CMV: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right to describe the border detention facilities as concentration camps.
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Posted Jun 19, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC · edited
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My only contention to you is that the actions of the Holocaust have become what people now associate with the term concentration camp. Regardless of the actual definition the term is used to draw parallels between the two even though one is worse than the other. We describe our actions during WW2 as internment camps even though they meat the definition of a concentration camp cause they weren't on that same level.
I think the use of this term is expressly meant to imply that Trump is essentially Hitler even though there is not evidence to support her is any where near as bad.
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My only contention to you is that the actions of the Holocaust have become what people now associate with the term concentration camp.
This is, so far, the fairest statement on this I've seen today but I still disagree. It's not a good enough excuse to ignore legitimate problems because they're not quite as bad as the most extreme examples.
Regardless of the actual definition the term is used to draw parallels between the two even though one is worse than the other.
There are certainly many circumstances where Holocaust comparisons are totally inappropriate. This isn't one of them in my opinion.
We describe our actions during WW2 as internment camps even though they meat the definition of a concentration camp cause they weren't on that same level.
And I feel like that's whitewashing our own troubled history. We put Japanese people in concentration camps.
I think the use of this term is expressly meant to imply that Trump is essentially Hitler even though there is not evidence to support her is any where near as bad.
I know some people do this and, like I said before, this is definitely one of those trends I find incredibly offensive even as a someone who dislikes Trump. I don't think AOC is expressly doing this. She's a member of congress not some blue haired freak on Twitter with no rhetorical restraint.
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It's not a good enough excuse to ignore legitimate problems because they're not quite as bad as the most extreme examples.
I don't think it is fair to say you're ignoring it just because you avoid referring to it using the a term with extremely negative connotations. If AOC was talking about it using less extreme terms, she'd still be talking about it.
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Her use of the term wasn’t accidental. I think she was right to use it.
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Her use of the term wasn’t accidental.
I completely agree.
I think she was right to use it.
I somewhat agree.
But that doesn't really address what I said. You said:
It's not a good enough excuse to ignore legitimate problems because they're not quite as bad as the most extreme examples.
Nobody in here is suggesting we ignore legitimate problems or that these camps aren't a legitament problem. It is incorrect to say, "We shouldn't call them concentration camps" is the same as ignoring the problem.
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If she used less extreme terms we'd have already stopped talking about the horrible situation at hand.
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Let me flip that around: Does that justify incorrectly portraying the problem or exaggerating it? I'm not necessarily saying that AOC is doing either, but your justification for using extreme language doesn't sit well at all with me.
People that avoid using extreme terms that exaggerate the consequences of a topic aren't guilty of "ignoring legitament problems" just because they didn't fully scare everyone into action or continuing to talk about it as long as it is possible to push them into continuing to talk about it. Using whatever language is required to inspire people into action is inappropriate in a lot of situations, for example if you're straight up lying to get people into action.
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If she used less extreme terms, we'd have been discussing the horrible situation at hand more, without focusing on semantics around whether her term was correct. Instead of drawing attention to the stories that were getting picked up about Trump's USCIS pick sending out an email threatening asylum officers, or the story about the 1.5 year old who doesn't know how to walk yet, or the Trump threat to deport millions next week, we're talking about her choice of words.
She made it all about her by using a phrase intended to draw on the Jewish experience, and about her word choices, and now far fewer people are focused on the actual question of what to do to solve the border crisis. Instead, they're arguing over whether Yad Vashem is really just pro-Republican, what a concentration camp is, and whether AOC's comments illustrate her ignorance of the Holocaust.
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I agree with alot of what you say here. I believe AOC is intelligent enough that she understood what she was doing when she used that term. She used the term in order to get an emotional reaction due to the terms association with the Holocaust. She used the term because she wants a strong emotional response, it should come as no surprise that some of those responses are negative and I don't blame anyone for feeling she is either using the Holocaust for politics or minimizing the atrocities of the Holocaust by drawing any sort of comparison.
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You're using the bare-bones dictionary definition of a concentration camp to justify what AOC said. And so yes, by the simple definition of a place where people are concentrated, that would be correct. I want to quote what she said though:
”The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are – they are concentration camps – and if that doesn’t bother you,” Ocasio-Cortez said as she throws up her hands.
