inaccurate" its literally the fucking definition of the goddamn phrase.



Because there are people that do approve of it. Plus, its like you've been living in a cave. Republicans don't give a shit about most of America approving or not of something they do.

It might be, but if it is, we're not at all ready for it and it'll just lead to outright civil war as there's enough right wing psychopaths eager for some bloodshed, and I'm not sure that our military will actually stand up for the American people. "Some who work forces, are the same who burn crosses" and there's a bunch of red states that would likely call their national guard (aka, the actual militia that the founding fathers were talking about with the 2nd Amendment) to defend Republicans or stand down if the Republicans start getting violent.

You guys are really triggered up. So you think Trump will become a dictator/Hitler and send all of the POCs and dems to the ovens. Too bad you guys gave up your guns.

 

[mikeymikec]

Really, another Nazi comparison?

The rosaries picture was taken from a New Yorker article dated March 12, 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/p...hings-confiscated-from-migrants-in-the-desert

Here is a more recent article from NYT with more details and pictures with dates between 2013 and 2016. I guess Obama was a Nazi. If you look hard enough you will probably find that CBP has been using this confiscation process for decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/arts/immigrant-belongings-border-photos.html

If you had bothered to read the snopes article, it references the same guy and article.

If you had bothered to read my contributions to this thread, I haven't called Trump a Nazi because of this rosaries thing. I think a lot of really shitty, inhumane things are going on around the world because the governments of supposedly civilised countries feel that anything goes in the name of national security. For example, the US's post-9/11 ideas of treating airports like Guantanamo Bay in that people going through that zone aren't subject to the normal laws that they'd expect in a civilised country, and agents of that airport can basically do as they please with peoples' private stuff without even a substantial suspicion of wrong-doing, no access to a lawyer, etc. Australia's detention centres are pretty shitty as well from what I understand.

There's also shitty wording being used such as 'catch and release' as if immigrants are freaking animals.

I think Trump dialling up the xenophobic rhetoric isn't helping the situation either, and many agents of the state are likely to feel empowered by his rhetoric into doing even shittier things. In the Obama era, would the DOJ be arguing on public record that toothbrushes and soap aren't necessary for sanitary conditions? I don't know. It wouldn't make Obama right for presiding over such a situation if it had happened.

I also find it a bit disturbing that the main thrust of your point was, "but Obama!" rather than, "this has been going on longer than I think you know".

Add all this up and I think it results in a society largely becoming desensitised to inhumane behaviour and the generation of childish excuses for why this behaviour is warranted (many of which have been trotted out in this or the other 'camps' thread), and all in all it's another step towards vile situations like the holocaust.

 

[pmv]

Then it's accurate to call prisons concentration camps.
The simple reality is that AOC want's every single person who comes to the US border allowed free access through it. That doesn't work. The unbelievably lax security at the border is the reason people show up by the thousands expecting to walk through.
While it's great to have an underclass to oppress, eventually all of the assorted problems that come along with unregulated immigration have to be dealt with, the people we oppress get tired of being at the bottom of the heap and want their cut of the American dream as well.

AOC gets a lot of miles out pointing out whats wrong, but never offers any method of correcting the problem.

Prisoners have usually had a trial. They are also usually citizens of the country concerned. That said, US prisons do indeed often appear to be pretty brutal. The US has the largest prison population outside of China, don't forget.

If you had bothered to read the snopes article, it references the same guy and article.

If you had bothered to read my contributions to this thread, I haven't called Trump a Nazi because of this rosaries thing. I think a lot of really shitty, inhumane things are going on around the world because the governments of supposedly civilised countries feel that anything goes in the name of national security. For example, the US's post-9/11 ideas of treating airports like Guantanamo Bay in that people going through that zone aren't subject to the normal laws that they'd expect in a civilised country, and agents of that airport can basically do as they please with peoples' private stuff without even a substantial suspicion of wrong-doing, no access to a lawyer, etc. Australia's detention centres are pretty shitty as well from what I understand.

There's also shitty wording being used such as 'catch and release' as if immigrants are freaking animals.

I think Trump dialling up the xenophobic rhetoric isn't helping the situation either, and many agents of the state are likely to feel empowered by his rhetoric into doing even shittier things. In the Obama era, would the DOJ be arguing on public record that toothbrushes and soap aren't necessary for sanitary conditions? I don't know. It wouldn't make Obama right for presiding over such a situation if it had happened.

I also find it a bit disturbing that the main thrust of your point was, "but Obama!" rather than, "this has been going on longer than I think you know".

Add all this up and I think it results in a society largely becoming desensitised to inhumane behaviour and the generation of childish excuses for why this behaviour is warranted (many of which have been trotted out in this or the other 'camps' thread), and all in all it's another step towards vile situations like the holocaust.

