Ocasio-Cortez defends comparing migrant detention centers to 'concentration camps'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Tuesday defended her comments comparing migrant detention centers on the U.S. southern border to "concentration camps," which critics slammed as insensitive to Holocaust survivors.

The freshman lawmaker made the comparison while filming an Instagram Live Monday night in which she excoriated President Donald Trump's administration for its treatment of migrants at the border.

"The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that 'never again' means something. The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the 'home of the free' is extraordinarily disturbing and we need to do something about it."

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., condemned Ocasio-Cortez for the remarks Tuesday.

"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," Cheney said on Twitter.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ocasio-cortez-defends-comparing-migrant-detention-centers-to-concentration-camps/ar-AAD4lDl?li=BBnb7Kz

Actually AOC is technically correct. The term "concentration camp" did not originate with the Holocaust but with the Boer War.

However most won't understand this since the term is largely associated with WWII.

[EveHammond13]

1. I defend it as well

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. Fuck Liz Cheney!

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Many here on this board

have called these places Concentration Camps.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Actually, they originated just before the Boer war in Africa.

The Boer war was 1899 to 1902

US soldiers used them when they violently took over the Philippines in 1898, they killed as many of the natives as they could, esp. the men and boys over 10, put the remainder in concentration camps, forced the below 10 year old boys to go to American run boarding schools and learn American ways.
(they also used water boarding torture on Filipinos)

If that sounds familiar, it is because they did much the same thing to various tribes of American Indians, esp. the Plains tribes.

Source...James Bradley's book The Imperial Cruise, A secret History of Empire and War.
He wrote Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys.

Yes, to your point that Hitler's death camps have created the more infamous definition of concentration camp.

[Mariana]

5. The first concentration camps in Nazi Germany opened in 1933.

They didn't start out on day one, committing genocide in the concentration camps. That came about over time. The actual extermination camps, the ones that were built for the express purpose of murdering huge numbers of people, were opened later, in the 1940's.

[Hekate]

6. What's happening now is Phase 2. Phase 1 was DT dehumanizing them in his escalator speech...

From here on it only gets worse. People are already dying of disease. The girls have all disappeared. Most families will never reunite.

We don't ever want to see Phase 3, but unless we get rid of Trump and Pence and McConnell -- gods help this country.

German concentration camps didn't START with gas chambers, they started with dehumanization and removal.