I hesitate to conflate things. But doesn't the huge increase in the Trump-serving police force under Kristi Noem harken back to what we read in history about the development of the Gestapo and the SS in the late 1930's?
More the SA --- the brutish thug force of unemployed young 'brownshirts' and street toughs the Nazis used to exercise their sadism toward liberals, educated people, Jews, Roma and gays (although the head of the SA was a closet homosexual himself, whom Hitler had murdered in 1934 during the Night of the Long Knives).
Know that's a bit nerdy, but the pattern of using 'extrajudicial' violence first, followed by state-backed terror later on I think is important. First create the aura of malevolence, terror and indiscriminate violence, then use state institutions later on to "restore law and order" is a recognizable pattern, whether these sickos are trying to copy it consciously or not.
This is what they had planned all along. Read Project 2025. Goal: Reshape America. Trump's first wife said he was totally fascinated by Hitler. Read everything of Hitler’s. Brownshirts pale in comparison to ICE.
This is good stuff. Your depiction of the SA is spot on, and its similarity to ICE is alarming. But I wonder, since ICE is an official government agency, that they might be more like or turning into the Gestapo, especially with the huge increase in their budget that will allow them to spread their terror throughout the country.
If you read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," you'll see how closely it parallels Project 2025. We're in deep trouble and nothing like enough people understand that.
The brutality and lawlessness of ICE is very much like the brutality and lawlessness the IDF has imposed on the people of the Occupied Territories for generations.
In the West Bank, Palestinians are commonly abducted by masked goons in the middle of the night, arrested and imprisoned with no charge, murdered, beaten and abused, as their homes are trashed or outright stolen from them...while the additional component the thieving fanatics we call 'settlers' terrorize Palestinians residents much like the racist lynch mobs of the Jim Crow era with the open approval of the Israeli government. There are thousands of Palestinian men, women and children in Israeli custody with no rights and no legal recourse.
Since the US as a society has not only tolerated but actively supported such brutality, with bipartisan approval, why is anyone surprised it would eventually be tried out here?
A reminder of the Nuremberg trials - One of the charges was "crimes against humanity". The ruling - "Before the people of the world, let it now be noted, that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being." - Judge Haywood
Can each state develop facilities to intern these undocumented people for protection from ICE people? If there is no one to hunt, ICE will lose its mission.
Actually I believe the plot was driven by Cuban exiles “betrayed” at Bay of Pigs, their CIA handlers, plus the Mafia who was collaborating with CIA on plots to kill Castro all the time being prosecuted by Bobby Kennedy.
Shock troops is correctly what they are. Just like under the Nazis. There is no place in America for arrests made by unidentified men wearing heavy masks. Who ARE these people? We need names and identities. At least the LA Times is reporting on this but then they would have to, wouldn’t they, it’s in their backyard. Nobody else seems to be outraged in the mainstream media.
Much of the "independent" media is now cowering before the mighty Trump, refusing to report the truth for fear of the toddler's impending wrath. One man (or person) must never be allowed in this country to have this much power again. No kings!
We saw this coming when Republican president Bush established DHS. The Trump Regime has simply matured ICE into a Gestapo for dealing with Trump’s enemies. He is creating his own SS in the form of ICE and he has, in the head of ICE, a willing accomplice. Other elements of the Government military provide the additional muscle to intimidate, but I suspect there will be less of that as the ICE SS comes up to full strength. At the moment illegals are targeted, but the definition of illegal / enemies of the state is flexible as we learned from both NAZI Germany and Stalinist Russia. This is what MAGA signed up for. We are dangerously close to having no midterm elections because Trump could have his ICE SS arrest Democrat candidates. We know the spineless Roberts $upreme Court will back Trump. Trump is building momentum - how can we counteract this?
Back in the "ole days" when Homeland Security was formed after 9/11 by George W. some expressed the concern that the name "Homeland" was reminiscient of language used by the Nazis and the Soviet Union. The 'war against terrori" paved the way for the war of terror against Americans. Few paid attention then and here we are.
I agree. Thought the consolidation into DHS was a hasty poorly thought out reaction. The Homeland designation did not bode well and as you say "here we are".
When (or sad to say, "If") the Democrats ever capture both Houses of Congress and the White House, they should pass a law banning any law enforcement agency from using masked, unidentified troops/personnel to arrest people. That's Gestapo, not the USA!
Disband the Department of Homeland (in)Security. It and the renewed Patriot Act have stripped us of liberty for sense of temporary safety. Both are now providing neither. Benjamin Franklin spoke of this.