”I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that we should not — that ‘Never Again’ means something,” the New York Democrat said in a Q&A posted on politicsnowadays’ Instagram page.
So she's using language like "Never Again" to specifically evoke the Holocaust image of concentration camps. This is a rhetorical trick to basically say that the Trump administration is morally equivalent to the Nazi regime for putting illegal immigrants into detention centers to process their asylum claims before they are either released into the U.S. or returned to their home country.
Sane people can disagree in a debate about the merits of more open immigration policies, as well as methods to enforce the ones that are currently on the books. But no sane person can agree that concentration camps - in the sense that she is evoking using Holocaust referencing language - have any merit.
"Never Again" does not mean that countries don't have borders and the sovereignty to decide who gets to cross those borders. AOC is bastardizing a major humanitarian tragedy in order to make her position more sympathetic, but there is no moral equivalence between what is happening at the border and what happened in Nazi Germany.
Also, no one is stereotyping these people as stateless. They are coming from other countries, and are citizens of those countries. I'd like to see a citation for their belief that they're not citizens of those countries, because I don't believe that is an accurate statement. Most are coming here for economic reasons, which is not a category we grant asylum to.
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This is a rhetorical trick to basically say that the Trump administration is morally equivalent to the Nazi regime
Everything above this I believe to be justifiable. My only issue with this is that you're incorrectly saying she's trying to draw an equivalency with Nazis. She's making the case that she's concerned about resemblance to Nazi actions. That's more than fair.
But no sane person can agree that concentration camps - in the sense that she is evoking using Holocaust referencing language - have any merit.
I disagree entirely and I think you should be careful to use accusations of irrationality about someone you neither know or have ever spoken to in person. You're falling for Republicans telling you she's a young, hysterical, female Democrat.
"Never Again" does not mean that countries don't have borders and the sovereignty to decide who gets to cross those borders.
Did I even insinuate this? There's a reason I have three parentheses around my Twitter handle.
Also, no one is stereotyping these people as stateless.
Who's stereotyping? That's the physical reality of what it means to be a refugee.
I'd like to see a citation for their belief that they're not citizens of those countries, because I don't believe that is an accurate statement.
I did say this part poorly but I'll defer my edit to the above point in this comment.
Most are coming here for economic reasons, which is not a category we grant asylum to.
That's a huge cop out. Economic refugee status should be just as legitimate as escaping from violence. We have room and opportunity.
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Everything above this I believe to be justifiable. My only issue with this is that you're incorrectly saying she's trying to draw an equivalency with Nazis. She's making the case that she's concerned about resemblance to Nazi actions. That's more than fair.
She's pretty clearly trying to draw an equivalency. She's not saying "Guys, we look like Nazis," she's saying "Guys, let's prove that Never Again isn't an empty phrase by preventing the Trump administration from acting like Nazis." It's pretty explicit from her quote.
I disagree entirely and I think you should be careful to use accusations of irrationality about someone you neither know or have ever spoken to in person. You're falling for Republicans telling you she's a young, hysterical, female Democrat.
I wasn't talking about her being rational or irrational. I'm saying that no rational person can agree to the idea of the government running concentration camps in the Nazi mold. By her drawing the equivalence, she's trying to remove the possibility that there are legitimate reasons to detain people who cross the border illegally and are awaiting the asylum process by hyping up the rhetoric with Holocaust imagery.
Did I even insinuate this? There's a reason I have three parentheses around my Twitter handle.
She did, and by you saying it's appropriate and correct, you did by extension. You being Jewish doesn't make you the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes an acceptable level of appropriating Holocaust imagery.
Who's stereotyping? That's the physical reality of what it means to be a refugee.
I was responding to the paragraph in your original post where you said: Finally, if we refuse to admit that these detention centers are concentration camps, we're playing into the same "stateless people" stereotype that plagued Jews and Roma during the build up to the mass exterminations. These asylum seekers no longer consider themselves citizens of the countries from which they came, so these effectively stateless people are being held in detention for not having a home to go to. That's so similar to the Holocaust that it cannot be ignored.
