Don't Forget the ICE Camps
Learning from History in Nuggets
Yesterday, as the Pro-Publica report on the secret CPB's Facebook group leaked with posts of 100s and 100s of posts mocking the poorest amongst us with no money and no power, AOC reported how women and children were forced to drink water from the toilet. The border guards were laughing with a whole host of congressional representatives in front of them. They knew they faced no consequences.
Last week, of course, Mitch McConnell and the President claimed that the conditions were so dehumanizing because of funding issues. As always, the Democratic party immediately capitulated and Nancy Pelosi, who could have single handedly stopped any funding from going into this horrid organization, capitulated.
It’s an appropriations bill to meet the needs of our children so we can remove the needs that they have but also the shame that we should have that they don’t have diapers and toothbrushes and the care. I said to the members, we have to have a country where every child knows that they are in their parents’ arms. Literally or figuratively. We are the arms of these children in terms of this appropriation is concerned. We want them to feel that comfort.
I cannot pretend to know what is in the mind of Nancy Pelosi, but I have to remind her that it isn't about funding. It is about fascism. To give their argument any value, legitimacy, at this point, is being an accidental collaborator.
I was reading the transcripts from the Nuremberg trials for the people overseeing the concentration camp Belsen, I noticed the witnesses would always describe the prisoners as “emaciated”, “ghost-like”, “pale” and “starving.”
The general appearance of the inmates, with a few exceptions, was one of extreme weakness and in the majority of cases an almost unbelievable lack of flesh on the bones; there were inmates who had gangrenes on their bodies and asked for help and others suffering from dysentery who also wanted help.
However, one testimony from a British soldier, Major Berney, really shocked me.
The witness said that in the store at the camp there were 600 tons of potatoes, 120 tons of tinned meat, 30 tons of sugar and more than 20 tons of powdered milk as well as cocoa, grain, wheat and other foodstuffs. There was a fully stocked and completely staffed bakery in the Wehrmacht camp capable of turning out 60,000 loaves a day.
Obviously the reason that the prisoners in Belsen concentration camp wasn’t because the Nazi government didn’t allocate proper funding. Instead, the Nazi government had told the people in charge of the camp that these people were lesser people and they could do whatever they want with impunity and they would face no consequences.
Forwarding back to 2019, the idea that the kids in the CPB facilities don't have toothbrushes, bathing supplies, and an adult guardian is ludicrous. It was not due to funding. Instead, it is because we, as a society, have decided that we are willing to shut down our eyes and let those in power, treat some of these people as lesser human.
How do I know this? No self-respecting lawyer should be making this argument in court. But, listen to it. They are arguing against treating them as fully human.
Let’s remember:
And finally:
Watch the movie 3 1/2 years Without A Toothbrush