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Author Topic: U.S. History & Politics, Climate Change, Trump Impeachment & Standing Rock: CONTEXT  (Read 2304 times)

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AGelbert

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The Third Reich Did Not Die; It Moved To the USA
« Reply #15 on: May 21, 2019, 08:17:39 pm »

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ
Investigating the Investigation: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #11



Romero Institute

Published on May 13, 2019

AUDIO IMPROVES AT 47:20. Our little Zoom H4 Audio recorder decided to freeze up and erase the first half of class... so had to use the room mic.

Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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https://youtu.be/FEj2n_n7Gxc?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a

Agelbert NOTE: In the above video, Daniel Sheehan covers some background on the routine corruption in U.S. politics. That may be old news to you, but you will learn that the amount of political corruption prosecuted is inversely proportional to the crime. IOW, they NEVER prosecute the really big crimes. >:(

This stuff is DYNAMITE that needs to get out there before those videos disappear. The videos (probably) aren't 'gone' yet because the university law course format looks so boring that they have not gotten much attention. Please watch, at least the above video, in the series and pass it on to friends and family. Take advantage of this window of opportunity while you can. I guarantee you that window will close soon.

Daniel Sheehan states, with irrefutable proof, that the Brown Brothers Harriman group of 50 oligarchic Fascist Big Dogs got going WAY BACK in the early 20th century.

THEY were the ones who got the guy, who basically had ALL the presidential power in 1917 (Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke), to order American Troops to invade Russia and try to help the "white" Russians put the Socialist Revolution down.

THEY were the ones who orchestrated the attempted coup against Roosevelt in 1932.

THEY were the ones who, despite Smedley's information detailing the treason there, were let go with a slap on the wrist and told to "be nice, and don't do it again" by Congress.

THEY were the ones who FUNDED the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich War Machine (to stop the "Bolshevicks").

THEY were the ones who kept the Prescott Bush NAZI from being prosecuted, but rewarded instead! The Dulles NAZI brothers have a history going back to their Robber Baron Granpappy (Foster) in 1893, who trained his Dulles grandsons on how to be good Fascists.

THEY were the ones who worked Operation Paper Clip (which had a LOT more NAZIs brought over and protected than just rocket scientists) and THEY were the ones who built the CIA into the NAZI cancer eating this country alive.
 
But the point Sheehan is making, and I agree, is that these CIA Fascists are still in power and stronger than ever.

THEY were the ones who used (and STILL USE) drug money to destroy the political campaigns (and careers) of all the prinicipled politicians on the Church Committee. The CIA GOT REVENGE, they did not get "controlled", as the happy talk history claims.

THEY were the ones who self financed then (starting with Viet Nam), AND NOW, all their fascist political mayhem with drug money.

This goes WAY BEYOND the Bush treasonous bastards, but they certainly are in it up to their eyeballs.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2019, 11:12:38 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ
Dangers, Opportunities, and Origins of a Constitutional Crisis: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #12


Romero Institute

Published on May 16, 2019

Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The Narrative No One Is Talking About
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2019, 09:34:46 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: If you missed this, you need to watch the whole Class #7 video. It is quite revealing.

What Mueller Missed — The Narrative No One Is Talking About: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #7

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ
To Impeach or Not to Impeach - Gathering Our Thoughts: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #13


Romero Institute

Published on May 16, 2019

A discussion of student's paper ideas for their upcoming assignment. A great way to dig further into lines of reasoning and investigation and get to the substance of various arguments. Follow along and submit your own paper! (I'm not sure how long comments can be, but I've seen some pretty long ones...)
Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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https://youtu.be/xeQIIo7UXbQ?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Oil=Money=Power: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #14
« Reply #20 on: June 14, 2019, 08:15:48 pm »


Oil=Money=Power: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #14


Romero Institute

Published on May 22, 2019

https://youtu.be/2IdJz5y4oAk?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a

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« Last Edit: June 15, 2019, 06:54:36 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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How did we get here? (Oil=Money=Power): Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #15



Romero Institute

Published on May 29, 2019

Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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https://youtu.be/2IdJz5y4oAk?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a
« Last Edit: June 15, 2019, 08:04:00 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Exploring Strategies of Resistance: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #16


Romero Institute

Published on May 30, 2019

Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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https://youtu.be/CVNW4EqZKuo?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Exploring Strategies of Resistance: Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #17


Romero Institute

Published on Jun 4, 20199

Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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https://youtu.be/hEkcsau7a68?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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"As I tell my Syracuse University College of Law students, anti-corruption laws can end up fostering corruption because every legal sword can be fashioned into a legal shield." --  David Cay Johnston

The Oil Pipeline Lawyers for the North Dakota 🦕🦖 Hydrocarbon Hellspawn made sure to limit oil pipeline laying requests to only 499 feet of pipe at a time to the gooberment. That is because these clever bastards found that, for requests below 500 ft of oil pipeline, you do not have to submit an environmental impact statement. So, they just keep laying that pipeline, 499 feet at a time. You just cannot make this stuff up.