Migrants are not automatically refugees. Refugees are seeking refuge, not opportunity. And this situation is so not like the Holocaust it's ridiculous. Hitler was liquidating people within the territory he controlled because of their race or ethnicity. In this case, the U.S. is holding people who enter illegally so they can be processed and either granted asylum if they merit it under our asylum laws, or returned to their home country. They're not being detained for not having a home to go to, they're being detained for coming here without going through the proper channels. Any of them can end their detention immediately by deciding they want to return to where they came from, the government only can hold them as long as they intend to remain in the United States.
That's a huge cop out. Economic refugee status should be just as legitimate as escaping from violence. We have room and opportunity
That's a separate CMV, but our asylum system is set up for people fleeing persecution and violence, not poverty. There's a whole fair discussion about the extent or limits we as a country should allow of immigration (I happen to believe in mostly open immigration), but under the current regime of immigration law, you are not eligible for asylum because you're poor in Guatemala and want to get a job in the U.S. to make more money.
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She's not saying "Guys, we look like Nazis," she's saying "Guys, let's prove that Never Again isn't an empty phrase by preventing the Trump administration from acting like Nazis." It's pretty explicit from her quote.
Please don't take this to be more offensive than I mean it but this is a meaningless statement. You're describing exactly what she's doing but then calling it what you want to call it instead.
By her drawing the equivalence, she's trying to remove the possibility that there are legitimate reasons to detain people who cross the border illegally and are awaiting the asylum process by hyping up the rhetoric with Holocaust imagery.
Wrong. She's saying the conditions in which we're indefinitely holding these people resembles Nazi concentration camps. If you stop thinking Auschwitz and start thinking more Dachau, then she has a really good point.
You being Jewish doesn't make you the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes an acceptable level of appropriating Holocaust imagery.
No but I'm also not a (((globalist))) which is my point. I'm more making a joke, but globalist is like the number two Jewish stereotype behind being rich and greedy. Borders are important and neither me not AOC has said they're not.
Migrants are not automatically refugees.
Sure, but let's work under these premises - Migrant = someone who wants to leave. Refugee = someone who has to leave. Even if the reasons are economic, the necessity to leave your own country due to a severe lack of opportunity should be considered refugee status, especially in the worlds richest country.
That's a separate CMV, but our asylum system is set up for people fleeing persecution and violence, not poverty.
Agreed, so convince me that AOC is categorically wrong and I concede. That's how this works right?
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You can't leave concentration camps, the people in the border camps can leave whenever they like. They are only in the camps because they are choosing to ask for asylum.
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You can't leave concentration camps, the people in the border camps can leave whenever they like.
Can they? I don't mean to sound like an extreme slippery slope but Hitler also said Jews and everyone else undesirable were allowed to leave before he said fuck it let's kill em all.
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The Jews weren't sneaking into Germany against the laws. They were already there. There is no equivalency.
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I must have missed that day of history class. You have a source for that?
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So you think they're all going to be executed at some point?
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It doesn't apply though.
A. At least for one group of refugees, probably more, were offered a place in Mexico.
B. America is not conquering other parts of North America nor is it likely to.
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By your own definition they aren't concentration camps. They aren't political prisoners, or persecuted minorities, they are people of any color and heritage from all over central and South America and even Africa who broke the law by crossing illegally, and are waiting for their appearance before a judge.
Also AOC is trying to high jack "never forget" which I'm sure you know has always been associated with the holocaust. She wasn't talking about a "Generic" concentration camp, she was focused on comparing it to the Nazi camps. I don't recall a lot of Jews digging tunnels or jumping fences to get INTO Nazi Germany.
AOC then doubled down by comparing it to Japanese interment camps, which is still insane. That's a pretty good example of when America flirted with fascism though, rounding up American citizens who had done nothing wrong just because of how they look? that fits your definition of concentration camp. Detaining people while they wait for their court date? that's called a jail.
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The term "concentration camp" has an undeniable connection to Nazism. If one is being objective and honest, there are very few instances where that term can be considered to be warranted. People in concentration camps, as everyone understands the term, were brought there by force, with minimal or no legal justification, kept against their will indefinitely, and awaited an uncertain fate. Soviet gulags, North Korean "reeducation" centers, Japanese-American internment camps, Balkan war civilian prisoner camps -- all of those you could certainly call "concentration camps."
