Andrew Cuomo: Ocasio-Cortez's concentration camp remarks 'wholly inappropriate'

[babylonsister]

If the shoe fits...


Andrew Cuomo: Ocasio-Cortez's concentration camp remarks 'wholly inappropriate'
By Zack Budryk - 06/26/19 05:06 PM EDT


New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) called New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D) characterization of detention facilities for migrants as concentration camps “wholly inappropriate” Wednesday, The New York Daily News reported.

“The Holocaust, you’re talking about a tragedy of Biblical proportion and one of the greatest scourges in history. Six million Jews died during the Holocaust, there is no comparison to the Holocaust, period,” Cuomo said, according to the Daily News.

“To draw an equivalency suggests one does not understand what happened in the Holocaust,” he added.

Ocasio-Cortez’s original remarks did not specifically invoke the Holocaust.

“​The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are — they are concentration camps,” she said in an Instagram Q&A last week.

Conditions in the detention facilities have become a flashpoint in the immigration debate in recent weeks, particularly after reports that the facilities are unsanitary and lack resources like food or soap.

Although numerous Republicans and Trump administration officials have condemned Ocasio-Cortez’s description, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) joined the Democrats who have backed her House colleague Wednesday, saying “I’m not afraid to use that word because we are concentrating people, children, in one place in horrible, unacceptable conditions.”

more...

https://thehill.com/latino/450507-andrew-cuomo-ocasio-cortezs-concentration-camp-remarks-wholly-inappropriate

[hlthe2b]

1. Not all agree, including both survivors and descendants of Nazi concentration camps...

I'm more than prepared to be respectful of the differences in opinion on this. However, there is a position that calling attention to the similarities between these camps and the origins of what would quite literally evolve to become the hallmark of Nazi atrocities is important--an early warning sign. That by doing so it is hoped to honor the world-uniting lesson that came from this period--"never again". Obviously, learning from history so as not to repeat it is a core value of mine. Thus, I find the latter argument quite persuasive.

Call a spade a spade. Children (and adults) are suffering and that's the bottom line. NEVER AGAIN still means something, but not if we turn a blind eye

[Midnightwalk]

34. Well said

Never again means there are lines that cannot be crossed such as opening up even pre world war 2 camps. The people adults as well as children are being abused.

We also shouldn’t worry about what was the worst when discussing what is acceptable to us.

Btw, what was “the former”?

[lunatica]

2. Too late! It's now part of our national language.

Anyone objecting to it just cements it’s place in our history.

[Vinca]

3. I love the way people get their drawers in a knot over words. Meanwhile, Trump is accused of rape.

Does Gov. Cuomo have a catchier name? Camp Head Lice, perhaps? Camp Hope-You-Get-Out-Alive???

[Caliman73]

8. Words are important, however, Cuomo is simply wrong on this.

Had AOC said, Donald Trump is just like Hitler and the children at the boarder are being treated just like the Jews circa 1943-1945, then Cuomo would have a point.

The thing is AOC did not say anything that. She used the term "concentration camps" which has certainly been influenced heavily by the use of concentration camps, labor camps, prison camps, and death camps to exterminate Jews and other enemies of the Reich during WWII. She added the well known phrase which definitely references the Holocaust, "Never Again" but that was a call to all of us to act together to prevent the horrible situation, which is IN FACT caused by deliberate policies and attitudes of Trump and his administration, from becoming worse.

Donald Trump is concentrating children and other assylum seekers into camps. They are technically ICE detention camps but they also fit the definition of concentration camps. He and his people CLEARLY said that they were pursuing "punitive policies" to deter other people from migrating to the US. He is receiving his information on the issue from a known racist xenophobe Stephen Miller. They have used the language of dehumanization that was used in Germany during the rise of the Reich calling asylum seekers, criminals, thugs, rapists, animals, etc...

Most people know that the Holocaust was one of the worst events in human history because of the sheer indifference to human life, the efficiency, and speed at which it was carried out. The explicit purpose was to rid Germany/Europe/the World, of Jews and other people who were "undesirable". It is a singular event in our history, however, it wasn't the only time where people were rounded up against their wills and put into horrible conditions and like others have said, the term "concentration camp" was coined at least 60 years prior to World War II.

I can certainly understand the Holocaust survivors and family members who grew up in its shadow not wanting anything to diminish the horror of the event. If there was a unanimous, or even majority outcry against AOC, I could understand especially because those who deny the Holocaust (ironically, people who support Trump and his administration) have shifted from outright denial to saying that the Holocaust may have happened but was not as bad as it has been portrayed. They might use AOC's words to try to diminish the Holocaust or to try to take the meaning out of the event like they have tried to do with using the term "racist".