Daniel Sheehan took them to court but they are still gaming the system for profit over people, particularly indigenous people, and planet.




What are YOU going to do about Climate Change? Daniel Sheehan 2019 Class #18


Romero Institute

Published on Jun 7, 2019

Online syllabus and materials can be found at: https://danielpsheehan.com/tja2019

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https://youtu.be/pTn0lbyx0wk?list=PLVza7sesLJh5EM3OE4417e3yiTyndRR6a

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

Surly1

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The ever-reliable Masha Gessen gets to work on the real Children of Men situation happing in the FSoA and the attempts of the right wing language police to obfuscate the truth.

The Unimaginable Reality of American Concentration Camps

By Masha Gessen



The debate over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the term “concentration camp” is not about language or facts. It is about how we perceive history, ourselves, and ourselves in history.Photograph by Jose Luis Gonzalez / Reuters

Like many arguments, the fight over the term “concentration camp” is mostly an argument about something entirely different. It is not about terminology. Almost refreshingly, it is not an argument about facts. This argument is about imagination, and it may be a deeper, more important conversation than it seems.

In a Monday-evening live stream, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, called the U.S.’s detention facilities for migrants “concentration camps.” On Tuesday, she tweeted a link to an article in Esquire in which Andrea Pitzer, a historian of concentration camps, was quoted making the same assertion: that the United States has created a “concentration camp system.” Pitzer argued that “mass detention of civilians without a trial” was what made the camps concentration camps. The full text of Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet was “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying. This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis.” Hackles were immediately raised, tweets fired, and, less than an hour and a half later, Representative Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, tweeted, “Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history. 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this.” A high-pitched battle of tweets and op-eds took off down the much travelled dead-end road of arguments about historical analogies. These almost never go well, and they always devolve into a virtual shouting match if the Holocaust, the Nazis, or Adolf Hitler is invoked. One side always argues that nothing can be as bad as the Holocaust, therefore nothing can be compared to it; the other argues that the cautionary lesson of history can be learned only by acknowledging the similarities between now and then.

But the argument is really about how we perceive history, ourselves, and ourselves in history. We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison. As for history, the greater the event, the more mythologized it becomes. Despite our best intentions, the myth becomes a caricature of sorts. Hitler, or Stalin, comes to look like a two-dimensional villain—someone whom contemporaries could not have seen as a human being. The Holocaust, or the Gulag, are such monstrous events that the very idea of rendering them in any sort of gray scale seems monstrous, too. This has the effect of making them, essentially, unimaginable. In crafting the story of something that should never have been allowed to happen, we forge the story of something that couldn’t possibly have happened. Or, to use a phrase only slightly out of context, something that can’t happen here.

A logical fallacy becomes inevitable. If this can’t happen, then the thing that ishappening is not it. What we see in real life, or at least on television, can’t possibly be the same monstrous phenomenon that we have collectively decided is unimaginable. I have had many conversations about this in Russia. People who know Vladimir Putin and his inner circle have often told me that they are not the monsters that I and others have described. Yes, they have overseen assassinations, imprisonments, and wars, but they are not thoroughly terrible, my interlocutors have claimed—they are not like Stalin and his henchmen. In other words, they are not the monsters of our collective historical imagination. They are today’s flesh-and-blood monsters, and this makes them seem somehow less monstrous.

Anything that happens here and now is normalized, not solely through the moral failure of contemporaries but simply by virtue of actually existing. Allow me to illustrate. My oldest son, who spent his early childhood in a Russian hospital, was for many years extremely small for his age. I spent useless hours upon hours in my study in Moscow, where we then lived, poring over C.D.C. growth charts. No matter how many times I looked, I couldn’t place him—he was literally off the chart. As far as the C.D.C. was concerned, my son, at his age, height, and weight, was unimaginable. When he was four, I took him to see a pediatrician in Boston. She entered his measurements into her computer, and a red dot appeared on the chart. I felt my body finally relax; my child was no longer impossible! He was on the chart. Then I realized that the pediatrician was working with an interactive chart. (This was in the early aughts, and there weren’t any available to me at home.) She had just put him in the system. His little red dot was still below the lowest, fifth-percentile curve. He was still the smallest child of his age. But a sort of cognitive trick had been performed. My son’s size had been documented, and this made him possible.

