Pelosi blows off AOC 'concentration camp' remarks

[orangecrush]

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brushed off comments made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez equating border facilities for migrants to “concentration camps” by saying she wasn’t “up to date” on what the New York freshman said.

“These members of Congress, they come to represent their districts and their point of view and they take responsibility for the statements that they make,” Pelosi told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast when asked specifically about AOC’s comments and whether the speaker had talked to her young members about the “power of their words.”

“I’m not up to date with her most recent remarks,” Pelosi added. “I saw them on the news, but I haven’t spoken to her about that.”

AOC first hammered the Trump administration for putting migrants in “concentration camps” during an Instagram live Monday night. A day later, she tweeted a link to an Esquire article from last week that quoted a University of Virginia lecturer saying that concentration camps have a far larger meaning than usually associated with the Nazis during World War II.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2019/06/19/pelosi-blows-off-aoc-concentration-camp-remarks/amp/

[saidsimplesimon]

1. clearing throat, avoid

hyperbole, leave that to those in need of attention. imo

"Never punch down", I read that somewhere on my travels.

[empedocles]

5. Yes

[Me.]

11. Perhaps She Skipped Comment

to avoid criticizing the Freshman for what some view as intemperate remarks

[shanny]

104. she commented eom

sounded like "kids these days" to me

[Me.]

114. But IT Wasn't A Real Criticism

and she didn't excoriate AOC, I thought it was a clever way to handle it

[Blues Heron]

2. American concentration camps

please do something about it speaker FFS. AOC is exactly right. If this is what passes for house leadership these days, I don't know what to say.

I'm not up to date but I saw them on the news? What?

[Hortensis]

9. The intention is to hold/detain them to be deported , though.

Thus detention camps.

Blues Heron, words have meaning and we need different words for different meanings. If you ever read about the concentration camps Germany made famous, you'd never insist on calling what we have so far by that name. And if it was appropriate, what the hell would you be doing quarreling about nomenclature on social media instead of marching?

Concentration camps are where persecuted citizens are segregated away from deserving citizens. They usually involve forced labor and various forms of neglect and abuse leading to great suffering and even death, but not to deportation.

Internment camps are where people are held for a period for some reason, effectively a large prison. They could be concentration camps, but there's a big reason different terminology is used.

Death camps are where people are shipped to be systematically executed. Many also involved forced labor.

[Tipperary]

12. George Takei disagrees.

Someone posted his tweet earlier.

[Hortensis]

17. He can disagree all he wants. My husband's family

disappeared into concentration camps and then death camps.

[Tipperary]

18. So because they are not gassing them -

these horrid places are all good? That is a hell of a low bar.

[Hortensis]

22. No, because they're not deliberately murdering them at all,

and they're not enslaving them until they die. They're holding them in what will be at least somewhat inhumane but for by far most not lethal conditions until they're released to freedom in their home countries. It's an atrocity, all right, but enormously different.

Just imagine if you were from Guatemala which you'd want to be sent to: An ICE detention camp for a miserable 4 months before being put on a plane to Guatemala or to a Nazi concentration camp to die from slave labor, starvation and/or disease, or as a subject of a medical experiment?

[triron]

46. They're concentration camps.

[Trumpocalypse]

95. They are still concentration camps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps

[Autumn]

73. A friend explained it like this. "When they rounded up women and children behind barbed wire,

they started by using the almost benevolent term "refugee camps." Soon changed to "internment camps." Then eventually "concentration camps." That was what the British did to the Boer families and when the term concentration camps came into use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps

And the Nazis didn't gas people at first but they eventually got around to it.

I have never seen the likes of this bullshit before. At least not from "democrats". The world has gone insane.

[delisen]

87. The massive wave of Authoritarianism can influence us all.

The Museum of the Holocaust has a thoughtful presentation of the types of camps used by the Nazis.

From reading it online I think Cortez's usage concentration camp is useful.

We need to be pointing the patterns and directions in which the current wave of authoritarianism is heading.

[LanternWaste]

74. Your opinion is as subjective as all others.

And though you can instruct people that your opinion is more valid than others all you want, doing so simply does not make your opinion any more valid.

[DavidDvorkin]

98. My parents lost family members in the Holocaust

These are concentration camps.

[Blues Heron]

14. Never thought I'd see Duers defending concentration camps

I think I've seen it all now. You can quibble about semantics till the cows come home, but we know what' we're seeing here. Straight up 90 people in a 20 person cage concentration camps. Sorry if that offends you.

[Efilroft Sul]

16. Seriously, like what the fuck, people?!

AOC is right on this.

[Hortensis]

20. No, you don't. Concentration camps were slave labor

camps. People sent there were stripped of all property and rights. The only way out was to die, and inmates were systematically starved, abused, and worked to death to make room for more. Some were used for medical experimentation.

