Will someone be kind enough to explain to me HOW

[Ferrets are Cool]

it is possible for concentration camps to be LEGAL in the United States of America and why they can't be shut down immediately.
Please, because I am struggling with this so much. It is hard to sleep at night knowing that this is happening in the country in which I live. North Korea, yeah, I get it...it's a dictatorship. But America???

[SHRED]

1. They are unconstitutional

You know...that document ALL public employees are sworn to uphold and defend.

[no_hypocrisy]

26. I agree. John Roberts last year overturned Korematsu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States

[Glorfindel]

2. "The Best" (Democrats) vs. "The Worst" (rePukes)

W. B. Yeats explained it many years ago:

The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[FiveGoodMen]

13. Ain't THAT the truth!

[TrogL]

16. That's one of my favourite poems

It’s in the same league as T S Eliot’s The Hollow Men and The Wasteland

[Mach1miles]

3. As it turns out, many of our fellow citizens.....

...think that this is just dandy! I’m with you. Just when I think things can’t get worse we’re talking about people drinking out of toilets. When they saw how people turned their backs to Gitmo they knew that they could bring it here. Few would speak, many would turn their heads and a great many would applaud. So much sickness here.

[mopinko]

5. and they want to start sending them to gitmo. can you imagine?

they do this in front of members of congress and the teevee cameras.
can you imagine letting this dark force loose where no one could see them?

these people need to be impeached. nuremburg impeachment.
nothing less will wipe the blood from our flag.

[yaesu]

6. as it turns out, 39 to 40% of Americans are fascist by choice so that block will always be a threat

until they die off.

[Mach1miles]

29. I used to think about the dying off thing...

...but their kids and grandkids are thriving little fascists. It’s not in the dying. It’s in getting more registered voters. Until we fix the voting system and go back to paper ballots even that is not a viable solution.

[Caliman73]

32. Because it is taught and handed down.

Not always and not to everyone, but you are right. We cannot wait for them to die off because enough new little fascists are created to keep the system moving.

The thing that I am realizing is that conservatism is fascism lite and capitalism is the vehicle that is readily usable to slide politics to the right slowly but steadily.

There has to be some kind of paradigm shift. I don't know what because I don't know if or how socialism would actually work, but something has to change.

[Mach1miles]

33. The most confusing part is..

..that the conservative fascists with a side order of religion do not seem to notice how hateful and self centered they are. They march lock step and do what their television master tells them. They are filled with So much anger. I have to question how many of them were seething for the eight years of President Obama all the while believing Trump and the birther meme. Now he is in and they will follow him anywhere. I think most of them would kill for Trump without asking a question.

[Caliman73]

35. I would venture to say, "Not for Trump"

For White Supremacy (throw in Male and Christian). Trump is the figurehead, but they would turn on him in a minute if he retreated from his current position. People within the fascist White Nationalist movement have denounced him at times because he has acquiesced to demands to denounce the movement, but now they have convinced themselves (and not without merit) that he is what they call "disavowing" which is what they do to avoid PR disasters like Charlottesville. Figureheads come and go, but the ideology and its goals are what is important and what we have to keep an eye on. If Trump goes away, they will not. They may recede into the darkness for awhile, but they will be around until their ideology is discredited and destroyed.

[RVN VET71]

8. Agreed

But in a land of lepers with bodies full of ugly lesions, the person with smooth skin is considered suspect. The Border Patrol has its own little "secret" Facebook site where they can cackle among their morally leprotic selves at the decent human beings still roaming free in Trumpland. And make no mistake, if 2020 goes south, so goes our freedom to roam, to speak, to write, to read.