Donald Trump has played this trick on Americans many times, beginning with his very election: first, he was impossible, and then he was President. Did that mean that the impossible had happened—an extremely hard concept to absorb—or did it mean that Trump was not the catastrophe so many of us had assumed he would be? A great many Americans chose to think that he had been secretly Presidential all along or was about to become Presidential; they chose to accept that, now that he was elected, his Presidency would become conceivable. The choice between these two positions is at the root of the argument between Ocasio-Cortez and the critics of her concentration-camp comment. It is not an argument about language. Ocasio-Cortez and her opponents agree that the term “concentration camp” refers to something so horrible as to be unimaginable. (For this reason, mounting a defense of Ocasio-Cortez’s position by explaining that not all concentration camps were death camps misses the point.) It is the choice between thinking that whatever is happening in reality is, by definition, acceptable, and thinking that some actual events in our current reality are fundamentally incompatible with our concept of ourselves—not just as Americans but as human beings—and therefore unimaginable. The latter position is immeasurably more difficult to hold—not so much because it is contentious and politically risky, as attacks on Ocasio-Cortez continue to demonstrate, but because it is cognitively strenuous. It makes one’s brain implode. It will always be a minority position.


AGelbert

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Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet was “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying. This is not hyperbole.

TRUE. Liz Cheney's "rebuttal" to the irrefutable truth that AOC tweets is typical Republican baloney. Liz Cheney, like her Darth Vader daddy, Dick Cheney, is a fascist. So, she will obviously do all she can to pretend she is an "enemy" of the fascistoid love of abusing the "other" through concentration camps! That requires sophistry at an Orwellian level. What fascists want to do is, of course, brand the truth teller (i.e. AOC) as a "hysterical liar". Anyone that has read the Doomstead Diner mad dentist's fascism enabling defenses of Capitalism, or fascsit enabler Ashvin's wont for accusing the debater of "projection", knows how that underhanded fallacious debating technique "works".

I agree with the article author Masha Gessen that the debate focus is misplaced, but I disagree with her take on WHY past history gets "disconnected" from present reality. THAT, thanks to our fascist enabling media, is quite MENS REA deliberate.

 
AOC 👍 is clearly pointing at evidence of the Fascist modus operandi, now happily supported by Trump loving = Republicans. Masha Gessen doesn't want to look at how U.S. Policy history shaped the current fascist practices here. Sure, Russia is fascist now and they did have gulags under Stalin's "Socialist" dictatorship. But, the REASON all that abuse of the "other" came about NOW, both here and there, lies in U.S. history.

Of course, nobody in our media wants to go there, so I will:

Franklin D. Roosevelt made a HUGE mistake (these were the SAME elite Wall Street bastards that had plotted to install Fascism in the USA after FDR was elected) in letting them into the OSS to "rehabilitate themselves with wartime service" after they were caught red handed STILL funding German corporations AFTER the U.S. was at war with Germany!

THEY are the ones that targeted Russian Socialism as soon as it was clear (February 3, 1943) that Russia was going to beat Germany.

THEY are the ones that formed the core of the CIA.

THEY were the ones that, with Truman's full approval, went around the U.S. Congress to use over one Trillion :o dollars worth of recovered treasure the Japanese had hidden to FINANCE closet FASCIST politicians in post war Europe against the heroic Partisans (who had fought the Nazis during the European occupation), in order to keep Socialism from taking hold in Europe.

That treasure SHOULD have been used to lower our national debt. Most of Europe would have gone Socialist, and the world would be a much better place now, if the "Anderson Trust" had not been illegally created. Truman and his Department of War fascist handlers committed TREASON to help fascism grow in Europe AND in the USA. It worked beyond their wildest, murderous, fascist dreams.

Learn more:
« Last Edit: June 23, 2019, 05:10:42 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Does a wild bear poop in the woods?
« Reply #27 on: June 23, 2019, 05:11:37 pm »

Are Immigration Detention Centers Concentration Camps?

June 23, 2019


Aviva Chomsky discusses the reality of refugees coming to the U.S in light of the controversial statement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that refugees are kept in concentration camps

Story Transcript 👍👍👍

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps.