These current U.S. camps are where people who are to be deported to freedom are detained until shipped off.

If you call these concentration camps and 5 years from now they're filled with liberal ministers, politicians, intellectuals and journalists, who are set to slave labor and starved and abused until they die, what will THOSE be called? The same thing? And how will people believe is happening there if they already "know" they're basically way-station prisons and that few die in them? And that would be what the Republicans insisted was the case.

Language matters, and the accuracy aand power of words need to be protected. The biggest problem right now is loss of credibility through making irresponsibly inaccurate and sensationalist claims to people who know the truth.

Just imagine: Communism is a form of socialism. What would you think of people claiming Bernie Sanders' followers were all commies who believed in the need for forced reeducation, forced labor camps, and mass murder? You'd know it wasn't even close to being true, and the words would have no power to move you.

[Baitball Blogger]

24. It's part of our history. The camps, where the Japanese were held, were known as concentration camps

It's in our history books. Google it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

The concentration camps that were controlled by the Germans took it to a level of inhumanity that were notorious, but they are all concentration camps.

[Hortensis]

28. Yes, Baitball. :) THOSE are both forms of concentration

camps, where persecuted citizens are segregated in prison camps away from others, i.e., "concentrated" -- one form for the rest of the inmates' shortened lives, the other under generally humane conditions for the duration of a war, though it could have been longer. The huge difference is why the Japanese are usually said to have been in internment camps, not to somehow make it okay, but to facilitate understanding.

THESE detention camps are to hold people who have been rounded up to facilitate forced deportation. Again, there's nothing stopping people from calling them concentration camps, pretending Trump's purpose is to save the citizenry from their animalistic, rapist, criminal influences. Except to protect the term for when it might be needed.

[Blues Heron]

32. You sure have a lot of theories about what is and isn't a concentration camp

The rest of can see with our own eyes exactly what's happening. AOC is right. You and the right wingers making the exact same argument are wrong.

[Hortensis]

34. Whatever. I value the power and critical importance of language.

I hate to see it twisted and misused to manipulate emotions and create dishonest impressions as much on the left as the right. They, of course, are masters at misusing language for both self deception and deception of others.

[triron]

47. Whatever. Concentration camps it is.

[pangaia]

61. You might not want to accuse other here, including me, of twisting language.

And to "manipulate emotions and create dishonest impressions..."

Can you prove that?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

140. Not in S Africa, California WW2, Yugoslavia civil war, & many other places. . . . nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

141. Communism is a red herring and not even analogous. . . . nt

[Hekate]

142. This. Is. How. It. Starts. Otherize/demonize. Segregate. Deny civil rights & human rights.Imprison.

Separate children from their guardians and parents. "Lose" those children on purpose. Hugely overcrowded conditions, no room to sit or lie down, lack of basic sanitation, spread of disease.

Which part of this are we missing so far? The mass arrests before dawn? Starts this weekend.

Cattle cars? That's just a mode of mass transport, after all.

I am glad my husband's parents are not alive to see this happening.

[Jake Stern]

36. Among the names on this wall is 13 of my family who died in a REAL concentration camp

and not AOC's hyperbolic one. The only one to survive was a great uncle and that was due to the US Army liberating the train that was taking him to a death camp.

[link:|]

Some of them were gassed right away because they were considered "too old" to work.

ICE detention facilities are horrid but NOWHERE near being Auschwitz, Sobibor, Dachau or Buchenwald.

[Jake Stern]

39. Words have meanings despite your obsession

With using them how you wish.

I can guarantee all of the folks in those camps you derisively dismiss as “cool story” would switch places in a millisecond with someone in an ICE detention facility.

The folks in ICE facilities are not used as slave laborers.

The folks in ICE facilities don’t have to fear being gassed.

The folks in ICE facilities won’t be hanged in groups of 20 because one managed to escape.

The folks in ICE facilities won’t be loaded into cattle cars for transportation.

Think what you’re going to think but my opinion is that calling ICE detention facilities ‘concentration camps’ is hyperbole at best and an appalling spit in the face of those who suffered through being crammed into cattle cars, subjected to selection and, if fortunate, sent to worked as a slave laborer instead of being gassed mere minutes later.

[Turin_C3PO]

40. Concentration camps are not synonymous with death camps.

There were concentration camps in the Boer Wars before the Holocaust.

No one is saying these are as bad as German concentration camps.

[Jake Stern]

43. AOC invited this by making the comparison

She wasn't talking about the British prisoner camps during the Boer War, nor deportation camps for Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. She was alluding to the camps run by the Third Reich (which is what 99.999% of folks think about when someone mentions 'concentration camp)' to critique ICE detention facilities.

