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.
I feel sick (and responsible, of course) that conditions at Centennial Campground “coincidentally” deteriorated since the homeless took over. We should move these folks to a safer place-like Mr. Martinez’ back yard.
Or Constant’s front yard. He has a field owned by the AK R/R across from his house.
The totalitarian roots of the Left don’t exactly further the narrative that the Left needs more power today, so talking about those roots is off-limits.
No one likes being called names by the Left, myself included, but if conservatives self-censor and only speak and act in ways that controlled media deem “acceptable”, we will reach the slavery that is socialism that much more quickly.
The battle is between the rights of the individual and the paternalistic power of government. And in that battle, Hitler and the modern Left line up on the same side.
When a hard leftist (like this tool) references the Holocaust, they are wish casting. The hard left loves a good genocide. Just look at history.
They are openly telling you what they want to do when they achieve enough power.
They are learning that lesson in Canada as a formerly civilized country ramps up to starve its people.
Reagan used to say freedom is only one generation from extinction. Civilization is at best two generations away from barbarism.
In the west we’ve taken the first step. Only one more to go.
If you look at the tactics of leftwing Democrats, you’ll find eerie simularities between them and the Nazi movement. Control of the media, thug protesters and disrupters, confiscation of firearms (not happening now but they sure work on it), demonizing certain members of society, socialism, and indoctrination of youth. The list goes on…
What else would you expect from the party of Hillary Clinton? After all, her favorite piece of clothing is her Chairman Mao jacket….
It’s only the leftward media, US Democrats, and labor unions that promote the concept that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party is at one end of a spectrum and socialists are at the other. As MustReadAlaska pointed out earlier this year, if you were to travel back to Berlin and Moscow on May 1, 1939, you would see that the May Day celebrations were entirely synchronized, and similar in method and message. No one in Poland was confused on that day. Only Judy Woodruff and your local school teachers would have you and your children believing that American conservatives hold NAZI beliefs and values. Stalin and Hitler were blood brothers until they both wanted the same regions of Poland as spoils of war. Hitler and Stalin first made everyone register their guns, and then they confiscated them. Representatives Tarr and Wool dropped bills into the Alaska Legislature in which they intended the same directions. The Jews of Warsaw were not confused about who stood where, and they are not confused today. The only alarming aspect is that your local school teachers and the Alaska Education Association are teaching these false histories to Alaska children! Everything I have said here can be thoroughly researched on the internet in only a few minutes.
The Jews of Poland, prior to the Warsaw uprising, made the same mistake Anchorage is making.
They insisted on thinking the people who said they were sub human were civilized and could be reasoned with.
Once they finally came to their senses it was too late.
Yes, but I read a lot of history (much better than television!) and Congressman Don Young was right when he said that the Jews of Warsaw could have held out had they had the guns. Alaska Senator Jesse Kiehl was very disparaging of Congressman Young when Young said that, but Young was precisely correct.
He has been Berkie’s assistant off and on for 8 years, sometimes comes to assembly with different glasses and hats on , he says he will be the next assembly person. He is also the prez of NECC which is anchorage’s biggest district. He is making his big move and is an open borders guy. Will he replace Forest in January or will it be someone else? Likes to make speeches about centennial but we never see him helping . When subjects of safety or drug activity comes up in real meetings, he is silent along with Pete and Forest .
My late father was a Company Commander in WWII and went ashore at Normandy. His company was one of the ones that liberated one of the NAZI concentration camps. He had pictures but would not share them with us and did not like to talk about his experiences.
The gang comments made me laugh. Brought to you by the same people who’ve given us the no-bail, no-jail, revolving-door justice system which is dragging Anchorage down into the same murky swamp of lawlessness that envelopes Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and LA.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Radical Leftist.
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