GREG WILPERT It’s The Real News Network and I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore. That, just now, was Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She was condemned for this video with Fox News, for example, saying that she should apologize to every Jew for comparing immigration detention centers in the US with concentration camps. Here’s more of what she had to say.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ If that doesn’t bother you, I don’t—I have—like, we can have—Okay. Whatever. I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that we should not, that “never again” means something. And that, the fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the “home of the free” is extraordinarily disturbing.

GREG WILPERT Many organizations and individuals also rose to defend what she said, arguing that without making comparisons, one cannot learn from history, and one is doomed to repeat it. Jewish Voice for Peace, a US-based progressive Jewish organization with tens of thousands of members, published a short statement reminding people that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was sharing an article from the men’s magazine Esquire, which quoted journalist and concentration camp expert Andrea Pitzer who said, “There have been concentration camps in France, South Africa, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and— with Japanese internment— the United States. In fact, we are operating such a system right now in response to a very real spike in arrivals at our southern border.” Various right-wing and pro-Trump organizations found it easier to lash out at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than at Esquire Magazine, but this entire debate has drawn attention away from the actual story— the conditions under which refugees who arrive at the US border are kept. So to discuss this, we are joined by Aviva Chomsky. She is a Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State University, and author of many books, the latest of which is Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal. Thanks for joining us again, Aviva.

AVIVA CHOMSKY Oh. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on.

GREG WILPERT So let’s start with the obvious question. Do you agree that the conditions in which families are kept at near the southern border, could and should be called “concentration camps?”

AVIVA CHOMSKY Okay. So. I can answer that question really—I can give an answer on both sides of the question. On one hand, using that kind of terminology in the United States today is inflammatory because we have been taught falsely that “concentration camp” is a word that applies solely to the Nazi regime and to the death camps that were part of the system of the Holocaust, of the attempted extermination of the Jewish and other unwanted populations of Germany and the territories conquered by Germany during World War II. But on the other hand, we can also say that this is a very strategic and propagandistic use of the term “concentration camps because the term concentration camps has broader meaning than that. That is, the Nazi death camps are one historical example of concentration camps, but concentration camps have existed in many different places.

Basically, what a concentration camp is, is a place where a governing power concentrates a civilian population that has not been accused of or committed any crime, but rather imprisoning people, concentrating people not because they have been imprisoned for and judged and charged for committing a crime, but rather simply because of who they are, removing them from where they want to be and forcing them to live in some kind of a prison camp where the reason that they have been imprisoned is because of who they are. Now, this has happened over and over again in world history and in US history— the Nazi death camps being only one historical example.

Some of the examples we might even learn about if we’re studying US history at a mainstream high school classroom; for example, during the Spanish-American War, or the Cuban War for Independence, when the Spanish were trying to reconcentrate the Cuban population, they took the Cuban population out of the areas where they lived and imprisoned them in these huge concentration camps, prison camps. And some of the US propaganda trying to justify the US entry into the Cuban War of Independence, which we then came to call the Spanish-American War, was because of the Spanish policy of removing civilian populations and concentrating them in prison camps. So the United States, in that case, denounced the policy.

We did the same thing in the United States with the Japanese American population during World War II. And at that time, US government officials, the Supreme Court, openly called the Japanese internment camps concentration camps because civilians were being removed from their homes and concentrated in prison camps— not because they were being imprisoned for a crime, but simply because of who they were. So civilian populations being concentrated, imprisoned, in prison camps. They were not prisoners of war. They were simply imprisoned in these camps because of who they are. So the same thing is happening with immigrants who are being detained at the border. They are being detained because of who they are. And they are being concentrated in these camps where they are not allowed to leave, where they have not been accused of a crime. They are civilians. Many of them are women and children. They’re not prisoners of war because we’re not at war. They’re not prisoners because they are not being processed by the judicial system or have not been processed by any judicial system. They are simply being concentrated in these camps and in that respect, that very much, these are concentration camps.

GREG WILPERT Now, as someone who has studied the US immigration system, what do you think is the most worrisome or perhaps illegal aspect of keeping refugees under such conditions in these detention centers or in concentration camps? And what do you think needs to happen to change the system and to address the concerns that you might have?

AVIVA CHOMSKY Well, that’s a really big question. [laughs] So the United States has always made claims about “liberty and justice for all,” about “equal rights for all,”  and those claims have always been false because there have always been exceptions. So when we use the word “all” in our legal system, in our Constitution, and our Declaration of Independence, we don’t really mean all because we always exclude certain groups of people. These people have not always been immigrants. In fact, during much of US history, immigrants have been the privileged classes in the United States because the exclusion was defined by race, not by immigration status. Now in the late 20th century, when many of the immigrants are racially-defined as different, they are racialized, immigration and race have been, sort of—The racial issues and the immigration issues are overlaid over each other in ways that are different now in the 21st century than they were say, two hundred years ago.