To me, somebody who lost family in those camps, that is offensive as hell. Nobody in those ICE detention centers faces anywhere near the same risk that an inmate in a German camp did. They don't have to live with dragging the corpse of a fellow camp inmate to count each morning and evening so they won't be beaten or killed of the count is off. They don't have to fear being selected with a dozen others for tortuous public execution in retaliation for an inmate escaping.

That's like comparing being held in the county lockup with being in a Soviet GULAG.

[Blues Heron]

45. That should be ICE's new slogan "Not as bad as the Nazis so STFU"

[Cha]

64. You know that's not what he's saying..

it wouldn't hurt to show some respect.

[pangaia]

62. 99.999% of the population doesn't know shit about history, or language, or art

or any thing else...

unfortunate, but true.

If it were NOT true, we wouldn't be in this situation.

[Turin_C3PO]

72. Again, I'm not saying they're the same.

Clearly, the Holocaust was an event with virtually no historic parallels. I’m truly sorry your family were victims of the Nazi regime.

I’m basically saying that whatever you call the camps on the border that they’re awful, repugnant, and have the possibility of getting much worse.

[GulfCoast66]

51. Oh, bullshit! Events set names. Concentration camps post WWII have a defined meaning.

When my 80 year older mother was a young girl gay had a different meaning than today. That’s the beautiful nature of the English language. It has the ability to change with time and events.

Yeah, there were things called concentration camps before the Nazis. But to any American not trying to defend someone they like, what the British did to the Boers really does not come into play.

Calling anything less than extermination camps concentration camps is an insult to those who had relatives die in them. And to the millions who died.

Surely you can see why?

[Turin_C3PO]

71. Sorry, we're just not going to agree here.

Again, no one is saying these camps are anywhere near the level of German concentration/extermination camps. They’re clearly not. Call them internment camps if you don’t like the word concentration. It’s all semantics.

But they’re absolutely a human rights nightmare. I have some Mexican ancestry and I think a lot of the reason why there’s an outcry to AOC’s remarks are because the children and adults are brown. Not you but Republicans like Liz Cheney who are pretending to give a shit about the Holocaust.

[Jake Stern]

59. Were they worked to death or executed in gas chambers?

They died tragically but there is no direct comparison between a systematic program to enslave and slaughter all Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents and detaining undocumented immigrants and refugees in terrible conditions.

[pangaia]

63. OOppss.. I guess that doesn't count.

Not the right kind of DEAD !!


If you're the frog in the pot you don't realize what is happening until it is too late...

[denbot]

67. Hey fuck it, they're just brown people.

The reason they are brown is because they carry Native blood and we were exterminated, at least 100 million of us. But I guess because we are not Jewish it doesn’t matter fuck all we are still suffering losses that are an order of magnitude greater than that of the European Jewry.

Sorry that our suffering still exists, and has greatly eclipsed that of others.

[Trumpocalypse]

96. BS

Educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps

[uponit7771]

56. They are text book concentration camps in context

[pangaia]

60. I disagree that these are not concentration camps.

From what I have read and seen they are exactly that.

Germany is not the only example in the past.

And then there is our own past...

[Gore1FL]

76. The people are concentrated into camps.

We can split hairs over what we call these crimes against humanity, but it’s nothing more than an exercise in semantics.

[uponit7771]

55. +1, they are technically concentration campz

[demmiblue]

3. AOC is right. n/t

[empedocles]

4. AOC may be 'right' for her district, her career.

The Speaker has far more larger, more serious, leadership concerns.

[demmiblue]

6. No, she is right on a broader level. They are concentration camps, and it is a moral issue.

Link to tweet

[empedocles]

8. Some may think AOC right on a narrower level; ethical, moral, legal, ideological, [all fine

in perspective].

On a broader level of trying to save; democracy, the Constitution, historical experience and wisdom, winning the big battles, the public from traitortrump ravegers, etc. - Pelosi is right.

[shanny]

106. I don't think you save democracy

by not defending it. Impeach now.

[Laffy Kat]

10. Damn straight that is what they are.

And we said "never again" yet here we have it and the powers that be looking the other way or downplaying the to detainment centers. The definition of a concentration camp:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp

[Tipperary]

13. Yup. nt

[Gore1FL]

77. One would think crimes against humanity would be considered serious by most. Nt

[empedocles]

112. No question from me: there are very powerful moral, legal, ethical, etc. issues that need to be

seriously enforced. traitortrump should not be in Office. The crux is not in generating more publicity, but having the political muscle to deliver enforcement against all these trump crimes.

The problem is the Constitution mandates a political judgement by the Congress [avoiding a judge or court deciding to remove
a President], and effectively requiring powerful support for such removal.

