Alligator Alcatraz: A Concentration of Evil

 

Alligator Alcatraz is a concentration camp. To pretend anything otherwise is a willful reflection of callousness and uncaring. To feign ignorance is a high level of ostrich-like head-in-the-sandism, as it defies all reason and logic.

An article by an expert in concentration camps, Andrea Pitzer, their development and history - her words, from an article entitled Don't Call it "Alligator Alcatraz" Call it a Concentration Camp - 

This facility's purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed. And its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

The overcrowding in inhumane cages, without privacy, without any respect for people, stacking an estimated nine bunk beds and eighteen people per cage.

Air conditioning? Maybe. Different sources say different things. Running water and bathroom facilities seem limited at best. 

Alligator Alcatraz has already been subject to flooding.

The Miccosukee Tribe, which lives near the facility, is very concerned about its environmental impact, as are others. I know -they make it sound like it's completely isolated - I guess it only counts unless it's conservative white families living nearby.

Much is made of it being surrounded by alligators, pythons, and other predators. Maybe. The worst part of that is having to listen to MAGAs gleeful at the prospects of people at the camps trying to escape and being eaten by gators. To further enhance their cruelty and inhumanity, they are snapping up Alligator Alcatraz merchandise! They want to display and wear their cruelty for all to see. How has this country fallen so low? At least Germans, for all their monstrosity, didn't wear t-shirts celebrating the ovens at Auschwitz.

But the alligators are not the biggest threat. The heat, swarms of mosquitoes and other insects, and the potential for exposure to storms and flooding all make this a perilous environment for housing detainees.

And remember, the detainees, brought in without due process, will often NOT be the hardened criminals you think that they are. ICE, so far, has shown an infinite capacity to sweep up the wrong people, and then has a hard time letting them go. Trump has even talked about revoking citizenship and sending those he simply does not like to places like this.

And the cost is horrendous. 450 million dollars a year for a tent city? And where did the money come from? It's money reallocated from FEMA. You know, the agency that's supposed to help with things like the flooding in Texas? Instead of saving lives, the money is going to be used to destroy lives!

But have no fear. The ICE budget, in the most recent Big Ugly Bill, is receiving dramatic increases, over $100 billion, a larger budget than most other countries' military budgets, and bigger than the budget for the US Marine Corps. It includes $45 billion for the construction of new facilities. Alligator Alcatraz times 90.

"Oh, Tom!" reich wing friends tell me. "It's only a temporary holding! They'll only be there a few days until they're deported!" 1) Deported where? Who's agreed to take them? El Salvador? Some other country that is not their country of origin? So they'll just be transferred to other inhumane facilities? 2) I don't believe for a second that many of them will be there just for a few days. That's not usually the experience with concentration camps. 3) I don't care how long it is. I don't care what the crime or civil offense is. This is NOT the way to treat people. You're trying to turn them into animals that, in your mind, it is ok to treat inhumanely.

Is this Alligator Auschwitz? No, not yet. But the German concentration camps did not start out that way either. The gas ovens were not there at first. But listen carefully about how the MAGAs talk about this - the glee over the potential alligator meals, the delight in the cruelty of it all. The fairest thing to say is we're on that path, but we're not there yet.

Which is why we have to speak out. Many of the German people knew what was coming, but out of fear, acquiescence, or complacency, did not speak out.

We cannot be quiet. Many of us are taught by our faith to care about all people, and that everyone deserves to be treated as we would treat ourselves.

I don't know how much of this nightmare we can stop.

But let's not be silent about it.