From: fedora@fea.st   
      
   On Sun, 22 Feb 2026 13:55:59 -0800, Dude  wrote:   
      
   >On 2/21/2026 8:43 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   >> NY Times,   
   >> February 21, 2026   
   >>   
   >> By Jamelle Bouie   
   >>   
   >> For the past month or so, I’ve been writing about the abysmal   
   >> conditions in ICE detention centers. Last week, I argued that you   
   >> could use the term “concentration camp” to describe the system the   
   >> Trump administration is using to seize and detain immigrants, legal or   
   >> otherwise.   
   >>   
   >Give us a break!   
   >   
   >Undocumented immigrants and children were held in detention facilities   
   >with chain-link enclosures, sometimes referred to as "cages," during the   
   >Obama administration.   
   >   
   >A federal judge in 2015 ruled that the Obama administration's prolonged   
   >detention of mothers and children in these secure, prison-like facilities.   
   >   
   >During Barack Obama's presidency (fiscal years 2009–2016), his   
   >administration deported more than 2.7 million people.   
      
   Jamelle mentions all that and more.  You obviously did not read it.   
      
   >Some analyses and reports, including those from immigrant rights groups   
   >and news organizations covering the full two terms, have cited this   
   >number as being as high as 3 million or more, depending on whether the   
   >figures include only formal removals or also voluntary returns.   
   > > > Both to expand on that point and to bring in a broader perspective, I   
   >> spoke to Andrea Pitzer, author of “One Long Night: A Global History of   
   >> Concentration Camps.” Pitzer also tackled this question of   
   >> identification in a recent piece for her newsletter, “Degenerate Art.”   
   >> As we spoke about her argument, we tried to place the White House’s   
   >> relentless drive to expand immigration detention in a larger context.   
   >> Our conversation covers quite a bit of ground. If, in particular, you   
   >> want to learn more about the United States’ 19th and 20th century   
   >> imperial expansion, let me recommend two books, both by journalists.   
   >> The first, by Spencer Ackerman, is “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era   
   >> Destabilized America and Produced Trump.” And the second, by Jonathan   
   >> Katz, is “Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and   
   >> the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire.”   
   >>   
   >> Hi, Andrea. First, could you introduce yourself?   
   >> My name is Andrea Pitzer, and I am a journalist as well as the author   
   >> of a few books. I think probably the most important one in this moment   
   >> is “One Long Night, A Global History of Concentration Camps.”   
   >>   
   >> You recently wrote an essay for your newsletter called “What Counts as   
   >> a ‘Concentration Camp’?,” in relation to the use of the term to   
   >> describe the ICE detention facilities. What prompted you to write this   
   >> particular piece?   
   >>   
   >> I think there is a lot of concern that I see from different   
   >> communities, certainly from the Jewish community in the U.S. and   
   >> abroad, that when people start trying to compare the Holocaust to   
   >> anything, they’re doing so out of antisemitism. It is a natural   
   >> response to say, “Wait, wait, wait” — are you diminishing this   
   >> historical event in some way? And my point is always: absolutely not.   
   >> If there is a plain of concentration camps over 130 years in the world   
   >> on six continents, Auschwitz is this tower that kind of looms above   
   >> all of them. So, it is critical that we keep that in mind because that   
   >> shows us where it’s possible for humanity to go. My work has been   
   >> about, “How did we get to that point and how do we keep from returning   
   >> to it?”   
   >>   
   >> Now, we are really directly replicating a bunch of that history. And I   
   >> think it’s become more and more important that we use that term to   
   >> just to really bring information and educate people about how closely   
   >> we are following history.   
   >>   
   >> So let’s talk about that history for a moment. When does the   
   >> concentration camp emerge as a technique for how governments manage   
   >> populations?   
   >>   
   >> One thing that’s important to get out of the way up front is that   
   >> without centuries of colonialism and imperial rule, particularly the   
   >> British and the Spanish, a lot of it in the Americas, but also in   
   >> Africa and Asia, you don’t get to modern concentration camps. Native   
   >> American genocide also relates to similar kinds of displacement and   
   >> detention. But the modern concentration camp, for the purposes of my   
   >> book, starts in the 1890s. And it only becomes possible due to the   
   >> invention, mass production and patenting of barbed wire and automatic   
   >> weapons. So suddenly you can hold a lot of people with a very small   
   >> guard force.   
   >>   
   >> That starts with Spanish rule in Cuba in the 1890s, putting down   
   >> insurrection and very quickly appears again in South Africa with the   
   >> British during the Second Boer War, where they’re rounding up   
   >> civilians. And that’s a critical thing to say about who is getting   
   >> held in these kinds of camps. These are not prisoner of war camps.   
   >> It’s the mass detention of civilians without due process on the basis   
   >> of identities — political, religious, racial, ethnic. And almost   
   >> always it is done to expand or entrench political power.   
   >>   
   >> When do Americans enter this story?   
   >>   
   >> Unfortunately, the United States does it very early in the history of   
   >> these modern camps. We see it in the Philippines at the turn of the   
   >> 20th century. Ironically, and this is something that’s been lost to   
   >> history, but I go into in my book quite a bit, the reason that America   
   >> backed that war against Spain in 1898 was because of the images of   
   >> these earliest concentration camps that they had been presented with.   
   >> Americans were horrified with what Spain was doing in Cuba and that   
   >> provided a lot of impetus for the war.   
   >>   
   >> We won that war very quickly. We took over the Philippines. I’m   
   >> condensing a lot of history here, obviously. This is a very simple   
   >> version of it. But after some question of whether we had promised the   
   >> Philippines their independence, we did not give them their   
   >> independence. And we wound up with an insurrection on our hands as an   
   >> imperial power. And we immediately, after denouncing concentration   
   >> camps as something that, for example, President William McKinley said   
   >> would lead to nothing but “the wilderness and the grave,” the U.S., in   
   >> fact, installed those camps in the Philippines to put down that   
   >> rebellion. So it was a very quick turn.   
   >>   
   >> This is a bit of a sidebar, but the Philippine war and the Philippine   
   >> occupation, the Spanish-American War, are this kind of blank spot in   
   >> popular memory, right? I bring this up because with the occupation of   
   >> Iraq, the American experience in the Philippines was brought in to   
      
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