Manifesting the problem is the fact that there is no such powerful support at the present time to remove trump. [And I would not like to see the current support soft support levels used by right wingers as precedent to somehow remove a Dem President].

Yes, I understand the hope that a televised, formal impeachment trial would generate publicity, and weaken trump.
However, the risk of falling short and trump winning the political battle in the present Senate are too great at the present time.

Starting a formal impeachment trial would provide trumpsters with tremendous political cover for all the coming trump trials revelations [putin billions, many crimes, treason, elections frauds, budget government closures, more prison sentences, more trump mistakes and fiascos, etc. ], and failure in the Senate compound the problem with a Constitutional rationale and excuse favoring
trump.

There are solid reasons why the politically experienced hands, with real political savvy and expertise, support investigations now - impeachment when real political support manifests.

[gratuitous]

7. No sense getting drawn into a ridiculous argument

When someone is more offended that you called their concentration camps concentration camps than by what's going on in those concentration camps, you can safely dismiss their ersatz outrage. Separated families, indefinite detention, children in cages, people denied their medication, belongings confiscated, deported without hearing, and you're bent out of shape because someone correctly identified the protocols of a concentration camp? Get the fuck out.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

15. +1

[orangecrush]

21. +2

[ecstatic]

25. +1000. nt

[struggle4progress]

26. +

[emmaverybo]

35. The concentration camps were the machinery of genocide, mass murder. There, people were worked to

Last edited Wed Jun 19, 2019, 10:12 PM - Edit history (1)

death, starved to death, gassed and executed—women, children, men, old people—millions.

Have you seen pictures of survivors when the camps were liberated? Do you know the numbers of casualties from epidemics, malnutrition, flu, infections?

Ocasio-Cortez kills two birds with one stone. She drastically minimizes the unspeakable horrors of concentration camps and at the same time, facilitates the public looking away from
the actual cruelty in the Trump’s immigration policy, and the prevalence of sub standard conditions in the detention centers because opponents don’t address the real issues but compare them to facilities used to carry out the persecution and the elimination of an entire people, Jews, as well as state dissenters, homosexuals, “undesirables.”

The purpose of concentration camps was not to detain before deportation. They were not to deter
people from coming to a particular country. They were genocidal killing centers, some primarily to
force people to labor to death, and then replace them, many used for mass slaughter, and to hide that. Also people were tortured and used in horrific medical experiments, designed often simply out of curiosity.

People’s skin and the gold in their teeth were used after death.

All AOC needs to do is to educate herself. She is out of step with history.

[gratuitous]

37. Nonsense

I don't see how Rep. Ocasio Cortez has minimized anything anywhere (though I note in passing that you can't even be bothered to get her name right). You're barking up the wrong tree - wrong on the facts, wrong on history, and wrong for the United States and the Constitution.

[emmaverybo]

41. I can fix that, but I can't fix your sweeping "wrong on facts, wrong on history..." which is no

rebuttal or correction to anything I said.

[pangaia]

65. It seems to me you know of only one example in history of 'concentration camps.'

[emmaverybo]

68. I have learned that the definition can be applied to other examples. However, I think Ocasio-Cortez

wanted to evoke the most common understanding of the term and in the context of the holocaust.
But yes, I do now know.

[Gore1FL]

78. Not quite

Your argument is like saying arithmetic doesn’t count as math because calculus counts as math and it’s harder that arithmetic.

[emmaverybo]

86. Since folks here have educated me, I now know that "concentration camp" can describe a wider

variety of present day and historical examples than I had considered. But I think Ocasio-Cortez
wanted to evoke concentration camps used as the machinery of genocide and mass unspeakable suffering during the Holocaust.
I think our current immigration policies used at the Southern border to discriminate against Central Americans seeking asylum, and their chaotic implementation, need no comparison. They are a stain on America.
They have caused trauma that will echo down the generations for separated families. Children detained in cruel and unsafe conditions, now denied recreation, legal aid, language learning, are at risk in many ways presently and into their future.
Those lost, never to be reunited, who may be in abusive custodial care, are certainly undergoing emotional harm, and may have lasting developmental deficits.
To add insult to injury, Trump’s propaganda about these immigrants is bigoted, politically exploitive, and morally corrupt.
We do not know, except in a few cases media has followed, what has happened to deportees.
In one case, a young man deported to Mexico was murdered, targeted because of a vendetta against his cousin.
So to me, a credible and convincing case to wake us to action need not be enlarged upon.
But if AOC or George Takei’s references serve to make more Americans outraged at the Trump administration’s purely political and inhumane response to immigrants, all to the good.
I do consider, however, that some descendants of holocaust survivors take umbrage.

[Trumpocalypse]

99. No you are the one out of step with history

Educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps

[Wounded Bear]

42. This...once again we're off arguing semantics about what to call something...

but who is discussing what's actually going on?