Cuomo isn't helping the situation. Trump has a war on immigrants from the Southern Hemisphere going on. He is using tactics that were at minimum, inspired by the Reich. Will he end up systematically killing 6 million Nicaraguans, Salvadorians, Guatemalans, and Hondurans? Not likely but AOC is rallying people to make 100 percent sure that it never even gets close to becoming anything like what happened in Europe during WWII.

[ArcticFox]

12. Thank you

As bad as the Jewish Holocaust was, and it was terrible, it wasn't the only mass extermination in world history. And let's not forget it wasn't the only event leading to a mass killing of Jews. There's a serious ignorance being perpetuated by people like Coumo. Pretending the Holocaust was the ultimate atrocity makes it that much more likely something similar will happen again.

Concentration camps preceded extermination camps and the Holocaust. Japanese were held in concentration camps without being exterminated (not to downplay the harm done, but they weren't gassed and worked to death). And are we not allowed to discuss China's concentration camps for Uighurs?

[Caliman73]

14. True.

It's like some people think that if something doesn't happen exactly like it did with the Nazis then, how dare you even compare or point out any similarities!

I also forgot to mention and ask specifically, "What were reservations to the indigenous people in the United States?" If you really think about it, what were they?

Bands of natives were forcibly relocated from the ranges and ancestral lands they inhabited for thousands of years, and placed into the seemingly worst plots of land in the US (unless oil or some mineral was found, then they were moved again to a worse place) and were not allowed to leave those lands. What does that sound like?

[Blue_true]

17. Historians can correct me on this. But as a percentage of total world population, more Jewish

people perished under the reign of Pharaohs than in the Holocaust. Also, Stalin was said to be responsible for the death of 20-21 million people during his reign, how many of those were Jewish people (who in both czarist and communist Russia were subject to pogroms.

[ProudLib72]

24. I thought Stalin's purges included upwards of 30 million

I was going to say, if it's a matter of numbers, the Holocaust pales in comparison with what Stalin did. But it's completely idiotic to go by numbers alone. What is the value of a single human life? Is it not infinitely valuable?

[Blue_true]

31. I don't disagree with you about the value of one human life.

But people that put forward the Holocaust as the marker of historic inhumanity toward one's fellow beings always add in the 6 million Jewish deaths. Yes, just one death under that circumstances under which Jewish people died in the Holocaust was too much. But people are trying to paint AOC as some insensitive orgre, she isn't, Jewish people were first rounded up and detained in concentration camps (the word concentration means amassing), then later the mass killing and purposeful starvation started. I can promise you that some of the immigrants at the boarder, if they brought anything that can be sold for good money, are having those things stolen from them by their captors, with no redress. AOC used the exact right term.

[ProudLib72]

35. There is also the unfortunate fact that the US did not lend much of a hand to Jews

Do you know about the SS St Louis? Granted, we were not the only country turning a blind eye to these immigrants, but I think some of the description used in the article is eerily similar to what we have today. This is just an excerpt:

As the M.S. St. Louis cruised off the coast of Miami in June 1939, its passengers could see the lights of the city glimmering. But the United States hadn’t been on the ship’s original itinerary, and its passengers didn’t have permission to disembark in Florida. As the more than 900 Jewish passengers looked longingly at the twinkling lights, they hoped against hope that they could land.

Most of the ship’s 937 passengers were Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany. Though World War II had not yet begun, the groundwork for the Holocaust was already being laid in Germany, where Jewish people faced harassment, discrimination and political persecution. But though the danger faced by the passengers was clear, they were turned down by immigration authorities, first by Cuba, then the United States and Canada. For many on the St. Louis, that rejection was a death sentence.

The world’s refusal of the St. Louis’ desperate refugees was a death sentence for 254 refugees—approximately half of the number who had returned to the European continent in 1939. Many who did not die were interned in concentration camps, like Max Korman, who built on lessons learned on the ship to help organize inmates of the Westerbork concentration camp in the Netherlands.
https://www.history.com/news/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-louis-1939

[Blue_true]

36. I know about that situation and every time I think about it my heart sinks.

It is just one more reason why I am not a big FDR fan, he allowed those people to be taken back to their deaths, with them having been brought to our shores by a brave captain and his crew for us to give them refuge.

[Trumpocalypse]

18. It wasn't the only mass extermination under the Nazis

They also murdered Gypsies, Homosexuals, the physically & mentally disabled and others.

[OnDoutside]

4. Has he never heard of the Boer War ?

[hatrack]

9. Too Boering to read about, apparently . . . .

.

[OnDoutside]

15. Hahahaha, yes !

[ProudLib72]

26. tRump is just Goering up the concentration camps

Our puns need to be as prickly as they are witty.