The people at the border are not in concentration camps. They are in detention/holding centers. I imagine it's not pleasant. I would hope we are doing as much as we can for them. But they are there because they came to the border on their own accord, and they need to be housed somewhere. They were not rounded up at gunpoint, loaded into trains, Black Marias, or pickups and hauled to a camp. We also know they they have legal rights, have concerned citizens working on their behalf, and they are absolutely not in danger of being taken out, lined up, and shot at any moment -- which was something people in actual concentration camps had to worry about every single day.
So, again, Ocasio-Cortez is either sloppy with her word usage or deliberately seeking a Nazi comparison to rally the troops.
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The term "concentration camp" has an undeniable connection to Nazism.
Maybe we should change that association to "extermination camps" because that's the only thing specifically representative of Nazi actions.
If one is being objective and honest, there are very few instances where that term can be considered to be warranted.
I think this is one of them.
People in concentration camps, as everyone understands the term, were brought there by force, with minimal or no legal justification, kept against their will indefinitely, and awaited an uncertain fate.
Sounds pretty familiar. Sure, there's more legal justification but again, that doesn't necessarily make this wrong.
Soviet gulags, North Korean "reeducation" centers, Japanese-American internment camps, Balkan war civilian prisoner camps -- all of those you could certainly call "concentration camps."
Agreed.
They are in detention/holding centers.
What's the key difference?
But they are there because they came to the border on their own accord, and they need to be housed somewhere. They were not rounded up at gunpoint, loaded into trains, Black Marias, or pickups and hauled to a camp.
Again, this is actually happening. Admittedly, it's not as mafioso/KGB/Gestapo style as this description, but people are getting separated from their families and shipped around the country to be held wherever there's beds.
We also know they they have legal rights, have concerned citizens working on their behalf, and they are absolutely not in danger of being taken out, lined up, and shot at any moment -- which was something people in actual concentration camps had to worry about every single day.
If someone doesn't have access to a fair and speedy trial, their rights have been violated. There were also Germans, Poles, French, and other Europeans who helped people trying to escape the Nazis, so the civilian assistance aspect is not new or unique. Sure, these people aren't getting shot, but there are people, including children dying under ICE and HHS supervision.
So, again, Ocasio-Cortez is either sloppy with her word usage or deliberately seeking a Nazi comparison to rally the troops.
She's definitely trying to rally the troops. And she's right to do so. That's what McConnell does every day when he lies to the Republican base about the "Democrat [sic] party" and socialism.
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Maybe we should change that association to "extermination camps" because that's the only thing specifically representative of Nazi actions.
This is incorrect. The Nazis used both, and both have been associated with the Nazis and primarily the Nazis. If you google concentration camp, the Nazi concentration camps are what comes up. Auschwitz was not an extermination camp, it was primarily a concentration camp. Most of the top results on Google for concentration camp relate to the Holocaust, not to any other examples. Merriam Webster says a concentration camp is:
: a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard —used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners
The Nazis are irrevocably and primarily tied to the concentration camp term, not to extermination camps. The concentration camps are specifically representative of Nazi actions every bit as much as extermination camps were.
Google's dictionary defines concentration camps as:
a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.
Dictionary.com agrees:
a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., especially any of the camps established by the Nazis prior to and during World War II for the confinement and persecution of prisoners.
This is a distraction. We're arguing semantics now, even though it's quite clear what AOC was referring to and drawing from, and what she's drawing from is not the same as what these migrants are experiencing. She could've easily chosen a different word, and kept the focus on the migrants and victims. She didn't.
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they need to be housed somewhere.
Do they? Previously they've been given a court date and set free and that worked fine and didn't lead to human rights abuses.
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Japanese-American internment camps
Without the forced labor, extreme physical neglect and zero human rights.
Yes, racist and unjust they were, but 'concentration camps' may be a bridge too far.
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Nailed it. Couldn't have described it better.
AOC is out of her mind if she actually thinks comparing the work that the US border Patrol does to concentration camps. Shame on her.
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Seeking Asylum does not give you a blank ticket to enter a country. You have to be held in a processing center why your case is reviewed and asylum is granted or denied. Few of those seeking asylum qualify as fleeing for economic reasons is not one of the criteria that grant asylum, neither is fleeing general crime such as the gangs. You have to be facing personal persecution from the government or other powerful entities based on political opinion, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or association with a group.
