In September of 2021, conservatives who opposed the Covid mandates in Anchorage, imposed by the Anchorage Assembly, showed up at the Anchorage Assembly meeting to protest.
Some of them wore handmade yellow stars to remind the Assembly that some of their Covid policies were reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s early stages of oppression of the Jews, actions that eventually led to the rounding up and mass killing of Jewish people.
The media had a field day. Fed by leftists and opportunists, story after story appeared in international and local media about the yellow stars, and the entire protest backfired on conservatives, many of whom do not fully understand that the Left controls the narrative and the media, and conservatives using Holocaust imagery for anything but the Holocaust is going to end badly.
Last week, a leftist ally of the Assembly majority, George Martinez, used Holocaust analogy to describe a homeless campground in Anchorage. He called it the Bronson concentration camp. Not once but twice on social media, Martinez referred to the campground that way, trying to start a movement to associate Bronson with Nazis.
Martinez, formerly associated with the Occupy Movement in New York City, moved to Anchorage several years ago and was an operative in the former administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, whose career cratered in disgrace in 2020.
Martinez works for the leftist organization, Anchorage Humanities Forum, which is hosting an event next month that specifically excludes white people.
Martinez is also an invited adviser to the Anchorage Assembly majority on issues regarding the Youth Advisory Council. He is considering a run for higher office, but for now, he is the main communication guy for the nonprofit landing spot that pays his rent, with pass-through grants from the government.
The Left was dead silent on Martinez’ use of Holocaust terminology to describe a campground that has running water, toilets, wi-fi, cleared out camping sites, and where social services are being delivered all day by Salvation Army, Catholic Social Services, Bean’s Cafe, AWAIC, Gospel Rescue Mission, and others in the community. Security officers drive through the camp continuously to keep people safe.
The situation for homeless campers at Centennial Campground is not ideal, but for the vast majority of them, it’s better than living around the woods in Anchorage in illegal campsites. Plenty of people camp in Alaska. When I was a young woman, I camped on the Homer Spit, while working at the Seward Fisheries dock. People camp all over the state, in rain and shine, and some campers make a lifestyle of living the rent-free life for many months of the year.
The campground won’t be suitable for winter. But already the Salvation Army is moving dozens of people into shelters. Those who want to go to shelters are getting on the list and getting settled, while those who are not ready to come in are waiting for fall. More than 35 people have been moved to shelters, leaving about 180 in the campground, at last count.
A trip through the campground led to this description by a reader:
“The established guardrails are ‘Auschwitz’ by the Left and ‘Boy Scout camp’ by the right. Bottom line – it was pretty damn close to the Boy Scout camps I remember as a kid,” the Anchorage resident wrote.
“Every time some lunatic uses ‘Auschwitz,’ ‘concentration camp,’ ‘Hitler,” or Nazi,’ all I can picture are the disgusting pictures of the thousands of emaciated women, children and men piled up 10 deep as far as the eye can see. ‘Concentration Camp’ is NOT what I saw!
I said hello to many folks and they returned a hello too. Many had plates of food and were lounging around chatting with other folks.
“I saw ZERO trenches dug with skeletal bodies laying in them….therefore the idiots suggesting ‘concentration camp’ need to watch ‘Band of Brothers’ and get some effing perspective!!” the writer said.
In the Centennial Campground, there are dangers. One of them is the remnants of gangs that come and go. There are remnants of Native Brotherhood gang, a skinhead gang, and Polynesian gangs. Some of those gang remnants are people who have cycled in and out of prison and some of the gangs they are associated with are known prison gangs.
These gang members are some of the same people who used to use the Sullivan Arena, where there were plenty of sketchy people staying for months on end. Bad things also happened at the Sullivan Arena, but the Leftist on the Assembly and their media handmaidens didn’t report that, because the Sullivan Arena was a leftover from the Ethan Berkowitz Administration. They viewed it as good. Sullivan Arena was closed as a shelter on July 1, and now the process begins to get those folks situated and keep the illegal encampments from further endangering the public.
But back to the Left on the Assembly and its partnership with the mainstream media: Where is the outrage over George Martinez calling a campground a “Concentration Camp” and using Mayor Bronson’s name to try to associate it with Nazism? Assemblyman Chris Constant? Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar? Assembly Kameron Perez-Verdia (who is Martinez’ boss at the Alaska Humanities Forum)? Assemblywoman Austin Quinn-Davidson? What do you have to say, leaders of Anchorage?
The Left is silent, because it will never call out its own. And the media is the handmaid to the Left, and remains compliant and mum. But some of us still remember what the Leftist media said about the symbolic yellow stars less than a year ago, which were worn to fight oppression by the Left, and to remind people of just how bad things can become if you allow incremental oppressions to compile.
Suzanne Downing is publisher of Must Read Alaska.
