Was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Right to Call Them Concentration Camps?

[thomhartmann]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins the chorus of voices calling the immigrant detention centers, concentration camps and conservatives like Liz Cheney are not happy.

But was the freshmen Congressmember right?

Are these "detention facilities" really just American Concentration camps?

[stonecutter357]

1. NO !

[Blues Heron]

13. They're just like summer camps right?

[stonecutter357]

14. not at all like a summer camp !

[Blues Heron]

15. Do tell, you're the one defending American concentration camps

90 people in a 20 person cage. Nice.

[stonecutter357]

16. I'm not defending anything ..

[LakeArenal]

29. "In a 20 person cage"

Egads I never knew there was even a one person cage. 😳🤭

[Iggo]

36. And I'm glad you've never been to jail.

Seriously.

[Magoo48]

19. People concentrated in detainment camps: Concentration Camps.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. The Trumpist's are attacking her narrative and trying to change to minimize the perception of...

what is happening at the camps.....

They immediately proclaimed she meant Nazi death camps to smear her and her point and the narrative.

[Voltaire2]

3. Yes of course. That's what they are.

[Sherman A1]

7. Agreed

They are camps where people are detained and concentrated, so they fit the definition.

[TruckFump]

4. F*ckin' A, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EOM

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

5. No

[NateOfTheLivingDead]

6. Yes and no

Yes they are concentration camps but AOC leaves out that these conditions are present in the American prison system and she got that wrong. I'm so glad to see people motivated by the horrors of these concentration camps at our border, but I am disturbed that no one is talking about the concentration camps in every state, the concentration camps that Sandra Bland and countless others were murdered in?

and don't take this as an either or kind of comment, we can walk and chew gum at the same time, I praise AOC and everyone else who stands up against this evil, I just want you to join me in standing up to all of it.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Yes, she was accurate in her description

The Nazi death camps were a type of concentration camp, but not the only kind.

The Japanese internment camps in WWII were also a type a concentration camp, and there have been many others in the past 100 years.

[unblock]

9. son of a holocaust survivor here. not calling it out is how it *can* happen here.

after wwii, there was a movement to be determined to make it so it never happens here.

but there's been a sick rhetorical dynamic in america for decades that allowed objections to the descent into genocide to be dismissed.

genocide doesn't just happen overnight. there are several steps in the path. with each step it becomes harder and harder to reverse the descent and to avoid genocide. so it is imperative to call out those steps and to get off that evil path.

but no matter what the step, no matter the objection, if it didn't rise to the level of burning 6 million jews, then the objections were dismissed as wild exaggerations.


sadly that dynamic continues today. are the camps at the southern border concentration camps? hell yes, how on earth are they not?

the *only* reason for anyone to object is due to this unwillingness some people have to accept that it *can* happen here.

it can happen anywhere.


*and denial of that fact actually helps enable it to happen here.*

[jberryhill]

10. That rhetorical dynamic is interesting

But, yep, you nailed it. Since no parallel is allowed to be drawn along the way, it is sure to happen again, because any criticism of any modern parallel course of descent into it is, itself, shut down by setting the Holocaust aside as a singular, sacred, incomparable event. Nothing can ever be compared to it, so even if it happens again, it will be impermissible to point that out.

[unblock]

12. one wonders if that dynamic can survive mass genocide.

i mean, if a mere, say, *two* million non-whites are killed, will they still say that's nothing like what hitler did??

[jg10003]

20. I'm also the son of a holocaust survivor, "Concentration camp" has a specific connotation.

That connotation includes and gas chambers industrial ovens. What is happening on the boarder is horrific and a stain on American ideals. But the immigrants are being held in prison camps. When we call prison camps "concentration camps" we run the risk of forgetting what concentration camps really were. Calling them concentration camps helps those people who deny or minimize the holocaust.

[unblock]

22. I disagree for the exact reasons I mentioned.

Reserving the more horrific words for hitler's particular genocide, or for something of that level of evil, is exactly what we need to avoid.

Any time we let them say, "no, it's not really that bad" we enable the slide toward genocide.