Stop playing "nice". Call them them what they are:...the Trump "Gestapo". He intends to use them the same way. The people being recruited for ICE are authoritarian by nature and enjoy the power vested in them. They like the idea they can do what they want while masked, even more. That mask is a "cover" over their conscience, what little they have of it. It is also an intimidation tactic associated with violence and lawlessness. It's meant to create fear.
We are now a police state. Like the FBI, which originally was ONLY to fight communism after WWI (and the Bolshevik Revolution), once established, federal police forces are hard to end. Ideally, "Homeland Security" should be eliminated and then reconstituted as Civil Defense. Nothing elaborate or Orwellian. While we're at it, reconstitute the Department of Defense as the original Department of War. It's easier to get people to spend money on Defense than War, which is why the founders wanted a WAR department.
"Homeland Security" has always sounded to me like a name any authoritarian state would come up with to obscure the true purpose of an agency with that name. I've never felt comfortable with it. I live in Vermont, which is almost entirely within that 100 mile "border zone", and the activities of DHS component agencies have, since its inception, been all too visible to Vermonters. More so now, and as they turn up their assumed "duties" nationwide, it both disgusts and frightens me. Your last words are exactly the words I would use. We may have had a chance to turn it down or dismantle it, but that chance clearly vanished when Trump took the presidency and set the tone for how our government operates. It's going to take all of us standing up and resisting, because we cannot allow this to continue.
Remember, it was 'W' who created the Department of Homeland Security in response to 9/11. A whole new government department (with a cabinet secretary and all the corresponding bureaucracy) when a centralization of information-gathering assets within an existing department would have served as well or better. Small government? Just another example of Republicans being bad for America.
With apparently a lack of training, regulation and oversight we can call these 'agents' for what they are - thugs, authorized to commit acts against humanity.
Oh, he didn't create it. All of this was already written up and filed to be used the first time we were attacked. It happened way too quickly to be otherwise. I suspect people like Cheney were behind it.
Incredibly enough, Mr. Abrego Garcia is one of the comparatively lucky victims of ICE. He has a dedicated legal team fighting for his release from his illegal original deportation. The Justice Department came up with criminal charges only after he had been deported.
Reading Jennifer's list made me remember when the Maoist "People's Republic of Albania" in the 1960s renamed itself the "Popular People's Republic of Albania" just to draw attention to the obvious, rather than deflect from it.
Soon, I expect to see red banners all over the White House and Congress screaming "The Party and People are One" at us. Or better yet, the oldie but goodie: "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer." It would all Macht Amerika Wieder Größ, you know...
I said at the time that DHS was created that it was a dangerous idea to put all of the agencies under the same umbrella. Their individuality of purpose would be reduced, and this monstrous 'superagency' would spread its power as an amoeba spreads, only on a far larger and more dangerous scale. We're seeing it do just that, and like all things Trump, it's become the opposite of it's name. It foments insecurity, just as the Department of Justice is no longer just. There is no apparent oversight or regulation being applied. This administration, with the complicit aid of Congress and the Roberts Court is taking this nation in the wrong direction.
I hesitate to conflate things. But doesn't the huge increase in the Trump-serving police force under Kristi Noem harken back to what we read in history about the development of the Gestapo and the SS in the late 1930's?
More the SA --- the brutish thug force of unemployed young 'brownshirts' and street toughs the Nazis used to exercise their sadism toward liberals, educated people, Jews, Roma and gays (although the head of the SA was a closet homosexual himself, whom Hitler had murdered in 1934 during the Night of the Long Knives).
Know that's a bit nerdy, but the pattern of using 'extrajudicial' violence first, followed by state-backed terror later on I think is important. First create the aura of malevolence, terror and indiscriminate violence, then use state institutions later on to "restore law and order" is a recognizable pattern, whether these sickos are trying to copy it consciously or not.
This is what they had planned all along. Read Project 2025. Goal: Reshape America. Trump's first wife said he was totally fascinated by Hitler. Read everything of Hitler’s. Brownshirts pale in comparison to ICE.
This is good stuff. Your depiction of the SA is spot on, and its similarity to ICE is alarming. But I wonder, since ICE is an official government agency, that they might be more like or turning into the Gestapo, especially with the huge increase in their budget that will allow them to spread their terror throughout the country.
I'm guessing that's the plan.
they read the book...
Exactly. In the 1930 there also were many Americans who supported the German Nazis.
Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh are two notable domestic NAZI sympathizers.
Yep.
Including Fred Trump, Donald's father.
I thought of him right after I hit post.
