Deadlines. We all have experienced deadlines. Currently, the United States and Canada
may, or may not, be negotiating an agreement with a deadline of 21 July, 2025. At least
that is what President Trump hinted at, when he announced it. But you now, it’s Trump.
There is probably a deadline for the opening of Mr. Trump’s current project; “Alligator
Auschwitz” as it has been called by some in the press and social media. It may even
resemble the picture noted above in many ways. I don’t suppose there will be a social
director or any days at the beach and for sure, no golf course!
Everyone seems to identify Trump’s “holding camp” for illegal immigrants in Florida
with the concentration camps in Europe established by the Nazis during the 1930’s and
1940’s.
Not so. The concentration camp concept has been around for many, many years. Look at
the picture above. That is the infamous Andersonville Prison in southern Georgia
established by the Confederacy during the later part of the American Civil War. The
resemblance to the one now set up in southern Florida is striking. A concentration camp
is after all, a concentration camp, call it what you will.
Andersonville was built to house about six thousand prisoners of war. It soon held more
than thirty thousand men on twenty-six square acres of land. The word crowded,
atrocious conditions would be an understatement. Violence and disease killed more than
thirteen thousand Union soldiers.
In all probability, many guards would also have died from violent encounters with
POW’s and diseases which would likely have been taken into the surrounding
communities by off duty guards and southern soldiers coming and going with prisoners
to the camp. Things to look forward to in southern Florida soon.
These camps have been used by various countries such as America in the Civil War,
Britain in the Boer War in South Africa and of course by the Germans in Europe in
WW2. America may not have been the first to use them, but pretty close. What goes
around comes around, I guess.
But where did the term “deadline” come from? Well, look no further than the
Andersonville prison. As it was pretty much a camp in an open field, they put a wire
around it and told the inmates that anyone crossing this line would be killed
immediately, hence the term “deadline”, which has taken on a totally different meaning
in today’s business and cultural language.
So “Make America Great Again” will take on a whole other, but not necessarily new,
meaning for Americans. How great are they going to feel when the body count starts to
rise, inmates start to starve, die of disease or get killed by guards crossing a “deadline”
or dead children adorning the pages of a now, not so heavily taxed social media? Might
make Guantanamo look like a summer camp.
So, Canada and the US have a “deadline” for a trade agreement, (maybe) just like
Canadians have been given a “deadline” for getting rid of their internal combustion
engines. Wonder if there will be a “deadline” for normal Americans to put up with this
irrational behaviour from America’s Dimwit in Chief?
Stay tuned….