These are not "prison camps" because they are not criminals. These are not "detention camps" because they are not merely being detained.

*they are deliberately being punished and treated poorly*. That makes it a concentration camp.

Note, further, that we have nothing comparable on our northern border....

[jg10003]

23. How about "confinement camp"?

I never said that "it's not really that bad". You are right that the immigrants being punished and treated poorly. However they are not being systematically murdered on an assembly line designed for producing corpses. Using the words "concentration camp" distorts what is happening. The immigrants plight is bad enough to justify outrage without resorting to hyperbole.

[unblock]

25. Hitler doesn't own the term or concept of "concentration camp"

And despite the personal experience you and I and our parents have, the important point now is that there is *not* much particularly unique about hitler's brand of genocide.

It followed the same path other genocides do, and it's the same path trump is leading us on. It's imperative that we note the similarities and it's tremendously important that we deny them any room to say they're not as bad as where hitler ended up.

Remember that dachau, the first concentration camp, didn't have gas chambers. But they murdered many Jews and others by working them to death, denying them medical care in unhealthy conditions, and various other methods. So?

If thousands of people die in trump's concentration camps due to disease and poor medical care, will we still say, we'll, at least he's not gassing them?

Does it really matter how they die?

[emmaverybo]

26. Well put. NT

[LenaBaby61]

31. A friends Dad lost all of his family ......

Numbering 9 (Uncles, Aunts, cousins), across several concerntation camps in Europe. He's a self-described "Crusty, 97 year old, Old-style, Old-world, yogurt-eating/loving, liberal Jew." He's one who gave "credit" for food rations Blacks back in the late 30's and into the 40's. And in some instances, he didn't charge them for goods they desperately needed during those rationing times. But my friend said that he's BEYOND pissed off @ Dem leadership for letting her continue to talk too much, and he's of course beyond pissed off @ AOC, for what he calls her "Lamebrain remarks." I haven't seen nor talked with him in a few months, and I'm very interested to drive over to my friends house before the week is out to see what he REALLY feels about all things Dem. The guy is sharp as a tack still, nearing 100.

[stillcool]

32. Concentration Camp is the very definition..

for what is going on at the border. They are not "death camps", but they most certainly are concentration camps as the word is defined. According to the dictionary the word "concentration camp" as it is described was first used in 1897.

con·cen·tra·tion camp
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.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concentration%20camp
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

[juxtaposed]

24. well put

[procon]

11. Yes.

People held without due process, without formal charges, denied rights available to them under the law, blocked from getting legal advice, and denied justice by the powers of the state, describe the victims in a concentration camp

Even convicts in the US prison system have an expectation of basic care, humane treatment and legal rights that are being denied immigrants sent to these squalid concentration camps.

Trump's government already admits they are ill prepared and unable to handle the influx of immigrants. The situation was intentionally made worse by forcibly separating families, and making it increasingly more difficult for refugees and asylum seekers to find relief from their plights.

Trump's inherent cruelty demands the horrors of concentration camps to maximize human misery and suffering. He has always said that the brutal conditions for children and families were intended to serve as a "deterent" to other migrants. That is not how any modern day prison system is run.

[tomhagen]

17. Yes. Use that powerful word. Concentration camp is one step before Death Camp

[AncientGeezer]

18. No.

[RandiFan1290]

33. Too bad

She is right.

[AncientGeezer]

35. She isn't close to right...

Check out this source

Link to tweet

[W T F]

21. Republicans think that concentration camps are just for jews?....That in itself, is racist

[Srkdqltr]

27. YES!!

[choie]

28. According to Britannica

it sure sounds like she was right:

"Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial. Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war. They are also to be distinguished from refugee camps or detention and relocation centres for the temporary accommodation of large numbers of displaced persons."

[lapucelle]

30. ...

Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.

Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war.

They are also to be distinguished from refugee camps or detention and relocation centres for the temporary accommodation of large numbers of displaced persons.

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

[rampartc]

34. here we are quibbling with these deplorables about the definition of concentration camp

just like we did when they started waterboarding.

by the time we can decide on a term bad enough to use they are doing it as standard operating procedure.