- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
One day, Americans will be ashamed of themselves. Like the Germans were.
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The first thing I heard today, after hopping in my truck to head home from work, was a report on the new concentration camp in south florida. The report included a sound bite of the governor of florida gloating at how quickly and handily the site was developed and how helpful it is that there’s a great runway too. It’s the first I heard of it. It only took a moment for me to wonder how long before I end up there. I cannot believe this is how things are turning out. With all of our knowledge and ability, this is the best we can do.
I’m already ashamed of ourselves, but some days I feel like the minority.
The US has been running a concentration camp since 2001. People are just miffed that they’re the ones being put in there this time.
We also ran concentration camps before 2001, we just called them “internment” camps.
This kind of weird hyperbole helps no one.
Yes, the US’s prison system is an abomination, including atrocious conditions, corruption, maltreatment and death, not to mention any of the injustices baked into the system of car registration / credit checks / felony convictions / education and all the rest of it that effectively create an invisible apartheid system where about 35% of the country are barred, permanently, from ever being able to live a first-world-existence life.
That’s different than setting up mass detention camps and promising to put innocent people and political opponents into them, setting up a secretive law enforcement agency tasked with doing that, and then getting to work at a massive scale. It just is. The fact that the system has been rigged in general since the 80s doesn’t mean what’s happening right now is not a 10-alarm, 20-alarm, fire.
And Americans were by-the-by fine when secretive government agencies were putting proven innocent people and political opponents in Guantanamo Bay alongside terrorists, as long as they weren’t Americans.
A lot of people weren’t fine with that. Pretty much the same people who are alarmed and horrified by the current developments were alarmed and horrified about Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, the war, and all the rest of it. The issue is just that we haven’t really done anything about it.
Already been ashamed of my government for years. Supporting fascism abroad isn’t any better than supporting it at home.
Honestly I don’t see a parallel, the two photos are completely different. Not to say that they aren’t building a concentration camp in Florida, but if you want to change minds, it helps if your propaganda is coherent.