People are being swept up, and "concentrated" in camps for punishment. You don't need gas chambers for it to be a concentration camp.

[trev]

50. And, although the keepers are not killing people in them

people are still dying in them.

[Doremus]

88. Is it "killing them" to withhold adequate health care?

Failing to provide for their safety and security?

People have died and probably will continue to die in these places from negligence. Whether intentional for profits, or unintentional because they couldn't give two shits about them, I would still call that a violent act. And that's the same as killing them, imo.

[trev]

89. Yes, I agree with you, and

that was in the back of my mind when I wrote my post. But the thread is about a comparison with concentration camps, and some are arguing that there is a difference because the inmates are not being systematically murdered. I just wanted to point out that the deaths are taking place, regardless.

[uponit7771]

57. ..👍🏼

[Kind of Blue]

131. +1000

[budkin]

19. Here we go again...

Time for the establishment to spend 2 weeks bashing AOC like they did Ilhan Omar.

[ecstatic]

23. What's outrageous to me is that some in the media have made AOC's comments the outrageous

thing while ignoring the inhumane detention camps & cruel child separations taking place at the border. I don't give a f*ck what she calls it, it needs to stop and now! That this situation is still going on after a year signals to me that this nation is doomed. Deplorable start, deplorable finish.

[Sugar Smack]

122. You nailed it. Completely.

This is a horrifying thing happening right now, and has been for over a year. It shows no sign of stopping. And nobody can make the assumption that any of this Admin's plans align with what an internment camp is "supposed" to be.

[Kurt V.]

27. We've lost our way. They are going to concentrate a group of ppl into camps. Millions trump says

[Nuggets]

29. What is Ms. Ocasio-Cortez doing to stop this

besides labeling the deportation centers as “concentration camps” thus minimizing the experiences of people who died in the German camps. Specifically designed to bring up images of Nazi camps but they imo just more of her divisive ramblings.

What has SHE personally done to help stop it?
Dems had already brought focus and been helping these detainees, so why?

[Blues Heron]

48. You guys all got the same marching orders didn't you

It's like your reading from the same playbook - "Not as bad as the Nazis so STFU"

Thanks for doing ICE's work for them.

[Nuggets]

49. No, I've pointed out Dems have already

gotten focus on the issue and are actually doing something about it.

What has AOC done to help these people?


And it’s not as bad as Nazi camps, that doesn’t mean it’s not bad. Her intentions were to get ppl to use Nazi camp imagery. Then when she got her big mouth slapped down she tries to the use the definition of concentration camp.

Hmmm where have we seen this type of behavior before from Ms Ocasio-Cortez?

Oh yeah, when she falsely accused Pelosi’s of not focusing on climate change, until she was informed Pelosi had already started putting together a committee for just that purpose. AOC tried to walk back her protesting. She then refused to join the climate change committee.

She said she wanted to work on the law making side apparently believing you don’t need to gather information, which is what a commission is for,
and then just gives a list of wishes called the Green New Deal- another stolen name from Dems of the past a.k.a the establishment. It does nothing absolutely nothing.A Non binding resolution.

This feels more like a constant PR campaign from AOC, a lot of talk , no getting down to work.

Ocasio-Cortez, youth protesters storm Pelosi office to push for climate plan
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/13/ocasio-cortez-climate-protestors-push-pelosi-962915

[uponit7771]

58. +1,

[pangaia]

66. Oh for pete sake she is not minimizing anything..

[Nuggets]

70. Yes she is

but of course we shant say anything about one of Cortez either

Heaven forbid anyone call her out here though


Another politician who is overprotected on this site.

[pangaia]

75. Your opinion..

[Gore1FL]

80. She made our concentration camps a public discussion.

They need to be addressed. Doing so doesn’t mi i minimize the experience of other crime victims and to suggest that it does is disingenuous bullshit.

[Nuggets]

90. These detention centers horrible conditions were

already made public by the establishment Dems so many loathe on here. Those old fogies went down to the centers which is how AOC knows about the conditions.

Now you’re calling me disingenuous.

How about the Jewish community? Are they disingenuous too?

The Jewish Communities Relations Council (JCRC), a nonpartisan group, sent a letter to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) after she compared migrant detention centers to concentration camps, urging her to avoid such associations in the future.

"We are deeply disturbed by the language used in your recent Instagram live video which seeks to equate the detention centers on America's southern border with Nazi-era Concentration Camps," the JCRC wrote Tuesday.

The Hill 6/19/2019

[Gore1FL]

91. What does the Jewish community have to do with the concentration camps we have on our border?

Why are you or is anyone trying to conflate and compare tragedies?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concentration%20camps?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld

concentration camp noun
Definition of concentration camp
: 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 important phrase to note is used especially. "Especially" is not the same as "exclusively" as your argument implies.

