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this is crazy bc i was a fucking teenager in the years that DHS was created, and even i was aware enough to know that No The Fuck It Wasn't That.

I was alive in 2001. No it wasn’t.

At the time, many of us knew better. Stop gaslighting us.

W.T.F.?!

Who ever thought the phrase “homeland security” was meant to be “reassuring”? Rather, it conjured up some rather unreassuring history. Also why are presidents mentioned in this article written with the honorific “President” in front of their name except one: “president at the time, Barack Obama”?

That’s, that’s insane? crazypants? Everyone to the left of Gaius Caligula recognized it as an instrument of surveillance and oppression. It’s just that those in power thought that laying the groundwork for a cyberpunk dystopia was pretty cool.

Did a chimpanzee write this? DHS was created in the most xenophobic moment I’ve ever experienced, the most anti-Muslim moment, the second most anti-immigrant moment. It was created to fight a war at home.

As someone alive when this shit was slapped together Ha ha fucken no what are you smoking it was always a powergrab to establish the corporate-government surveillance system we are being crushed beneath

this is not true

IMO there is nothing comforting about the phrase "homeland security". The NAZI regime called Germany the "Homeland".

That is bullshit of the first water.

just here for the ratio

This is a horseshit take and NPR should retract this story. Try again with facts.

Unity in the sense that anyone different must be purged. Harmony in the sense that no dissent will be tolerated. Reassuring to people who want a violent theocratic surveillance state. This article is just outright revisionist history in service of normalizing fascist ideology.

lol meant to be reassuring?

No

wrong again

It was designed to make surveillance easier to do on American citizens and also to jot make the government have to follow and keep a person's constitutional rights out of hatred and fear. Most of the security measures it put in place actually do nothing or make an area less secure.

Homeland Security has basically become the Government "Umbrella Corporation"

“No, it wasn’t”

Have you considered applying for a job with the regime pr office. It would be more ethical than continuing cosplaying as journalists.

The Bush-admin response was to put together all the Federal employees with guns as part of their job descriptions in various agency into one new department, not including the CIA or FBI.

Great minds and all that... bsky.app/profile/just...

“Reassuring” in its Orwellian sense.

No. Just no. Try again.

You should explicitly mark opinion pieces. There's no way an editor would have vetted the claim they made here.

Trump ain’t gonna back you

Racist Nazi Americans. And them only.

did they threaten you to write this

Did someone ten years old write this? Because anyone over 35 knows the truth since we lived through it.

Bullsh*t that the DHS was conceived in the interest of “unity and harmony”. Are you f*cking kidding? It was conceived in the interest of total rampant fear and paranoia. Who wrote that blurb? Were they even alive when 9/11 happened, or did they just Google it? WTF. Do better NPR.

(I hadn't read Orwell/1984 but was familiar with the concept)

Poppycock. The word “Homeland” was a flagrant tell about the department‘s original, ominous statist intent, and its current role in facist abuse.

I don't remember there being unity or harmony around the founding of DHS just like there wasn't unity and harmony around the "Total Information Awareness" project that would later turn into Palantir or the "Patriot" Act.

what the fuck are you talking about. i was like 16 at the time and could still tell it was brazen doublespeak

Yeah like every single President who had access to it, for instance

I must ask again: bsky.app/profile/bcha...

This is so ahistorical it makes me angry

It wasn't meant to be anything of the sort.

"...conceived in the interest of unity and harmony .."

Even Rumsfeld knew it smacked of fascism. bsky.app/profile/robr...

"Charlie Brown Had Hoes" - NPR

What the fuck is this crap? None of this is true.

LMAO no.

Every thinking person in America rightly clocked it as dystopian the minute the name was announced. Get real.

Really? It always sounded creepy and fascist to me, back in the day and still.

You are trying to rewrite history.

imagine what they'll be saying about Jan 6 in a few weeks

I saw that and expected it to be written by some Gen Z intern whose only experience is in the Trump II era and just assumed that’s the way it’s always been. Nope. Ron Elving (who apparently doesn’t have an @ here) knows better.

This is not accurate to the history of the org or of the name

C’mon, you nerds. Surely SOMEone in your outfit was alive in 2001-2002.

What you guys smoking?