I read about the Chinese government's inroads into facial recognition. The Chinese want, ultimately, to be able not only to identify individuals but read in their facial expressions their feelings at the time they are viewed. I imagine public gatherings where the Leader's screeches of fake news and treason could be used to trigger appropriate emotive responses in the crowd -- and if a face is detected showing an inappropriate emotional response, the person belonging to that face could be appropriately tracked and, if necessary, disappeared. And this technology could be used to spot members of a crowd listening to anti-government speeches, as well, who show emotional responses indicating they agree whole heartedly with politicians like Joe who denounce the Leader in no uncertain terms. Such technology would provide an authoritarian regime a powerful tool for preventing protests before they could be organized, for inducing sufficient fear and terror in the people, that they would remain docile and quiet.

Of course, Trump, Miller, Pence, Pompeo, and the rest of the current administration would never, ever, ever consider developing such technology or using it against the very people they were empowered to serve and protect, right?

[Mach1miles]

31. Agree about 2020.

Trump would never pay for such technology. He might steal it or promise to pay and then not. amazing about the Facebook group. 9500 members. They thought it was secret but things on Facebook are only a ‘secret’ if FB wants it that way. They must be shaking in their boots knowing that mountains of this kind of stuff is flourishing on their servers. I didn’t hear if it was FB that outed these guys. I imagine we have FB secret groups from every branch of the armed services. Makes my skin crawl to think about it.

[MuseRider]

4. Fake news.

Enough people believe it is fake news that it will take super human efforts to actually make a change. We are fighting this maladministration, all of it, and at least 1/3 of our own population who don't believe a word of it.

[edhopper]

7. There is no legal authority

that will do anything about it because they are controlled by the Republicans.

It's what happens when the Police won't arrest criminals.

[uponit7771]

18. dems can defund them ... that's legal

[edhopper]

19. It could come to that

But that is a Government shutdown, and seeing how Pelosi has resisted Impeachment hearings, I doubt they will go there.

[uponit7771]

20. True, I'm praying the hammers come later in the process knowing timing means a lot

[edhopper]

22. we can only hope.

[Kablooie]

9. Because Republicans think concentration camps for brown people is fine.

They have discarded all pretense that they hold traditional American values

[ancianita]

10. Because the people of this country have no recourse to stop them. That's it. The layers of legal

"say" stopped several administrations ago.

The layers of difficulty remain baked in.

The Northwestern/Princeton Study of 2014 proved that across at least four administrations, Democratic or Republican...

Business Insider:

After sifting through nearly 1,800 U.S. policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile), and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the U.S. is dominated by its economic elite...

Researchers concluded that U.S. government policies rarely align with the preferences of the majority of Americans, but do favour special interests and lobbying organizations: "When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it

Even this rebuttal piece concedes that the rich win on issues that matter most to the rich:

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study

We're just now waking up to the reality that this is not our country. "They" just let us live here.

[jayschool2013]

11. The Dobson Report

I won't link to it, because I don't want to create traffic for the fascist founder of Focus on the Family. Here's a link to The Friendly Atheist, who debunks "Dr." James Dobson's spin.

Anyway, fundies on the interwebs are pointing to a fundraising letter written by James Dobson, the purported Doctor of Divinity who founded Focus on the Family, the hate group in Colorado Springs (the lesion on Colorado's otherwise beautiful bum.)

Dobson visited the concentration camp in McAllen, Texas, and railed against the evil Democrats who have denied funding for providing comforts to the kidnapped children. ("Concentration camp" is my choice of phrase, as is "kidnapped.&quot

It's infuriating, to say the least, that between 1/3 and 2/5 of the American people don't believe what they read in centrist publications such as the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Fucking Journal or even their own local newspapers. Instead, they turn to amoral racists and flim-flam artist preachers for their "truth."

Here are The Friendly Atheist's takeaways from Dobson's racist and inaccurate fundraising screed:

"1. Since when is anyone’s worth measured by their marketable skills? (When Jesus talked about who receives God’s love, an ability to please shareholders wasn’t on the list.)

2. Conveniently, Dobson cites no statistics for his assertion that immigrants are violent. Why, then, have the majority of shootings in this country been committed by white male citizens? (Often white, male citizens who profess some form of Christianity.)