[Nuggets]

92. The entire reason AOC used the words was to use Nazi death cano

imagery. Now because everyone sees what a ridiculous comparison it is the definition of concentration camp is being trotted out.
Are you implying that Jewish voters don’t matter now?
Again,
What has AOC done to help any of these ppl she is so concerned about?
She hasn’t visited the sites she got her info from Dems — you know- all the info I’ve posted over and over that no one can answer... I wonder why?

[Gore1FL]

93. How do you know?

Maybe it was to conjure imagery of the concentration camps where we held Japanese citizens in WW II? Maybe it was the British concentration camps during the South African war. Maybe the ones Russia had in Siberia was what she was conjuring up.

Maybe she was thinking about one not on my list above; maybe she was trying to conjure images of the concentration camps we have now on our border with Mexico. It's an atrocity all by itself.

Rather than scaling the horrors to gauge which concentration camps we can and cannot call concentration camps, maybe we should concern ourselves with not having them.

[Nuggets]

100. Oh sure.

That’s why she has so clearly stated that she sees the difference instead of jumping to technical definitions of concentration camp.
If she as a politician doesn’t understand certain words and phrases can be sensitive when dealing with others and and thus hinder achieving peaceful resolutions or facilitating discussion that deals with the issues, she needs to step down because she’s ineffective.
AOC has succeeded in getting ppl to fight over her words. This helps immigrants how?


Again

What has AOC done to help these people she’s so concerned about?

[emmaverybo]

102. Yes. You are right. She knew she was evoking the holocaust. NT

[Gore1FL]

117. What would help immigrants in those concentration camps

is if people quit trying to gauge their concentration camps on some sort of worthiness scale and actually support the truth behind what she said.

I'm sorry, but there is no holocaust survivor that is going to get into a pecker contest with these migrants over whose mistreatment in their respective concentration camps was worse. If you can find one, I'd love to see the quote.

[Trumpocalypse]

97. So you're a mindreader

and know her motives?

[Nuggets]

101. Why hasn't she apologized for the

anger she’s brought from the Jewish community?


What has AOC done to help these immigrants?

Dems already brought focus over a year ago.


So...
What legislation has AOC gotten passed to help them?

Has she visited the centers? Talked to any of them in person?

Is she getting families back together?


Why are all her fans avoiding these questions?

[Trumpocalypse]

105. So she's not allowed to comment on the situation

unless she meet's your criteria.

And you didn't answer my question. Are you a mindreader?

[Nuggets]

119. I don't need to be.

This is easy to see.

[Trumpocalypse]

128. No it's not?

You don’t know her motives.

[Nuggets]

129. Sure I do

One would have to be a complete idiot to think using the term ‘concentration camp’
wouldn’t cause a huge issue. Are you saying AOC is that incompetent?

[Trumpocalypse]

130. No you don't

Stop pretending that you do.

[Gore1FL]

118. You mean like this one?

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/6/20/18693058/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-concentration-camps-immigration-border

"I’m a Jewish historian. Yes, we should call border detention centers “concentration camps.”
It isn’t just accurate. It’s necessary."

Or this one?

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/aoc-is-right-never-again/

"AOC is right — never again!
The Holocaust obliges us to speak up, as Wiesel said, 'whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation'"

The only argument that seems to be condemning her is people misusing the word (I posted the definition above) to assume it necessarily invokes genocide. It does not. AOC shouldn't have to apologize for using words as they are defined in the dictionary.

[Nuggets]

120. Neither of those are apologies

What has she done to help these people she’s so concerned about?

Why hasn’t she started writing legislation?

[Gore1FL]

121. Apologies? No they are in support of AOC. Just like the dictionary does.

Why should anyone apologize except for those obfuscating the issue by intentionally confusing the distinction between death camps and concentration camps to score points?

What has she done? Well, for one, she pointed out loudly that we had concentration camps where we had concentration camps. She called on that practice to cease.

Debate is important when formulating legislation.

Obfuscating the actual issue seems important to you. Why is that?

[Nuggets]

123. In other words she caused a huge divide using

a term she knew would elicit the angry response and literally has done nothing else about it. Got it.


And as has been pointed out to you many times the DEMS already brought attention to these issues PLUS they are actually doing something about it.




I expect her next move to be visiting a detention center with cameras in tow.

[Gore1FL]

127. She didn't cause a huge divide. The people who don't own dictionaries did.

It's really not her fault if people don't know the meanings to words.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

136. You make the classic error confusing death camps with concentration camps.

I see that at "other" sites, but did not expect to see that on DU.

