[Peace-discuss] DHS Gestapo

Tue Nov 29 08:54:56 CST 2011

Anyone know of progress re: Udall Amendment last night?
Thanks ahead of time,
Tony
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>wrote:

>  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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