I agree it's driven by similar attitudes to those that ultimately can lead to something like the Holocaust. I don't think it's useful to leap straight to that end-point/extreme case as a comparator, for a situation where nobody is being systematically killed, because it leaves you nowhere to go when things do get worse. Concentration camps were and are distinct from extermination camps, so I think that's not an unreasonable term.

I think Holocaust-comparisons should be used very sparingly, because otherwise you risk creating a kind of moral-equivalence that lets the genuine Nazis off the hook. It's why, despite seeing it as a never-ending series of crimes, I don't know that I entirely agree with comparing the British Empire to the Nazis. I've encountered people doing that (plus and with the US behaviour in Vietnam or treatement of the American Indians), started off thinking they had a point till it became apparent that they were actually neo-Nazis themselves - those guys love relativising their crimes in order to minimise them and to make WW2 look like a clash between moral-equivalents.

Heck, the international definition of anti-Semitism (that the Labour Party has been bludgeoned into accepting into it's own constitution) decrees that it's de-facto anti-semitic to make any comparison between the behaviour of the government of Israel and the Nazis (I am OK with that definition, but it does seem oddly contingent, and I wonder if it will be revised if Israeli behaviour changes...it seems odd to make that a blanket rule, with no consideration of what the Israeli government actually does). Given how close Trump is to Netanyahu, it seems even odder that one can compare US policies but not Israeli ones.

Racism and imperialism are what they are and should be denounced on their own terms, but I don't think it's the same thing as Nazism.

Edit - the more I think about it the more I find my opinions conflicting with each other. Trump very clearly is happy to be pals with actual Nazi-sympathisers. There's a history of US fascism which he clearly invokes. But he isn't the whole nine-yards yet.

 

[mikeymikec]

Heck, the international definition of anti-Semitism (that the Labour Party has been bludgeoned into accepting into it's own constitution) decrees that it's de-facto anti-semitic to make any comparison between the behaviour of the government of Israel and the Nazis (I am OK with that definition

I'm absolutely not OK with that definition because a) it makes about as much sense as that Illinois candidate claiming that he wasn't a Nazi because he wasn't an active member of the local Nazi party, and b) because it helps shield the Israeli government from criticism.

and I wonder if it will be revised if Israeli behaviour changes...it seems odd to make that a blanket rule

Considering that Israel came up with such a fucked-up definition right around the time that they're being the bully rather than the bullied, I think it would take a virtual miracle.

Personally I'd just roll any anti-religious sentiment (ie. comments that disparage followers of a faith for reasons other than that faith's actively and generally held beliefs) into one term and be done with it. Hate speech intended to slur Jewish people is no worse or better than speech intended to slur Muslims or Christians and nor is the focus of that hate speech particularly different (Islamophobic comments often revolve around them wanting to take over the world and impose Sharia Law etc, and anti-Semitic comments often revolve around cloak-and-dagger conspiracy theories about them wanting to take over the world), so why do we need a unique term for hate speech aimed at a particular faith?

Apologies to everyone else for me taking this a wee bit off-topic

 

[pmv]

I'm absolutely not OK with that definition because a) it makes about as much sense as that Illinois candidate claiming that he wasn't a Nazi because he wasn't an active member of the local Nazi party, and b) because it helps shield the Israeli government from criticism.



Considering that Israel came up with such a fucked-up definition right around the time that they're being the bully rather than the bullied, I think it would take a virtual miracle.

Personally I'd just roll any anti-religious sentiment (ie. comments that disparage followers of a faith for reasons other than that faith's actively and generally held beliefs) into one term and be done with it. Hate speech intended to slur Jewish people is no worse or better than speech intended to slur Muslims or Christians and nor is the focus of that hate speech particularly different (Islamophobic comments often revolve around them wanting to take over the world and impose Sharia Law etc, and anti-Semitic comments often revolve around cloak-and-dagger conspiracy theories about them wanting to take over the world), so why do we need a unique term for hate speech aimed at a particular faith?

Apologies to everyone else for me taking this a wee bit off-topic

To be honest, that row over Corbyn and Labour and the 'internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism' did my head in, because I kept flipping back-and-forth over it. I _can_ see how sometimes comparisons of Israel and the Nazis are over-the-top and are deliberately touching on a sensitive point. I don't think Israel is any worse than any number of European colonial powers, and colonialism isn't Nazism.

And there _is_ a particular distinction about anti-Jewish sentiment, in that there was a Holocaust, and that the Nazis defined Jews racially, not just as a religion. Just as with 'black people', it's a race not because of biology but because racists made it one. Race is indeed socially-constructed, and racism is the primary tool of construction.

But it did seem a bit odd how so much of that definition is devoted to what you can and can't say about Israel, rather than Jewish people in general. And it didn't say what one would be supposed to do if Israel _did_ in fact go fascist (Netanyahu has sounded very much like Trump/Erdogan/Putin at times, what with his talk about how the weak are despised and only the strong are respected). Maybe one can speak of 'fascism', just not Nazism.