[ananda]

30. AOC was right on! Just tellin it like it is.

Period

[Docreed2003]

31. I couldn't care less WHAT she called these camp

Our outrage needs to be focused on the fact that these camps are inhumanely housing human beings, ripping apart families, and people are dying in these camps. The best part is our own executive branch of government is hiding just how much of an abomination these camps are not just from the media but from our own congresspeople.

[shanny]

107. this

[Thomas Hurt]

33. More gaslighting from the right.

Grab the most extreme example of concentration camp and the most obvious and use it to manage the narrative.

That management being the smear of AOC and try to minimize what is going in the concentration camps were are setting up.

A camp does not have to have gas chambers and ovens to be a concentration camp.

The trumpists don't want to intentional kill immigrants they want to use them to milk the taxpayer for money.

If you give them their due process and deport them, the prison industry doesn't make as much profit.

Trump's DHS and ICE will see that the camps are full to overflowing instead of seeing to it that the system has enough judges and attorneys to give refugees and immigrants their court time and a timely decision.

This is about punishing people they revile and making a buck off them too. using them for profit, you know slavery.

[jcgoldie]

44. I am a huge fan of Nancy Pelosi...

I do not understand why she doesn't get behind this?!?

[DURHAM D]

54. Get behind what exactly? nt

[Gore1FL]

79. Supporting her caucus members for truth telling?

It’s weird that Democrats are afraid of doing the right things for no readily apparent reason. We need to not the party of corner-cowering fraidy-cats when it comes to standing up for what is right.

[WoonTars]

82. AOC is only useful to Pelosi because she gave her back the majority...

... she clearly has no intention of actually doing anything with that majority, especially when it comes to holding the gop and the WH resident to account.

I can't wait till Pelosi retires.

[DURHAM D]

83. AOC is in a Democratic district.

She does not represent a change in number of held seats.

[Gore1FL]

94. Calling a Concentration Camp a Concentration Camp should not be as controversial as having them. nt

[shanny]

108. Bingo.

[WoonTars]

135. It's alarming that statement needs to be made on a Dem board...

... but here we are...

[ehrnst]

133. So, you read minds?

That district was a safe Democratic seat.

AOC didn't "give her the house back."

[WoonTars]

134. She was part of the wave that energized the base that gave the Dems the majority...

...

[George II]

143. One of 40, that's 2.5%.

[lapucelle]

144. Didn't most of the candidates she endorsed in the primaries lose?

[ehrnst]

145. "Part of the wave that energized the base"

So you can read lots and lots of minds...



She was elected in a safe Blue district after getting the nomination where only 15% of the base was "energized" to turn out to vote for her in the primary.

Those she endorsed certainly didn't benefit from her "energizing."

[Me.]

137. Boy, I've Seen A Lot Of Uninformed Views On This Site

This one takes the cake.

[delisen]

84. It is 2019. the border camps are total institutions. Children are being

separated from their families and from services needed for their support,and being housed in inhumane conditions. This 21st century total institution and fits many of the definitions of concentration camps, as listed in modern dictionaries It is not at present a "killing center" as defined by the Holocaust Museum.

The following is from the Holocaust Museum in the United States and it distinguishes concentration camps from forced labor/transit camps, forced labor camps, and killing centers.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-camps

Quote:
Types of Camps
Many people refer to all of the Nazi incarceration sites during the Holocaust as concentration camps. The term concentration camp is used very loosely to describe places of incarceration and murder under the Nazi regime, however, not all sites established by the Nazis were concentration camps. Nazi-established sites include:

Concentration camps: For the detention of civilians whom the regime perceived to be a security risk of some sort. There were 938 camps and subcamps.
Forced-labor camps and transit camps: In forced-labor camps, the Nazi regime brutally exploited the labor of prisoners for economic gain and to meet labor shortages. Prisoners lacked proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest. Transit camps functioned as temporary holding facilities for Jews awaiting deportation. These camps were usually the last stop before deportations to a killing center. There were 1,830 forced-labor and transit camps.
Prisoner-of-war camps: For Allied and Soviet prisoners of war. There were 559 POW camps, but this figure does not include the tens of thousands of POW subcamps that existed.
Killing centers: Established primarily or exclusively for the assembly-line style murder of large numbers of people immediately upon arrival to the site. There were 5 killing centers.
Unquote ____________________________________________________________________________________________
Some Total Institutions in the US:

Andersonville Prison which housed Union prisoners of war during the US civil war was a total institution where 1/3 of those held died mainly from brutal conditions, exposure and disease.

Willowbrook State "School" in New York City was a total institution where children and adults deemed mentally deficient and unfit to live in the community were separated from their families, locked up , provided with only grossly substandard and over-crowed living conditions, denied typical medical care, and other services such as education, and even experimented upon. At its height in the second half of the 20th century it housed over 6000 children and adults.