The normal holding facilities are well beyond their normal capacities and so they have to be held in camps or just outright denied without review. They cannot be allowed to enter and roam about the country waiting for their court date which can take months (and months is well within the reasonable timeframe for a swift trial). As such there is absolutely nothing morally or legally wrong with these detainment centers.
But calling these holding facilities internment camps, while accurate to the pre-WWII definition, is not accurate communication. WWII changed a lot things, and just like the Swastika is forever tainted the term internment camp or concentration camp is forever tainted. When you use that term in modernity it carries the baggage of the death camps.
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She was not incorrect to make the comparison with concentration camps but she stepped over the line when she then also made the association with fascism. When we take the twin concepts of fascism and concentration camps in the same description the association with Nazism and death camps cannot be avoided. That is an association that is entirely unwarranted and is massively excessive to what is happening.
The term internment camp would have been more apposite and would have better described - especially in the context of US history - what is happening.
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They are not political prisoners, they are not persecuted minorites, they are not being put to work, they are not going to be exterminated. Hell they are even free to leave if they so choose, albeit back to their own country.
The only similarity that can be drawn to concentration camps is the fact that they are camps, and potentially overcrowded, and under resourced. The difference being they are over populated due to large influx of illegal immigration and they are under resourced due to lack of funding and overpopulation.
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No.
con·cen·tra·tion camp /ˌkänsənˈtrāSHən ˈˌkamp/ noun a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.
Fits just fine.
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Fits just fine.
That’s a strange way to write “doesn’t fit at all”
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Keeping in mind the origin of the quote, it’s extremely unlikely to be interpreted by the people in the way you are pointing out.
It’s very easy to see this is for what it is, political rhetoric.
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Germany used the phrase ‘concentration camp’ because it previously had a more innocuous usage. It was originally used to describe camps for enemy non combatants in the boer war. People did die in those camps but it was by no means intentional.
The proper word for what the Nazi camps were forced labor camps and death camps. They didn’t call them that for propaganda reasons but I’d argue that because of the infamy of their actions that this is now the true meaning.
The nazis did this a lot. They used euphemistic titles or innocuous sounding titles for terrible things. It was a strategy.
In other words, do you think AOC is referencing the nazis style death camps or the boer war style internment camps? If it’s the former, then there needs to be forced labor or literal organized killing imo.
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Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers are here of their own volition. The reason that facilities are inadequate is because there's too many people flooding into them. Last month, 1000 migrants were detained in a single city, in a single day. A giant camp was opened, costing $36.9 million on the taxpayers dime. It features air conditioning and entertainment services. Centers are bending over backwards to provide whatever comfort they can. But it's not enough because there are too many people. The article states that the flow of migrants is 1200 per day. 1200 per day.
The reason conditions are bad is because there are too many people. I repeat, there are too many people. Repeating again for emphasis, there are too many people. Seriously.
We are not "targeting" anyone. That is a deliberate falsehood on your part. Letting illegal immigrants roam free just because they stepped over the border isn't an option. They have to wait for processing because that's what the procedure is for entering the country. It happens everywhere, even airports, it's just that there aren't camps full of thousands of people waiting in line in those places.
These asylum seekers no longer consider themselves citizens of the countries from which they came.
Their own opinion of themselves is literally not our problem.
these effectively stateless people are being held in detention for not having a home to go to
Reminder, they deliberately left their own homes, by their own volition. Many of them even send remittance money back to their real homes to help the remainder of their family. In rare cases, some of them even return.
That's so similar to the Holocaust that it cannot be ignored.
No, it's really not accurate. Daycare centers are similar to concentration camps too by some definitions. Kids don't have a choice to leave, and sometimes they're even forced to perform labor like making artwork or reading books.
Changing definitions, invoking your own arbitrary definition of "stateless people" and claiming that "anyone who refuses to admit" your own definition is emotional and psychological manipulation for political purposes.
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Despite the long explanation, I find your claim ambiguous.
In what sense do you mean the word "right"?
If you mean "right" in the theoretical sense - that is, the detention centres fall under a reasonable definition of what a concentration camp is - I'm disinclined to argue the point; it's just semantics.
If, additionally, you mean "right" in the practical sense - that is, Ocasio-Cortez acted well: she was right to use the phrase - then no, I disagree.
