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.
Disappeared (desaparecido) is a historical term that likens the trump administration to latin american military dictatorships
Thanks, didn’t know that!
I could be extra sensitive to perceived soft language these days, so I appreciate the context.
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This is not the first time I read this sentiment, but kidnapping sounds softer to me than disappearing someone.
Kidnapping usually has a ulterior purpose and therefore the implication there’s conditions for return. Like money. Kidnapping is rarely itself the point.
That’s not the case here with government shipping people off to some foreign concentration camp, never to be seen again.
Kidnapping implies isolated incidents and criminals working outside the government. Disappearing points out that the government is responsible, it’s harsher language
Yes, criminals kidnap.
Governments black bag/disappear people.
Disappearing a person has far more darker undertones, too. kidnapping, at least theres a chance there might be a ransom.
Disappeared has specific connotations for those that grew up with dictators kidnapping opposition figures. I suspect the choice is intentional as it recalls a lot of South American despots.
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.
“trafficked” is the word we’re looking for here
“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.
No, disappeared means no one outside the government knows where they are.
Yes traffic is the word because El Salvador is making money off each prisoner we send.
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.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disappear
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.
amnesty international has accused the us government of extraordinary rendition for decades, basically since 2001. this is even worse
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.
you need to disappear your attitude when talking to people on YOUR SIDE