[hunter]

5. Tips for being civil while debating child prisons...

Recent incidents of Trump officials being confronted in public for their role in the administration’s separation and imprisonment of immigrant families have driven renewed concern about the lack of civility in U.S. politics. The Onion presents tips for staying civil in a debate about child prisons.

Avoid unkind generalizations like equating the jailing of ethnic minorities with some malevolent form of fascism.

Consider that we all have different perspectives stemming from things like age, ethnicity, or level of racism.

Recall that violently rejecting a tyrannical government goes against everything our forefathers believed in.

Find common ground by recognizing that some kids are huge assholes.

Make sure any protests are peaceful, silent, and completely out of sight of anyone who could actually affect government policy.

Give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt by letting this play out for 20 years and seeing if it gets any better on its own.

Realize that every pressing social issue is solved through civil discourse if you ignore virtually all of human history.

Remind yourself that you’re just two people having a cocktail at the same D.C. party and that politics is a game to you.

Avoid painting with a broad brush. Not everyone in favor of zero-tolerance immigration wants to see children in cages—it’s more likely that they just don’t care.

https://www.theonion.com/tips-for-staying-civil-while-debating-child-prisons-1827147411

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212217662

[stillcool]

6. I wonder if they got the quote...

and created the story around that, or if they wanted to do a story acknowledging how those remarks worked to effect some change, but do it in a back-handed way, so they wouldn't appear to approve of Ocasio-Cortez.

[LuckyCharms]

7. But I don't believe she compared anything to the Holocaust...

and also, the suffering of people is not a numbers game. The suffering of just one person needlessly is unacceptable.

She made a comment concerning the nature of the camps with no comparison to the Holocaust. Cuomo is off base here.

[bdamomma]

10. tRump

is classifying these babies, women, men as animals. He called African nations shitholes, if he doesn't remember saying that. That is why they have audiotape, it can be played for him to listen and listen.

I hate this fucking POS.

[gratuitous]

11. Your concern is duly noted, Andy

Some of us aren't willing to let things get Auschwitz bad before registering our disapproval.

[babylonsister]

20. Yes. This. nt

[uponit7771]

13. I wonder if he has commented on Trump's child abuse?

[Celerity]

16. Coincidence?

Cuomo heads to Israel on economic and personal mission

https://www.wxxinews.org/post/cuomo-heads-israel-economic-and-personal-mission-0

[Trumpocalypse]

19. I trust AOC far more than Cuomo

I hope she decides to primary him in 3 years.

[lapucelle]

32. Here in NYS, we have tuition-free state college and university, a $15 / hr minimum wage,

three months of paid family leave, and Roe V Wade codified into state law ... all under Andrew Cuomo.

[Trumpocalypse]

39. Still trust AOC more nt

[Baltimike]

21. MORE proof that the so called "liberal media" is actually the CONSERVATIVE PRESS. nt

[StarfishSaver]

22. What difference does it make what we call them?

We are locking people up in inhumane conditions. I don't care WHAT we call the places we're locking them up in. The name is totally beside the point

[fishwax]

23. "Never Again" didn't mean "never again use the phrase concentration camp unless it specifically ..."

"... rises to the level of Auschwitz at the end."

It meant never again make it easy or possible for people to willfully ignore or gloss over the horrific steps by which such horrors are made palatable to the general public. If one can't use concentration camp to describe anything that doesn't rise to the level of the Nazi camps in the later stages (which were extermination camps), then one wouldn't be able to describe the opening stages of any of the Nazi concentration camps as concentration camps. The notion is absurd. If it's a label that, as so many on the right are now arguing, must not be played until we reach the level of the extermination camps then it is fundamentally impossible to ensure that: "never again." ''

Sure, as a general rule we shouldn't be too quick with the Nazi analogies, of course, but this is some legitimately disturbing shit.

[gtar100]

30. ++1

Such an important point you are making.

[Wounded Bear]

25. Actually, no, it's not. Not in the least...

[Beakybird]

27. She didn't say death camps.

She said concentration camps, and she is correct.

[gtar100]

28. No, concentration camps are not exclusive to the Holocaust.

Cuomo is wrong. He and others are playing the fool saying this. I can only guess at their motivation for doing so.

It's as if he didn't even hear what AOC actually said. Shocker.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

29. Meh... nt

[guillaumeb]

33. I disagree.

Refusing to state the obvious does not change the brutal reality of US concentration camps.

[C_U_L8R]

37. Oh right, Putin asked for Gulags.

C'mon. They are the very definition of concentration camp. Not a death camp. Concentration camp. Still heinous and illegal.

[yardwork]

38. She didn't say anything about the Holocaust.

We are keeping children in concentration camps. It's true and it needs to be said.

Andrew Cuomo is wrong.