Here's why. Since 1945, the phrase "concentration camp" has acquired very strong and immediate connotations: Hitler, Nazi Germany, Jews, gas chambers. You're correct to say the meaning of the phrase is not exhausted in those connotations... but that is just not the point. AOC understood the connotations perfectly well. She knew exactly how that phrase would be heard and understood. So she was only "right" to use it if what's happening in the detention centres on the Southern Border is comparable to what was happening in Auschwitz and Daschau. And it clearly isn't.
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Where does the fact that the vast majority of them don't qualify for asylum fit into this?
Also... it's difficult to see that you are willing to talk about 'nuance' when you are talking about your side of this argument, but that nuance goes away when you want to talk about your strict and very much not nuanced definition of 'concentration camps'.
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I'm gonna just focus on one point of the defenition.
These people are not doing hard labor nor are they awaiting mass execution. They are doing a lot of waiting. Waiting to see how a court tries them. Immigration law is tricky but people can be deported even if they have been here up to 2 years.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Imigration Responsibility Act of 1996 essentially sums up to: "Under the expedited removal process, immigrants who have been in the country illegally for less than two years and are apprehended within 100 miles of the border can be deported almost immediately without going through a court hearing. The exception is asylum seekers, who must be granted a hearing. Those who are not processed through expedited removal have the right to due process in an immigration court, where the main goal is to decide whether a person has a legal claim to remain in the U.S." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-constitutional-rights-do-undocumented-immigrants-have
So to get back to my point, the closest things these can be referred to are internment camps, not only would that be better because they share a part of our history. Concentration brings up a very specific image in my mind of very lean and frail men and women who are obviously very dehydrated and malnourished with sores all over their bodies. I see the piles of burnt shoes and the haunted railroad tracks leading up to an ominous gateway.
These are images shared by most American's when you say the words "concentration camp." That is not what this is. These people are more in a jail-like environment and are having to be properly vetted. Almost all of these people needed to be vetted as some of the families coming through the border arent even actual families, it could be 2 human traffickers bringing in their next "products" or it could be a smuggler for one of the many Cartels. Because of the rising focus on human trafficking, it has become a huge problem to properly confirm everyone's identity, and it adversely affects the children so much.
So this CMV was about the term usage, so I am trying to provide some context to the other side and why they think the way they do. Yes a majority are awesome and amazing people who sadly keep getting detained, but it is due to the increasingly worrying actions of the "vocal" minority who ruin it for everyone.
From your other arguments I concede that I may not persuade you or change your view. But I am just hoping to shed some light on the immigration process that is at work there.
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Is she right in that she’s not incorrect, or that it’s proper for her to do so?
You can certainly make the case that what is happening on the border is a concentration camp by definition. But concentration camps have become so inextricably linked with the Holocaust, that you can’t mention them without thinking of it.
It’s impossible to call something a concentration camp without evoking comparisons to the Nazi camps.
It’s why people don’t have a problem with calling North Korean camps concentration camps, because they seem to be committing atrocities at least close to the same level as Nazi camps.
It why people call the camps where Japanese Americans were kept internment camps. While they were wrong, they were nothing on the level of the Nazi camps.
Yes, those were concentration camps. But we’re taught that concentration camp means Nazi death camp.
“Concentration camp” invokes the idea of gassing those who aren’t worth keeping alive. Starving those who are while you work them to death. And if they don’t drop dead working, gas them when they become useless to you.
Put simply, she’s painting something bad in a way that makes it look infinitely worse.
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Is she right in that she’s not incorrect, or that it’s proper for her to do so?
More the first one but I guess that by default leads to the second.
second point (takes a lot of space)
I've countered this a lot already read some of my other comments.
It’s impossible to call something a concentration camp without evoking comparisons to the Nazi camps.
True, but maybe that association should be broken and we reframe that association to be with "extermination camps".
It why people call the camps where Japanese Americans were kept internment camps. While they were wrong, they were nothing on the level of the Nazi camps.
See above comment.
Put simply, she’s painting something bad in a way that makes it look infinitely worse.
OR... she doesn't like that we're willing to whitewash our own actions by saying since we're not literally Nazis everything shitty we do is actually ok.
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True, but maybe that association should be broken and we reframe that association to be with "extermination camps".
Maybe we should work to break that association. But it’s still there now. So unless her goal was to lead to the conversation about breaking it, it’s not really relative to this discussion.