Yes
including a Presidential candidate and "hero" Lindbergh
True.
Why would you hesitate, its obvious. They are following the Nazi playbook. See 2025 the manual.
Exactly. If you haven't read Project 2025, you have no clue.
It's more Stasi-like, and the parallels are frighteningly similar.
If you read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," you'll see how closely it parallels Project 2025. We're in deep trouble and nothing like enough people understand that.
More like Stasi, I think. And, the "science" that is pushed by Bobby et al., is reminiscent of Lysenkoism.
You could also compare to a more current example.
The brutality and lawlessness of ICE is very much like the brutality and lawlessness the IDF has imposed on the people of the Occupied Territories for generations.
In the West Bank, Palestinians are commonly abducted by masked goons in the middle of the night, arrested and imprisoned with no charge, murdered, beaten and abused, as their homes are trashed or outright stolen from them...while the additional component the thieving fanatics we call 'settlers' terrorize Palestinians residents much like the racist lynch mobs of the Jim Crow era with the open approval of the Israeli government. There are thousands of Palestinian men, women and children in Israeli custody with no rights and no legal recourse.
Since the US as a society has not only tolerated but actively supported such brutality, with bipartisan approval, why is anyone surprised it would eventually be tried out here?
It does. ICE IS THE GESTAPO AT IT'S WORSE.
Indeed. They are following the Nazi playbook.
A reminder of the Nuremberg trials - One of the charges was "crimes against humanity". The ruling - "Before the people of the world, let it now be noted, that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being." - Judge Haywood
Not ever likely to hear such words from Pam Bondi.
She's far from being a Judge Haywood.
Yes. More like mid-30's but yes. And the SA.
Can each state develop facilities to intern these undocumented people for protection from ICE people? If there is no one to hunt, ICE will lose its mission.
Precisely. We are complicit in crimes against humanity.
What you mean, "we."
Until it is stopped, we are all complicit.
No we are not complicit. People fighting the Nazis were complicit? Makes no sense. Speak for yourself if you feel complicit.
You're being deliberately obtuse. It's a figurative reference, not a literal one.
did you talk to your students like that ?
Only if they were being deliberately obtuse. And then I would re-explain to them the difference between literal and figurative.
I understand it. It's not appropriate. I don't agree with the “figurative reference”.
Not doing enough
And what do you suggest? And what are you doing?
All I know is I am not doing enough. Each days news tells me that.
right now what can be done: write/call congress,done protest done that's it until the election.
and the mafia killed kennedy
Actually I believe the plot was driven by Cuban exiles “betrayed” at Bay of Pigs, their CIA handlers, plus the Mafia who was collaborating with CIA on plots to kill Castro all the time being prosecuted by Bobby Kennedy.
“Not all citizens”?
If we allow it, it is we.
Shock troops is correctly what they are. Just like under the Nazis. There is no place in America for arrests made by unidentified men wearing heavy masks. Who ARE these people? We need names and identities. At least the LA Times is reporting on this but then they would have to, wouldn’t they, it’s in their backyard. Nobody else seems to be outraged in the mainstream media.
Much of the "independent" media is now cowering before the mighty Trump, refusing to report the truth for fear of the toddler's impending wrath. One man (or person) must never be allowed in this country to have this much power again. No kings!
Mainstream media are spineless and moved to the dark. They focus on other things. They are hiding the truth.
We saw this coming when Republican president Bush established DHS. The Trump Regime has simply matured ICE into a Gestapo for dealing with Trump’s enemies. He is creating his own SS in the form of ICE and he has, in the head of ICE, a willing accomplice. Other elements of the Government military provide the additional muscle to intimidate, but I suspect there will be less of that as the ICE SS comes up to full strength. At the moment illegals are targeted, but the definition of illegal / enemies of the state is flexible as we learned from both NAZI Germany and Stalinist Russia. This is what MAGA signed up for. We are dangerously close to having no midterm elections because Trump could have his ICE SS arrest Democrat candidates. We know the spineless Roberts $upreme Court will back Trump. Trump is building momentum - how can we counteract this?
It is what every authoritarian regime morphs into - Government by and for psychopaths.
Back in the "ole days" when Homeland Security was formed after 9/11 by George W. some expressed the concern that the name "Homeland" was reminiscient of language used by the Nazis and the Soviet Union. The 'war against terrori" paved the way for the war of terror against Americans. Few paid attention then and here we are.
I agree. Thought the consolidation into DHS was a hasty poorly thought out reaction. The Homeland designation did not bode well and as you say "here we are".
