[Peace-discuss] DHS Gestapo

Mon Nov 28 22:01:22 CST 2011

Quite right, except that etymology is very different than translation or definition.  How many grandiose sermons have I heard constructed with some stretch of etymological significance as their centerpieces, I shudder to think.  So, sorry if this is a pet peeve.

The indigenous or "First" peoples of this continent are often called "Indians" but that does not mean they come from India, or even that anyone now living believes they really do.  It only suggests some historical associations for historical reasons, which may tell us little or nothing else.  It may be interesting -- and I think it is -- but it doesn't define the word.  The English word "secret" drives from the same root as "secretion," for example.  And while the association is all very interesting ( Latin "secernere" - "to separate, set apart"), it certainly doesn't follow that we can translate "secret" into some other language using the same word as "secretion."  Anyway, Freud can say anything he wants, of course, and it doesn't make it so :-)

Aside from my quibbles, though, and interestingly enough, the Gestapo was originally only the Prussian intelligence and political police, the two separate agencies combined by the Nazis, who also proceeded to join together the previously local police forces into a national police force.  When the Bush Admin proposed and the Obama Admin continued a newly centralized/coordinated operation of various "law-enforcement" agencies that previously had maintained more separation, they neglected to mention the analogy.  Local or state police used to be prohibited by law from enforcing immigration policy, for example, which was the almost exclusive purview of the then-INS (now ICE, part of DHS).  Now the "Secure Communities" program 

(see http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/) 

actually relies on local, state and federal "law-enforcement" agencies to do INS/ICE work.  An event organized by some local immigration-rights activists on Dec. 1  (7pm at the Champaign Public Library) will discuss this program more
(see http://www.facebook.com/pages/Latino-Partnership-of-Champaign-County/103442953045911).

This is just an example.  But police power is something we need to be wary of in general, not just when it's new, as recent events in Champaign, and Oakland, etc. remind us.  

(http://www.ucimc.org/content/video-champaign-police-choking-black-youth-while-handcuffs)
It's a version of the system supported by our government through the former School of the Americas and similar training operations for many years, as well as our direct interventions to set up such police states when the indirect approach falls short.  I guess I'm just saying, a police state by any other name ...

Ricky

________________________________
 From: Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Peace-discuss List <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>; Ricky Baldwin <rbaldwin at seiu73.org> 
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] DHS Gestapo

It's not confusion: it's etymology. (Didn't this come up once before on this list, back in Little-Bush-time?)

The root of geheim (adj. = secret) is Heim (n. = home); cf. the synonym heimlich (adj. = concealed, hidden, in secret).

From the same root, unheimlich (adj. = uncanny) has connotations of “weird, eerie” as in Freud's 1919 essay "Das Unheimliche," where he argues "that social taboo often yields an aura not only of pious reverence but even more so of horror and even disgust, as the taboo state of an item gives rise to the commonplace assumption that that which is hidden from public eye must be a dangerous threat and even an abomination ... the Uncanny is what unconsciously reminds us of ... our forbidden and thus repressed impulses perceived as a threatening force .... Thus, the items and individuals that we project our own repressed impulses upon become a most uncanny threat to us, uncanny monsters and freaks akin to fairy-tale folk-devils, and subsequently often become scapegoats we blame for all sorts of perceived miseries, calamities, and maladies" - like terrorists, communists, anarchists - or the working-class "fuer sich."

Freud continues, "What interests us most in this long extract is to find that among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one which is identical with its opposite, unheimlich. What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich. [...] In general we are reminded that the word heimlich is not unambiguous, but belongs to two sets of ideas, which, without being contradictory, are yet very different: on the one hand it means what is familiar and agreeable, and on the other, what is concealed and kept out of sight. Unheimlich is customarily used, we are told, as the contrary only of the first signification of heimlich, and not of the second. [...] On the other hand, we notice that Schelling says something which throws quite a new light on the concept of the Unheimlich, for which we were certainly not prepared. According to him, everything is unheimlich that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light."

"Heim (home) is 'the realm of the familiar' - where you are safe and secure ... Geheimnis (secret) [has] this etymological idea that home is where you have privacy, where you can protect your secrets from the outside. Relatedly, heimlich means 'secretive' ... there are two strong contrasting connotations at play here - the friendly, comforting association with home, and the idea of secrets and isolation."

As Steven Wagner said in another context, a Heimlich maneuver...

The two notions are suggested by the operations of the Department of Homeland Security and the Geheime Staatspolizei: under Obama, they're working to live up to their name.

But of course we've had federal secret political police in America for generations, keeping the homeland secure by stealth - the FBI (white-washed apparently in Clint Eastwood's new film - "Anonymous" is far better history).  --CGE

On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:25 AM, Ricky Baldwin wrote:

> It was a creepy name from the beginning, and an even creepier idea.  The whole USA Patriot Act and related system needs dismantling.  Shame on Bush, shame on Congress, and shame on Obama, for setting it up in the first place and then for not shredding it by now.  It's also not the only form of police state we experience -- as we notice in the local papers of late.
> 
> But (p.s.) there's an easy confusion here between "heim-," which means "home" as in "Heimat" ("homeland"), and "geheime," which means "secret," in the full name of the infamous Nazi Gestapo.  It could be that whoever coined the name "Homeland Security" for our own US police state agency thought it was a clever pun, or that their German just wasn't very good, but we can't actually translate "Homeland Security" as "Geheime Staatspolizei."  The US system of totalitarianism -- or "inverted totalitarianism" as someone called it -- is also more sophisticated in my opinion and I believe enjoys more support in the population than the Nazi/fascist systems (although we do tend to underestimate how sophisticated they were, and how much support they did enjoy at the time).
> 
> Ricky Baldwin
> 
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
> From: Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> To: Peace-discuss List <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2011 9:21 AM
> Subject: [Peace-discuss] DHS Gestapo
> 
> "Homeland Security" in German could be Geheime Staatspolizei: under Obama, they're working to live up to that name.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy
> 
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