OR... she doesn't like that we're willing to whitewash our own actions by saying since we're not literally Nazis everything shitty we do is actually ok.
I mean there’s middle ground. I don’t know if there’s a single person that thinks anything short of literally Hitler is ok. Was she responding to someone saying the border is okay because they’re not the Nazi extermination camps? As far as I’m aware, she introduced the concentration camp language.
And if that was the point she was trying to make, it’s counterproductive. If you say X is bad, the counter argument is X is not bad or X is bad but acceptable because Y. If you say X is Nazis, you get bogged down in X is not Nazis.
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So unless her goal was to lead to the conversation about breaking it, it’s not really relative to this discussion.
It's incredibly relevant to this conversation. We can disingenuously gasp and clutch our pearls at scary words all we want, but that doesn't fix the situation with these camps. People commend Trump for "saying it like it is" when he's literally lying, but when a young congresswoman says a fair statement suddenly everyone is allowed to be offended. That's crazy.
As far as I’m aware, she introduced the concentration camp language.
I see what you're saying but it doesn't matter to me. If she stood up there and said "Trump is literally Hitler" I would have to agree with you.
If you say X is Nazis, you get bogged down in X is not Nazis.
Or, like I said before, we can stop saying concentration camp = Nazis because that is equally untrue.
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My point is what should be is not necessarily what is.
We can debate whether there should be the automatic connection between concentration camp and Nazis. Do we accept the definition of concentration camp and refer to Nazi camps as death camps? Do we reserve concentration camp for atrocities on the Nazi level and start using internment camps for lesser situations? That’s a debate about what should be.
But what is is the connection between concentration camp and Nazis. Whether it’s right or wrong to keep that connection, it is currently there. I’m aware of it. You’re aware of it. AOC should be aware of it.
So with the current reality that the connection exists, if you refer to concentration camps, you’re evoking Nazis.
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"Refugees seeking asylum status" are not a persecuted minority, specifically because what singles them out is not their ethnicity but their actions. We're not going and taking people from Mexico City away from their careers and sticking them in holding cells on our border. We're putting people in holding cells who took the specific action of crossing the border illegally, are we not? Which means that any or every one of them could have completely avoided this by simply not doing that. The same can clearly not be said of European Jews, who weren't just left to their own devices as long as they didn't bother anyone. They were systematically rounded up for no reason other than being Jewish, and that's very obviously not what's happening here.
And as someone else pointed out, when you're talking about political rhetoric, as AOC is (unless she's just trying to stage an advanced 20th century history lecture for everyone), then what matters is the connotation that a term has, not its dictionary definition. "Concentration camp" conjures a very specific image in the minds of people, and that's exactly what she's going for. That image is not accurate for what is happening, and that is why it is dishonest.
That's some of them, sure, but there are also many people who took the legitimate step to present themselves as refugees at the border. Regardless, criminals and refugees alike have the right to a speedy trial that they're being systematically denied here.
Hitler actually initially gave the persecuted peoples the option to leave. Many were justifiably reluctant and many unable, but lets not pretend rounding up Jews and gassing them was phase 1 the Holocaust.
People have been using Nazi themes to justify doing all sorts of evil shit since WW2. Saying "ohh it's not as bad as Hitler" isn't a good enough excuse.
Completely fair point, but there's a long way between that and a literal concentration camp. I'm not arguing in favor of this practice at all. But I am arguing that it's not a concentration camp.
We're not talking about Phase 1. We're talking about the concentration camps. But even if we were, there's still the pretty clear distinction that Hitler did this to people in their OWN HOMES. Not people who had come INTO Germany from outside. These were people who were peacefully living their lives in the towns that they called home. They weren't immigrants or invaders or anything of the sort. Whether or not the asylum-seeking migrants at our border have done anything wrong is immaterial. The fact remains that they took the specific action of crossing the border.
Again, this isn't about whether what's happening at the border is okay or not. It's about whether it's a valid comparison to Nazi concentration camps, and it pretty obviously isn't.
Ask yourself how this is substantially different without reaching for the very extremes of the death camps that were unique to the Nazis.
I get it, believe me. We're clearly not moving in the direction of the Holocaust in this situation, but that doesn't mean that these facilities are not concentration camps.