My skin crawled the day Dubya used the word "Homeland."
When (or sad to say, "If") the Democrats ever capture both Houses of Congress and the White House, they should pass a law banning any law enforcement agency from using masked, unidentified troops/personnel to arrest people. That's Gestapo, not the USA!
Disband the Department of Homeland (in)Security. It and the renewed Patriot Act have stripped us of liberty for sense of temporary safety. Both are now providing neither. Benjamin Franklin spoke of this.
Stop playing "nice". Call them them what they are:...the Trump "Gestapo". He intends to use them the same way. The people being recruited for ICE are authoritarian by nature and enjoy the power vested in them. They like the idea they can do what they want while masked, even more. That mask is a "cover" over their conscience, what little they have of it. It is also an intimidation tactic associated with violence and lawlessness. It's meant to create fear.
We are now a police state. Like the FBI, which originally was ONLY to fight communism after WWI (and the Bolshevik Revolution), once established, federal police forces are hard to end. Ideally, "Homeland Security" should be eliminated and then reconstituted as Civil Defense. Nothing elaborate or Orwellian. While we're at it, reconstitute the Department of Defense as the original Department of War. It's easier to get people to spend money on Defense than War, which is why the founders wanted a WAR department.
"Homeland Security" has always sounded to me like a name any authoritarian state would come up with to obscure the true purpose of an agency with that name. I've never felt comfortable with it. I live in Vermont, which is almost entirely within that 100 mile "border zone", and the activities of DHS component agencies have, since its inception, been all too visible to Vermonters. More so now, and as they turn up their assumed "duties" nationwide, it both disgusts and frightens me. Your last words are exactly the words I would use. We may have had a chance to turn it down or dismantle it, but that chance clearly vanished when Trump took the presidency and set the tone for how our government operates. It's going to take all of us standing up and resisting, because we cannot allow this to continue.
Remember, it was 'W' who created the Department of Homeland Security in response to 9/11. A whole new government department (with a cabinet secretary and all the corresponding bureaucracy) when a centralization of information-gathering assets within an existing department would have served as well or better. Small government? Just another example of Republicans being bad for America.
With apparently a lack of training, regulation and oversight we can call these 'agents' for what they are - thugs, authorized to commit acts against humanity.
Oh, he didn't create it. All of this was already written up and filed to be used the first time we were attacked. It happened way too quickly to be otherwise. I suspect people like Cheney were behind it.
did it occur that the 1600 people that the orange lord pardoned could be the increase in ICE?
Tom
Of course. And I'm equally sure that it gave some "proud boys," jobs.
yes, it has been noted.
I'm assuming that's exactly who they're hiring. KKK throwbacks, white nationalists, the proud boys, all the winners and Mensa members LOL
DENSA members
Department of Homeland Security
Committee for State Security (KGB)
Federal Security Service (FSB)
State Security Service (Stasi)
Ministry of State Security (China)
Secret State Police (Gestapo)
They all sound so innocuous... until you get to Gestapo.
ICE, with their masks and hidden identities and no accountability, seems more Gestapo-ish...
I wonder how many of ICE agents are Proud Boys…
Or criminals (including pardoned ones) or former law enforcement fired for not following laws and procedures.
Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus (Remember them? They're still around), J6, NeoNazi militias, etc. No shortage of domestic terrorists in this country.
Hard to believe and digest our state of the union…
Incredibly enough, Mr. Abrego Garcia is one of the comparatively lucky victims of ICE. He has a dedicated legal team fighting for his release from his illegal original deportation. The Justice Department came up with criminal charges only after he had been deported.
Things are going to get much worse before they get better
Reading Jennifer's list made me remember when the Maoist "People's Republic of Albania" in the 1960s renamed itself the "Popular People's Republic of Albania" just to draw attention to the obvious, rather than deflect from it.
Soon, I expect to see red banners all over the White House and Congress screaming "The Party and People are One" at us. Or better yet, the oldie but goodie: "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer." It would all Macht Amerika Wieder Größ, you know...
"Arbeit macht frei."
"Gott mit uns."
I said at the time that DHS was created that it was a dangerous idea to put all of the agencies under the same umbrella. Their individuality of purpose would be reduced, and this monstrous 'superagency' would spread its power as an amoeba spreads, only on a far larger and more dangerous scale. We're seeing it do just that, and like all things Trump, it's become the opposite of it's name. It foments insecurity, just as the Department of Justice is no longer just. There is no apparent oversight or regulation being applied. This administration, with the complicit aid of Congress and the Roberts Court is taking this nation in the wrong direction.