Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a 32-year-old Venezuelan immigrant legally residing in the United States, has apparently been disappeared to El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) after mistakenly turning onto the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, Michigan.
The bridge, one of North America’s busiest international crossings, links Detroit with Windsor, Ontario. Due to the complexity of nearby highways, even local residents occasionally take the wrong ramp. For Prada, this innocent mistake led to arrest, imprisonment, and deportation—culminating in his disappearance into a foreign prison.
The word is “kidnapped.” Not vanished, not disappeared. Kidnapped.
Language matters. Stop reporting falsities via soft language.
I think this is disappear as a transitive verb, like it’s saying he was disappeared by the US government. It’s not soft language.
“Disappeared” is the word typically used when authoritarian regimes arrest and incarcerate (or worse) people extrajudicially, without due process. “Trafficked” doesn’t have the authoritarian government connotation.
Trafficked is a catchall term used by the government to justify abuses, same as terrorism. They like to accuse Abrego Garcia of “human trafficking,” which conjures images of evil men smuggling frightened young women into forced prostitution, when in reality, Garcia’s “human trafficking” accusation stems from being pulled over while driving a van of men to a construction site for work.
In the old days, the goverment used to frighten citizens with warnings about “white slavery.” They just updated the phrase, but the meaning and its intent are the same.
Kidnapping implies isolated incidents and criminals working outside the government. Disappearing points out that the government is responsible, it’s harsher language
Yes, language matters and they used it correctly here. As an intransitive verb it means that someone is not detectable. As a transitive verb it means that someone else made them disappear, which usually refers to being abducted, usually by an official group like an arm of the government.
It has been used that way for decades to indicate when a governement kidnaps citizens to detain or kill them in secret.
Since you’re bringing up language points, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to take a left turn with me.
What are your thoughts about applying the phrase “extraordinary rendition” to their situation?
I feel that it’s appropriate, but I haven’t seen anyone using it.
Disappeared (desaparecido) is a historical term that likens the trump administration to latin american military dictatorships
This is World Socialist Web Site. From what I’ve seen posted from them here, they are not interested in using accurate language. They are advocating for a political philosophy that many here agree with on the surface.
However, check out their obituary of Nanda Wickremesinghe if you want to try to wrap your head around the correct brand of socialism that they support. They seem more narrow than Emo Phillips in defining who is on their team and who is the anti-revolutionary betrayer. If you want to understand why the bloc the US relies on to vote against fascism can’t rally around one party or leader, look no further.
For a drinking game, take a sip every tme “comrade” appears in that article.
tl;dr they’re Trots. Trotsky central, in fact, I mean how nostalgic do you have to be to call yourself the “International Committee of the Fourth International” in currentyear while having like, what, 2k members world-wide.
…of course, every Trot org is Trotsky central they’re the absolute champions of splintering. Germany has at least three different Trot parties each accusing the others of being Stalinist, all are cults, and all are irrelevant. Best to just ignore them.
In Soviet America, a wrong turn takes your life.
This is human trafficking. This man was bought, sold and transported against his will, and without due process.
When we try trump and sentence him, guess where he’s going? An el Salvador prison.
I do. He will lose power. It WILL happen. It takes awhile to organize millions of people, but they are being organized, the protests have had an effect, Legal battle lines are being drawn with higher universities, etc… the slow roll of mobilization is happening and is gaining momentum. millions demonstrated last weekend, though the media barely talks about it. There will be encampments and other big protests set up. It is in the planning. from what I hear just don’t want it top end like occupy wall street. it has to be more organized, more united.
The magic word is time. It sucks. its slow, and its the master. But the time is also coming when the protests and organized institutions all reach a critical mass that the illegal administration cannot shout through. That’s when he will go to trial.
In two weeks , the container ships coming into the United states drops from over 20, to 12. That’s a huge hit to the supply lines and economy of the U.S. A hit to the food supplies , and the cash flow. those are the two that matter. think about what his support will be then.
US immigration was unreasonably harsh and unforgiving before, but paired with the possibility to send people to a concentration camp without due process makes this fact a lot more scary. Yeah, they could get you in serious trouble for minor mistakes, but they couldn’t ruin or even take your life that easily before.
Which is why if i were a foreign tourist, i would avoid America completely.
I suspect we’ll still see some foreign tourists this summer, because they’ve already bought tickets and made reservations, and every place else is booked now, and it will be difficult to make last minute changes.
There will still be a drop in foreign visitors this summer, but next summer? Foreign tourists will be almost non-existent. All we will get are those wierdos who specifically seek out dangerous places to visit, as if we are war zone.
Who knows? Maybe by next summer we will be.
I’m getting pretty old now, and throughout my life, whenever ive met people who were immigrants, I’ve asked them about their immigration story. Why did they come here? Some were escaping a bad place, a bad government, war, etc. Others were chasing a dream. Some were just trying to make enough money to keep their family alive back home.
The main reason ive asked, is because i could never be that motivated to leave America I might visit other places, but not only could i not summon the kind of courage it would take to go live in a foreign place, i wouldnt want to. Ive loved America, and it’s history, even with all of its ugly chapters.
But now that’s changed profoundly. My family has been having serious talks about leaving. My wife has been seriously researching potential countries to move to.
Frankly, i doubt anyone would take us. There will soon be a flood of Americans begging to get into any other country who will take them, and countries will be cherry-picking the most useful, and tossing back the rest. I have a small business that i could easily transfer to anywhere in the world, but we aren’t rich, and we don’t have special skills that are in demand. We probably wouldn’t make the cut.
And if we could get to another country, we’d likely be treated by their citizens the way immigrants are treated here - discriminated against, taken advantage of, abused by the authorities, employers, landlords, etc.
Might as well just stay here, and ride it out. At my age, I’ve been wrapping my head around the idea that my story is going to have a twist ending, and is going to go down a path I never expected. I can be passive, and let the MAGA Nazis choose my path, or i can be proactive, and choose a path that defies them.
If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging.
There already has been a significant drop in tourists just in the last months. If things escalate, I bet your prediction becomes entirely true.
I’m Australian and there NO way I would be going anywhere near the states any time soon.
My prediction is trump is going to mobilise Maga as a militia and you guys are headed for a full blown civil war
This is America