I want to agree with this but the rhetoric that Republicans use regarding Hispanic immigrants is near equal to how the Nazis described Jews and everyone else. I'm not saying they're Nazis, but this doesn't convince me that the situations are as far apart as you say.
For sure. Most of the people here are not justifying what's happening and I don't accuse most people of doing so. I just still think AOC was right.
It's so dismaying to see how little people who claim to be Jewish know about the Holocaust or the Nazis.
The average concentration camp killed most of its victims not by extermination but by starvation, dehydration, forced labor, exposure, and disease. Prisoners arrived at them in box cars or after long marches with no food or water. It wasn't 10 children who died of disease or dehydration or lack of care, it was tens of thousands.
Daily life in the camps involved:
A daily lineup after waking up, forced to stand completely still no matter the elements, often without shoes or clothes and outside in freezing cold, rain, snow, or anything else. The lineup lasted for hours.
Marching to labor, again often without so much as shoes, and obviously with no medical treatment.
Forced labor lasting hours upon hours, doing things like breaking rocks, building expansions to the camps, and the like. Getting more than a few hundred calories of food was a miracle, and usually nothing more than half a piece of bread and a cup of watery vegetable soup was given.
Marching back, followed by another lineup for hours.
Return to the barracks.
At any and every point you were beaten, and if you were judged unfit for further labor, and the infirmary didn't seem like it would suffice for you to return to health, you'd be killed outright. Talk? Get beaten. Don't report for work? Get beaten. Exist? Get beaten. Grueling 12 hour days or more of forced labor, on hundreds of calories, and forget any kind of help if you started to lose a toe due to exposure or if you were injured.
How is this substantially different from the migrant facilities on the border? Daily life as it is, is nowhere near anything like the camps were. Nowhere near.
And before you make yet another claim, like saying that the term "doesn't equal" Nazis, it does, as I showed here with copious definition citations to dictionaries.
And before you claim she didn't try to bring up the Nazis, she specifically did by saying:
Unless you're trying to claim "Never Again" means something different from the Holocaust comparisons she drew?
She even compared it by calling Trump a fascist, knowing full-well that fascism is associated with Nazism most strongly.
She knew what she was doing. You don't seem to know what concentration camps were like.
The biggest difference is that these people can leave at any time. They just have to ask to go back to their home country. The Jews didn’t have that option in the camps.
They killed six million people. The death camp part was pretty integral to the whole identity of the concentration camps. It wasn't just a holding cell. You can't seriously be saying "I mean yeah, but if you ignore the systematic genocide, it's BASICALLY the same thing..."
Irrelevant. The claim is that those holding cells are the same as concentration camps. Rhetoric has nothing to do with this. It doesn't matter if Trump is leading the charge claiming that Mexicans are the scourge of the Earth. That still doesn't make those holding cells equivalent to a concentration camp.
The part that is particularly infuriating with AOC and other democrats' rhetoric is their refusal to address immigration policy. They can sit back and use language like concentration camps and insinuate Trump is Hitler while they do nothing to change what is happening (legally) at the border because it looks good for them. People are entering this country illegally in record numbers.
Meanwhile, they can say they aren't supporting open borders, but do everything they can by their actions to force border security to just let illegals go because they have no money to house them, and democrats refuse to do anything to change it because it looks good for them.
AOC is not using terms like concentration camps because it is accurate in the most literal meaning of the word, she is using it because it makes her look noble and hide her and her colleagues' part in the crisis (yes we can call it a crisis now that the budget stand off is over like thehill.com did recently https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/446772-house-democrats-prioritize-illegal-aliens-as-border-crisis-rages ). She is playing politics with peoples' lives and well-being.
The problem with this is IT WAS THE LAW that Jews be rounded up and put into theses ghettos and camps.
Just like it’s the law now.
Are you claiming that the current law says to round up American citizens of Hispanic descent and throw them into these holding cells at the border? Because THAT would be the same thing that happened during the Holocaust.
The law is vague, but it is the eventual outcome of our current law.
We used to just let them flow through the Sonora. There are plenty of corpses out there. But out of sight, out of mind.
Ok, I just want to make 100% sure that I'm not misrepresenting your position. You are claiming that we are moving toward the government rounding up AMERICAN CITIZENS who happen to be of Hispanic descent, and throwing them in literal concentration camps?