But the fact that certain people are racially-excluded has been a fact during every single moment of this country’s history since 1608. So, what’s wrong with that? Well we all know what’s wrong with that. Discrimination is wrong. Exclusion is wrong. Unequal treatment under the law is wrong. But that’s exactly what our immigration system does. Another piece of this puzzle that we need to understand is that most of the refugees who are being incarcerated in these concentration camps today are people who are fleeing places like Central America, especially the northern triangle of Central America— the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, where the United States has been deeply, deeply involved for over a hundred years. To the extent that we can fairly call them separate countries—That is, their politics has been so influenced by the United States— military intervention, economic intervention, political intervention.

To say, well oh, those are just countries over there that have nothing to do with us and these people don’t belong here. Well, that denies the entire history. The United States would not be the United States without its interventions in Central America, the US companies that have been involved and continue to be involved in Central America, the minerals that we have extracted from Central America, the agricultural products that we have extracted from Central America, the maquiladoras, the clothes that we wear that are produced in Central America, the US companies that are profiting off of this exploitation of Central America. The United States would not be the United States if it were not for this long-term relationship with Central America. And every single person in the United States experiences this relationship on a daily basis in the food that we put in our mouths and the clothes that we put on our bodies. Central America is part of us.

And the amount of military aid, military interventions that the United States has poured into Central America—-So, the fact that people are fleeing Central America to the United States—That is, it’s really a false approach if we say, oh well, you know. That’s just other countries somewhere far away where bad things are happening and it’s not our responsibility to take care of these people. We have a common, integrated history and discriminating against people because they are Central American, is part of our system of exploitation of Central America that has been going on for over a hundred years, and continues today.

GREG WILPERT Now, just turning to something very recent as well, is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, just confirmed that it will begin an operation for deporting undocumented immigrants this weekend. On a Monday, President Trump had already announced the operation when he tweeted, “Next week, ICE will begin the process of removing millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way to the United States.” Now, ICE clarified that this weekend’s operation is actually targeting about 2,000 individuals who received warrants basically. So what do you think would be the effect of this move for the undocumented immigrants in the US, this decision that is to launch this kind of process of raiding their homes?

AVIVA CHOMSKY Like much of Trump’s policies, part of this is simply political theater. That is, we’re moving into the campaign season and he is trying to show himself as, I’m taking strong action on immigration. All of the threats against Mexico and then the much-flaunted signing of a deal with Mexico, which it turned out wasn’t a new deal at all, but were things that have been agreed upon by the US and Mexico long before. These high-profile raids, this obviously isn’t the first time that these kinds of high-profile raids have happened. They’re talking about people who already have open deportation orders, which means that they can be deported quickly. They don’t have to go through a court process. Most of the 10 or 11 million undocumented people in the United States don’t fall into that category. They’re targeting specific individuals. And it’s something that’s been going on. So part of it is the political theater. That is, how Trump is trying to play to his base and look good to an audience that wants to see action on targeting undocumented immigrants. Under the Bush administration, we saw the same kinds of things with some of the factory raids that were completely purposeless except for political theater.

But obviously, human lives are at stake in this political theater. That is, the winners— or they hope to be the winners— are our US politicians and the losers are people whose lives are destroyed so that politicians can, they think, make themselves look better to certain sectors of the population that are whipped up into an anti-immigrant sentiment. Immigration is caused by structural factors. If we want to change immigration—That is, is immigration a problem? I always say immigration is a problem not for the United States where immigrants contribute to the economy in innumerable ways, and the country’s economy would collapse if we got rid of immigrants. Immigration is a problem for immigrants. Immigration means that people are being pushed out of their homes, that countries are being destroyed, and people are fleeing, and that’s what the problem is. If we were to really look at the causes of the problem and try to solve it, we would actually be making people’s lives better and making immigration a choice rather than a necessity for many of the immigrants who would much rather stay home if they really had that option.

GREG WILPERT Okay. Unfortunately, I’m going to leave it there for now. I’m speaking to Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History at Salem State University. Thanks again, Aviva, for having joined us today.

AVIVA CHOMSKY Thanks for having me on. It’s a pleasure.

GREG WILPERT And thank you for joining The Real News Network.

https://therealnews.com/stories/are-immigration-detention-centers-concentration-camps

Agelbert COMMENT:   It's the Fascism, stupid!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Burying the True Crime
« Reply #28 on: June 28, 2019, 07:42:02 pm »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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