Lol it's Nazi shit and it always has been. "Homeland" is a Nazi phrase. The villain of the boys is called "homelander" Jfc

I’m sorry @npr.org, but too many takes like this is why I’m no longer a monthly sustaining member. #HistoryMatters #NoFascistUSA

You do know a lot of us are still old enough to have been around then and know this isn't true, right?

unity and harmony lol

Everyone involved in printing this tripe should be fired, and never work in journalism again.

Sounds kinda Nazi to me.

I know it’s a long weekend, but put down the bong.

WTF are you smoking?

You can't be this stupid

"unity and hormony" in hating on Muslims?

Lol what

bsky.app/profile/atta...

Were you even alive? Everyone knew what it was.

It was always intended to be partisan bullshit by W and his roadies, so spare us this bullshit.

Wow this is a stretch…hooo boy.

This may be difficult to believe, but at one time NPR was considered a reliable - even exemplary! - source of factual news.

The things NPR lies about most often are AI and the security state, and they do it repeatedly and without shame.

@npr.org, lying for fascists... AGAIN.

Why are you lying?

It was conceived in the unity of a national shared bloodlust

Do better, NPR.

Lol man it was created in the hysteria of the America-ending 9/11 and homeland is insane. National was right there

It sounds like something a fascist govt would have, which is why no one liked it early on.

Nah, we knew it was a fascist department to be used against political enemies from the start

In other news, Charlie Brown had hoes

just because the media's role under fascism is to uncritically parrot transparently false propaganda barfed out by fascists does not mean you're obliged to extend that same courtesy to transparently false propaganda barfed out by fascists from 25 years ago

"We must create a paramilitary police force to impose unity and harmony on the homeland" -> it's so goddamned reassuring.

I immediately thought of Nazi Germany when it was named “Homeland”. It was NEVER reassuring.

The phrase "homeland security" has reeked of fascism since W.

reconceiving of the US as the “homeland” was always a fascist move you dillholes

Thanks, National Propaganda Radio.

It was always a dog whistle to fascism.

100%

This! It reeks of pure fascism.

Still sounded that way if you were over 40, too.

Robin Williams joked about it in his special as it was happening

Yep.

Hitler speech to Nazi audience 1938 “You are helping, too, to educate a new generation that stands firm on the soil of the HOMELAND in health and power and strength." Theme sounds so familiar these days. (Republicans cough, cough)

I reacted exactly that way. Seemed very un-American to me. And yes, creepy.

Same. Creepy as shit

Super Nazi terminology always was

this this this!

Even at the time We knew it was propaganda

Absolutely. I was stunned when the department was announced, and I still hate it.

This regime is clueless & criminal No Justice

… in the interest of unity and harmony (between government law enforcement agencies)

Go back and read your own reporting from 2003, reassurances came in color coded terrorist threat levels — it was meant to be ominous

There might be, but NPR rn is at a real nadir. They've been slowly collapsing to conservative pressure since the Bush Jr years and now, with PBS funding all but removed, they're playing into Republican hands even more. I can only imagine that's what this headline is about.

and do Nazi things

The Fear Congress.

The name has always made me cringe.

No, it wasn’t. Only a Republican or someone born after 1995 could believe that. DHS had homeland in the name because Dick Cheney was a fascist and W was at least fash-curious.

Yeah, I don’t need to be gaslit by an entity I donate money to support. Get bent.

"Liebensraum Security was originally conceived to be reassuring, in the interest of harmony and unity" No it wasn't. It's literally a dogwhistle. We're not 12 years old, most of us were there.

No, it was not. It was fascist from the jump.

The fuck it was. This is utter bullshit. Anyone with eyes and a functional conscience could see exactly what it was intended to be from Day One.

This.... is just a load of twaddle. I was *there* when DHS was founded. It was NOT meant to be reassuring, uniting, or harmonious. It was always meant to be an agressive, jingoistic, excuse for racism and security theater.

I'm sure that if you asked Muslim Americans what their thoughts were on DHS, you might not hear many people describe it as uniting and harmonious

“Unity and harmony”?? It was a deliberate giant leap towards authoritarianism, and everyone who was paying attention knew it was going to be trouble from the very beginning.