There Are People in Concentration Camps. Why Aren't We in the Streets?

[babylonsister]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/there-are-people-in-concentration-camps-why-arent-we-in-the-streets/


There Are People in Concentration Camps. Why Aren’t We in the Streets?
It’s one thing to protest the immigration crackdown. It’s another to resist it.
Malcolm Harris

The honorable gentleman who presides told us that, to prevent abuses in our government, we will assemble in Convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!
—Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

Most of the historians who study these things seem to be calling them concentration camps. I don’t know what kind of sentence is supposed to come after that. The president keeps threatening to go city by city rounding up millions of people, and we’re left to hope it’s just another one of his lies, like when he jokes about refusing to leave office even if he loses the election.

If someone knows exactly what to do right now I haven’t met them yet, and I’ve been asking around. We don’t have the capacity to protect each other from the state, which means we can’t protect ourselves either. Aside from a legal speed bump here and there we’re at the discretion of a violent, addled demagogue and the henchmen craven enough to have stuck by him this long. Incompetence and lack of imagination are our checks and balances.

snip//

But meaningful resistance comes with serious risk. A confederation devoted to disrupting the Department of Homeland Security and halting the enforcement of immigration law at scale is guaranteed to be treated like a terrorist group, even though its purpose and methods would have nothing to do with terrorism. It’s the conceptual violence of anti-raids action more than any threat to the safety of its personnel that DHS would find unacceptable: both the general idea of people organizing to resist the law and the specific resistance to the government’s ethnic cleansing program. People who involved themselves in this kind of activity could be risking significant prison time. And that’s if a government that many of us recognize as well within the fascist tradition limits itself to standard practices for dealing with political prisoners, which is not something that fascists are known for.

One reason I think we’ve been arguing about the name of the camps is that life in the shadow of concentration camps is not supposed to be worth living. “Never again” doesn’t mean “Don’t commit genocide” or even “Oppose ethnic cleansing”; the phrase implies a permanent obligation to resist in the Dale Smith sense—stop the camps—or risk being the equivalent of all those Good Germans. The presence of concentration camps should be intolerable, and yet here we are, tolerating it. Either they aren’t camps or we aren’t who we said we were. There has got to be a better way to reduce our cognitive dissonance than playing with definitions.

A lot of American regions, cities, and towns have rapid response networks that, in the event of an ICE raid, give immigrants a number to call for help. Volunteers provide information, witness, and moral support. As near as I can tell there’s only one American network that publicly employs a full diversity of tactics, including confrontation—Los Angeles’ Koreatown Popular Assembly. In January of last year they blocked ICE agents from returning to a 7-Eleven as part of a national wave of raids on the convenience store chain. A month later the group blocked an immigration van outside of a prison downtown in retaliation for immigration raids. That’s a model, and a start. Leftist writer Arun Gupta’s simple call for a march on the camps—which are intentionally located far from population centers—has been resonant as well. A meaningful conflict with the state requires tactics and strategies that almost no one is used to in America.

The crackdown on immigrants isn’t new or even exclusive to Trump, but that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize today’s particular danger. To engage in resistance probably means becoming a target for the federal government’s repressive apparatus, but at least that might put us in good company. Better to be with the abused than looking for an excuse in euphemisms. Hell, better to be dead than a Good American. When those are the only options left, there can be no choice.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. The short answer is that our society works really hard to dismantle the kinds of networks and system

that can be quickly activated for mass action. It works to take power from unions, uses racism and fear of crime to divide us, fosters an economic system that relies on winners and losers (and thus implies that we have to compete against everyone we meet), and keeps many of us who would otherwise use our power for good just on the edge of disaster so we can't focus on long-term change or building solidarity with others.

So if someone is interested in action, it's important to start small and focus on easy wins and reachable goals. We can't call a general strike overnight, but we can build better networks with our acquaintances to write letters, hold a fundraiser, hold a demonstration and get the local news to cover it. And that builds capacity for the next action, and inspires others to act on their own, which also builds capacity.

[brooklynite]

3. Nonsense...

After Trump's election, how long did it take the Women's March to organize. When Trump imposed the Muslim ban, how long to take for lawyers and counselors to organize support teams and protests at airports.

The problem with "why aren't we in the streets" questions, is that they avoid the starting question: "why isn't the author in the street"?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. The Women's March didn't take long to organize at all because the people organizing it were

experienced organizers who activated their networks to loop in other groups and people that added capacity. It did not start from zero.