[Midnightwalk]

85. What is a good term?

Let’s start with a few things from Wikipedia

The term itself originated in 1897 when the "reconcentration camps" were set up in Cuba by General Valeriano Weyler. In the past, the U.S. government had used concentration camps against Native Americans and the British had also used them during the Second Boer War. Between 1904 and 1908, the Schutztruppe of the Imperial German Army operated concentration camps in German South-West Africa (now Namibia) as part of its genocide of the Herero and Namaqua peoples

.......

Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between concentration camps (described in this article) and extermination camps, which were established by Nazi Germany for the industrial-scale mass murder of Jews in the ghettos by way of gas chambers.

.......

As a result of the Holocaust, the term "concentration camp" carries many of the connotations of "extermination camp" and is sometimes used synonymously. Because of these ominous connotations, the term "concentration camp", originally itself a euphemism, has been replaced by newer terms such as internment camp, resettlement camp, detention facility, etc., regardless of the actual circumstances of the camp, which can vary a great deal.

Sorry for the long excerpting but it summarizes to the term goes back to 1897, was used commonly before the holocaust, and the term is now controversial because it gets conflated with extermination camps

It was reasonable post WWII to avoid terms like concentration camps that made false comparisons to the Nazis, but it was also a time when the horror wasn’t history and people took never again seriously.

None of the suggested euphemisms convey the horror of family separations or making children sleep in over crowded, ice cold cells on concrete floors with no access to “toothpaste, showers, soap, towels and dry clothes”

Years ago I would probably be on the side saying “don’t minimize the holocaust by even remotely comparing anything to it. I never thought we would go this far.

Now I worry that we have to use euphemisms to avoid sounding like we’re doing anything to minimize the greatest crime against humanity.

The suggested replacements frankly suck. They don’t carry the negative connotations we need.

Maybe there’s a better replacement? For now I lean towards rather explaining that not being anywhere as bad as the Nazis is not a valid criteria for deciding whether something is acceptable.

[Kind of Blue]

132. +1000

[fescuerescue]

103. When AOC is President and Pelosi is still Congresswoman

She will regret not lending her support.

[Hekate]

113. When Pelosi is Speaker of the House she'll hold the second most powerful elected position in the USA

Oh wait -- she already is, and first in line of succession to the presidency.

AOC is a freshman congresswoman in the here and now. AOC is, politically speaking, still wet behind the ears. She and her supporters still have a few things to learn.

[nini]

116. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[Me.]

138. Hilarious

[Hekate]

109. Misleading. Nancy did not "blow off AOC." She specifically said she had not spoken with AOC...

Mme Speaker was asked to comment on something she had not spoken with AOC about. She said she couldn't comment in that case.

FFS, people. The Speaker of the House and the freshman congresswoman are not enemies. Would you like them to be? Do you want to support that narrative for shits and giggles?

Donald Trump and his administration are holding innocent children and adults in cages and tents in the fricking desert. Do you think Pelosi disputes that? It's up to US to spread the narrative that those are in fact concentration camps.

[still_one]

124. I suspect there are some who are intentionally trying to soe division among Democrats.

[AirmensMom]

110. Why is it so important what we call them?

The truth is that we are treating people inhumanely. Period. Everyone should be up in arms about that, not about what they're called.

[lapucelle]

111. The New York Post (Trump's favorite rag and the source of the cited headline and story)

is trying to stir up division among Democrats. Nancy Pelosi is much too smart to take the bait.

The New York Post

The New York Post is currently owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which owns many conservative/sensational media outlets around the world. The paper is funded through advertising, subscriptions and newsstand sales.

snip=============================================

In review, the New York Post tends to publish stories utilizing sensationalized headlines with emotionally loaded wording such as “Cop cold-cocks unarmed man ‘acting irate’ at restaurant”, and “It’s time for Bill Clinton to take a walk in the Chappaqua woods.” The New York Post also republishes news from other sources such as the least biased Associated Press. In general, more stories favor the right, but the NY Post does not shy away from reporting negative coverage of the right, if it is a big story. They also tend to source their information properly, however many times the headline misleadingly exaggerates the actual story they are reporting.

Editorially, The Post has endorsed the Republican Presidential Candidate in every race since 1980. However, in 2016 they did not offer an endorsement for the Presidential election to either candidate.

According to an LA Times article, the New York Post was reported to be the preferred newspaper of U.S. President Donald Trump, who maintains frequent contact with its owner, Rupert Murdoch. The Post, According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York. Further, The Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch’s ownership for “sensationalism, blatant advocacy, and conservative bias.”

A factual search reveals several failed checks.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

[stonecutter357]

115. Nancy Pelosi is a national treasure !

[underthematrix]

126. LOL. Nancy Pelosi is a Queen