3. Immigrants are not going to “bankrupt” the culture of our nation. We’re a country that proudly celebrates music and food and dancing from other countries. We’re richer — financially and culturally — because there’s such a mix of ideas and traditions. It’s cliché, but we’re fortune to live in a melting pot. We’re much better off having immigrants with a desire to join the country than people like Dobson who constantly comes up with new reasons to divide us.

4. It is downright laughable to think that America has been “wonderfully generous and caring” since its founding. Lest anyone forget, we inhabit a stolen land, whose people were ruthlessly slaughtered. We are a nation founded on slavery. While many of the people who carried out these atrocities called themselves Christians, it’s worth pointing out how their actions are a blatant betrayal of Jesus’ point conveyed in the parable of the Good Samaritan."

[GeorgeGist]

12. It seems to come down to ...

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. Do you see anyone outside protesting?

Marching in the streets? Occupying buildings?

No?

There's your answer.

[Cal Carpenter]

23. Well, yeah, actually

--A few dozen out of a couple hundred Jewish activists were arrested at an ICE detention center in New Jersey yesterday.

--Today, dozens/hundreds of members of the house of representatives are being protested at their district offices (deliberately, while they are at home for break) all across the country.

There are national demonstrations being planned for later this month - don't remember who is organizing it or I'd give you more info.

So just because you aren't there, or you aren't seeing it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. The media will cover it as it grows. It will grow as the first-hand accounts are publicized. Just a few weeks ago, even here on DU people, were equivocating about the use of 'concentration camp'. I think it is becoming very clear that this is a fucking horror.

(And whether or not the demonstrations will accomplish much is another question - demonstrating is not the same as protesting. We do need more disruptive action as permitted demonstrations mostly benefit the attendees, not the cause. But that's another whole discussion...)

[Act_of_Reparation]

27. You know what I mean.

A few dozen, a few hundred, or even a few thousand people are not enough to affect change. Numbers like that don't translate to real political consequences down the road. Voices that few are easily disregarded.

[corbettkroehler]

15. I Can't Explain Because I Concur With You

At least in the case of Gitmo (and this went all the way to the Supreme Court under Dubya), you have a facility outside our sovereign territories. To imprison hundreds of thousands of refugees without due process on American soil is quite another thing.

ACLU, are you listening?

[uponit7771]

17. K&R, The M$M is enabling them by NOT labeling them concentration camps like they're supposed to.

That I'm sick of

[Bayard]

21. I just asked this in another thread....

Why hasn't Congress started an investigation into these camps? Subpoena Alex Azar, head of Health & Human Services, which oversees them and sets policy. Even if tRump keeps him from testifying, wouldn't Congress still be allowed to do inspections, reports, and take photos? Open sessions. Get emergency court orders.

[LibDemAlways]

24. When he's asked about the treatment of migrants,

the orange turd always switches to blame the Democrats mode. I see this reflected in the FB posts of the only two right wingers I know. Obama is at fault. Democrats refuse to do anything. AOC is making it up, etc. These total lies are not refuted by the MSM, thus Trump and his band of idiot followers have a convenient out.

Yes, it's horrific, but those mistreated migrants have no meaningful voice in the corporate owned media, and the majority of Americans feel helpless to do anything about it.

[Ferrets are Cool]

25. Thanks for all your replies...

I am still aghast that CONCENTRATION CAMPS are now existing in America.
This is the United Fucking States of America!!!

On Thursday there will be parties and get together's all over America celebrating our FREEDOM. It makes me want to PUKE.

[Brainfodder]

28. People here illegally given/have no rights at all, their mantra?

Treating them like wild cats/dogs... and are OK with it?

Toilets for your drinking water proves the hypotenuse?

The way it looks: Abominable!

Shameful disgrace and use of resources .

[GuyNamedNathan]

30. I don't know....goddammit.

[smirkymonkey]

34. Welcome to DU Nathan.

It's good to know there is yet one more outraged citizen expressing his view on this.