We aren't marching in the street because we haven't hit the critical mass of either organizing on our own around the issue, or organizing enough to activate larger networks to get everyone in the street.

[babylonsister]

5. See post #4. nt

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Wonderful!

[2naSalit]

2. Baby Killers...

They, republicans, are the baby killers.

[babylonsister]

4. Thousands of people are organizing a huge, nationwide vigil at detention camps across America.

https://www.upworthy.com/thousands-of-people-are-organizing-a-huge-nationwide-vigil-at-detention-camps-across-america?fbclid=IwAR3ECKh84HOQTvXK8gQokE8X17ypUCIUd3vWm56mrme4XxHeuk3YUxnNBak


Thousands of people are organizing a huge, nationwide vigil at detention camps across America.
We can end American concentration camps together.
Annie Reneau
06.24.19
Millions of Americans are seeing reports of migrants suffering abusive conditions in U.S. custody and wondering what they can do.

When you hear one story, you may assume it's an anomaly. When you hear a few stories, you might think they're just rumors. But at this point, the number of reports from on-the-ground sources documenting blatant human rights abuses on our soil cannot be ignored.

We have doctors, lawyers, public health officials, civil rights experts, and reporters sharing horrifying first-hand accounts of what is happening to people—to children—we have detained.

We have administration officials on video telling incredulous judges that children in overcrowded detention centers do not need access to showers, soap, toothbrushes, or blankets.

We have people arguing over whether our detention camps should be "technically" considered concentration camps, as if the question itself is not a sign that we've crossed a line somewhere.

We have reports of thousands of immigrant children being sexually abused in detention centers, some of them by staff members themselves.

We have innocent children dying in our custody.

snip//

A mass mobilization effort is underway to stand in solidarity against human detention camps on July 12.

There are many ways that people have suggested helping. Donating money to legal advocacy groups who specialize in immigration law definitely helps. But what if we want to make a strong, unified stand against these atrocities? Millions of us want to speak as one voice to say, "No more of this. Not on our soil. Not on our watch."

Enter "Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps." On July 12, a mass gathering will take place at detention centers around the country, in addition to local communities, to shed a literal light on the inhumane conditions being faced by asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

The mission of Lights of Liberty is simple:

"We are a coalition of people, many of whom are mothers, dedicated to human rights, and the fundamental principle behind democracy that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and dignity.

We are partnering with national, regional and local communities and organizations who believe that these fundamental rights are not negotiable and are willing to protect them.

On Friday July 12th, 2019, Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps, will bring thousands of Americans to detention camps across the country, into the streets and into their own front yards, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees."

As of today, vigils are scheduled in 75 locations around the country and the world, with more being added every day. If you want to find an event near you or organize a vigil in your area, go here.

"Now is a time to stand for what is best in all of us, to stop the worst of us."

Organizations are lining up to sponsor the Lights of Liberty vigil. The United Farm Workers Foundation, The Dolores Huerta Foundation, Al Otro Lado, New Sanctuary Coalition, Black Movement Law Project, V-Day, the ACLU of Southern California , One Billion Rising, Code Pink, and more than a dozen other organizations have already signed up to sponsor the vigil. The main event is scheduled to take place in El Paso, Texas, where legislators, activists, organizers, and members of impacted communities are expected to speak at 7pm, leading up to the nationwide candlelight moment of silence at 9pm.

"We shine a light on the inhumane treatment of migrants and refugees by the current administration. To be silent is to be complicit. To sit this out is to be complacent. Now is a time to stand for what is best in all of us, to stop the worst of us. We must stand for one another. At New Sanctuary Coalition, we hold in our hearts a vision of a world worth fighting for," said Ravi Ragbir, Executive Director of New Sanctuary Coalition, in a press release.

"I've been inside these camps, and the conditions are beyond description. Twenty-four adults and six children that we know of have already died as a result," said Toby Gialluca, lawyer, activist and member of the organizing team of Lights for Liberty. "The world must take a stand against this administration and stop these camps before more lives are lost."

There is no doubt that it's hard to handle an influx of migrants and asylum-seekers. But that doesn't excuse torturing families and children. The administration has admitted to tearing children from their mother's arms on purpose to deter illegal border crossings, while at the same time blocking asylum seekers at trying to come legally through ports of entry. That leaves desperate people in impossible circumstances, and creates an even greater crisis.

There's no excuse for treatment like this. It's time to make our voices heard. Mark your calendars for July 12.

[C_U_L8R]

6. Tonight's debate ought to be an organizing event

Mobilize and save the children !!