And I notice that the Tories refusal to accept a definition of Islamophobia got nothing like the 24/7-for-months coverage that the Labour party row over anti-semitism did. In fact it got almost no coverage at all.

This should be it's own thread, but I never feel like starting threads because it feels like doing so carries an obligation to carry on with the debate interminably, and I don't know how much I have to say about it. I find the Israel/Palestine dispute impossibly difficult.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Seeking asylum in the US is illegal if you cross thru another country to seek asylum, according to the GOP. Now if you were to swim here that's a different story. People should be able to seek asylum at all U.S. Embassies and Consulates throughout the world as well as at our borders.

"Seeking Asylum" is by definition - seeking a safe place to live. if you traveled through 3+ countries to get to another country... It's no longer asylum. It's being choosie.

There are plenty of places in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc.. that have plenty of well developed cities with opportunities. Not every city is a drug kingpin place.

Not to mention, if you ever want to develop these nations you need to stop taking their working class. All that will be left are the criminals running the shit cities and that will all just culminate into a massive exodus the likes of Venezuela.

 

[dainthomas]

"Seeking Asylum" is by definition - seeking a safe place to live. if you traveled through 3+ countries to get to another country... It's no longer asylum. It's being choosie.

There are plenty of places in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc.. that have plenty of well developed cities with opportunities. Not every city is a drug kingpin place.

Not to mention, if you ever want to develop these nations you need to stop taking their working class. All that will be left are the criminals running the shit cities and that will all just culminate into a massive exodus the likes of Venezuela.

Just like all those millions of unfortunate working class Irish leaving their home country, and now it's nothing but desolate shit cities. Oh wait.....

 

[ondma]

Ironic. All this outrage by supporters of a president who has repeatedly called the free press the "enemy of the people". One can argue whether they are truly "concentration camps" or not, but they certainly are a disgrace to our country, and a little hyperbole seems like understatement to the outrageous statements we hear from Trump every day.

Edit: I have repeatedly called AOC "batshit crazy" and still think her green new deal fits that description, but I am beginning to think she is the only Democrat with the "balls" to take on Trump, if she were old enough to run.

 

[mikeymikec]

"Seeking Asylum" is by definition - seeking a safe place to live. if you traveled through 3+ countries to get to another country... It's no longer asylum. It's being choosie.

Walking a few hundred miles is you're a desperate asylum seeker, but walking more obviously means you're not desperate?

Your posts make sense when you write them, right?

 

[DarthKyrie]

Just like all those millions of unfortunate working class Irish leaving their home country, and now it's nothing but desolate shit cities. Oh wait.....

My maternal grandfather came here with his parents in the 1920s and they were not wanted around even in Boston. I have heard stories of help wanted signs in windows but under the big HELP WANTED was written Irish need not apply. The Irish were treated worse than black people in New England at that time.

 

[DarthKyrie]

Walking a few hundred miles is you're a desperate asylum seeker, but walking more obviously means you're not desperate?

Your posts make sense when you write them, right?

Desperate people don't walk 1500 miles.

/s

 

[mikeymikec]

nvm

 

[DarthKyrie]

nvm

Let me guess you didn't notice the /s when you replied?

 

[Zaap]

Walking a few hundred miles is you're a desperate asylum seeker, but walking more obviously means you're not desperate?

Your posts make sense when you write them, right?

So if I walked a few hundred miles and found safety for my family in a small house... but I chose to keep walking a few hundred more miles to Bill Gate's beach house- it proves I'm desperate.

Got it.

 

[feralkid]

So if I walked a few hundred miles and found safety for my family in a small house... but I chose to keep walking a few hundred more miles to Bill Gate's beach house- it proves I'm desperate.

Got it.

How about walking a few hundred miles off a short pier?

 

[Zaap]

How about walking a few hundred miles off a short pier?

you first. The absolute lack of logic in this subforum of the same (what are we down to now, about 6 people?) nitwits all regurgitating the same shit is funny as hell!

 

[dainthomas]

So if I walked a few hundred miles and found safety for my family in a small house... but I chose to keep walking a few hundred more miles to Bill Gate's beach house- it proves I'm desperate.

Got it.

Because all the people fleeing hardship in Europe didn't stop in Iceland, it proves they weren't really desperate. Even Canada is closer.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Because all the people fleeing hardship in Europe didn't stop in Iceland, it proves they weren't really desperate. Even Canada is closer.

And Europe is also paying Turkey FUCKING BUCKET loads of money - because MASSIVE IMMIGRATION doesn't do wonders for an economy you fucking moron.

If you like to compare to Europe - fine - let's pay Mexico to round up and prevent any and all central americans from getting here since you love to idolize them.

 

[dainthomas]

(incoherent babble)

Weird how the United States seemed be doing fine in the 19th century with basically unchecked immigration from Europe.

 

[Zaap]

Weird how the United States seemed be doing fine in the 19th century with basically unchecked immigration from Europe.

It wasn't by any stretch unchecked and it was all legal.