More reparation nonsense

[fdiron]

I believe a type of reparation should be paid.  Heres why-  Whenever a nation has a large population of impoverished, and uneducated citizens, they are a drain on society.  Crime rates rise, taxes must be collected to help support them (welfare), and animosity is created between the Haves and Have-Nots.

My suggestion would be some type of education fund that allowed blacks to attend college for free.  Maybe even free housing so blacks attending college could get out of the slums and ghettos.  

While this generation of America had nothing to do with slavery, we are living with the results of it.

[GRUNHERZ]

The evil Turks invaded my country a few hundred years ago... Where do I send for the check?

I am Slavic and German by descent. The Slav ethnic group is the origin for the term slave, so in the past my ancestors were enslaved so much that the very concept of the slavery is named after us.  Somebody owes me some serious money.

The studmuffingoty assed Italian army shelled my village during WW2, they killed some of my relatives and put a big hole in the roof of our house. We have still not been compensated for these injustices.

The Serbs have oppresed the Croatians in Yugoslavia, I'm not sure how this complaint will be worked out. Oh wait we all know how it went....


So send me the check Elfenwolf, $5000, or youll be a supporter of slavery, Turkish agression or Italian Fascist militarism.


BTW Elfenwolf how much money do you figure you owe to the blacks?

[easymo]

I considered demanding reparations from Spain.  I am black Irish. Something to do with spaniards raping and pillaging along the coast of Ireland. But, before my body began to decompose, the women found the black hair, blue eyes, and dark completion, dead sexy.  So I figured, what the hell, it got me laid.  Its a push.

[ra]

"You look at the deplorable conditions African Americans have had to endure throught their American history from the past to the present and it's no wonder they're pissed."

African Africans have had to endure much worse.

[Saintaw]

If I ever go to Sweden, I SWEAR to stay on the right side of the law

Stop munching those coffee beans Steve, it's bad for your health...

[Toad]

Hey... my ancestors got run out of Ireland by the English. They took our piddlin' bit of land too.

I want Dowding as my Butler and I want it done tomorrow!

.... all kidding aside, I'm not going to live long enough to see it but you'll hear gales of laughter from six feet under my headstone when"

The Asians and the Hispanics finally own and run this place since there about the only ones left willing to totally work their *sses off.......

AND

Farakahn and his ilk try to run a scam like this on them.

Can you say Civil War, Part Deux?

Won't be no "white man's guilt" to save 'em then.

[loser]

seems like this is getting out of hand.


If someone rapes and steals from another person and i happen to be the same race (useless term to me) am i responsible for what happened?  Am i still responsible 300 years later?  

Is a portion of my meagre paycheck rightfully owed to the people who were wronged by people i have never met, talked to, or hand the chance to kick in the balls for being idiots?

Hell i know im young and stupid, and never had the misfortune to be oppressed, but if we all are calling for money, I believe more than a handful of white (again usless term to me) Americans and especially Canadians are owed some heavy dollars because of slavery. My great grandfather owned a farm and brought 2 black Americans to Canada...and he paid them..and paid for their families to come here. Large families.

Then again, those old folks who helped free slaves and gave harbour to native Americans are long dead and gone have more wealth in spirit than any amount of dollars could have given them.


(steps off of soapbox)


(edit) did i just say "a handful?"  damn that was bad.  I meant any abololishonist...and their families...and those brave KIDS who were yanks. oh and their families too.  I apologize if i offended anyone.

[Leslie]

Originally posted by Kieran
Seriously, I am half Native American. What do I deserve for my trouble?

Don't know if it's true Kieran, but I heard Native Americans or half Native Americans could hunt and fish legally without having to buy a license or adhere to legal seasons.  Probably bs, but who knows?

There's also the casino industry operated by Native Americans.    I don't know anything about it.  Maybe someone here does.  I guess the guys who operate the casinos have to pay big money to become legally licensed, whereas Native Americans get to do this as a sort of reparations granted by the US Govt.

Les

Edit...

Grant you, it's the tribes who get to do this and not individuals, but if you're part of a recognized tribe, you could probably get some benefits from it.  Does anyone here know how this works?  

[john9001]

my family has been in this country from17xx, my family never owned slaves , my family never got rich off of "free" slave labor, because my fanily never got rich off of "free"slave labor i am poor today.
the govt should pay my family for never having owned slaves

[Urchin]

Originally posted by fdiron
I believe a type of reparation should be paid.  Heres why-  Whenever a nation has a large population of impoverished, and uneducated citizens, they are a drain on society.  Crime rates rise, taxes must be collected to help support them (welfare), and animosity is created between the Haves and Have-Nots.

My suggestion would be some type of education fund that allowed blacks to attend college for free.  Maybe even free housing so blacks attending college could get out of the slums and ghettos.  

While this generation of America had nothing to do with slavery, we are living with the results of it.

I'd agree with you, except there are just as many poor white people as poor black people in this country.  Hell, I just read in the paper today that in the wealthiest county where I live (maryland), the average income of blacks is higher than the average income of whites.  It would be a logical assumption that those wealthy blacks had ancestors that were slaves to, so how come I get no credit for that, but get blamed because other blacks are just as poor as I am?

[Voss]

The price of our Civil War, although not specifically about slavery, should be enough.

I say pay them reparations by giving them citizenship (that was Lincoln's answer). If they still hold their hand out, slap it.

[Tumor]

Farakhan and company are doing nothing more than making complete lazy looking useless love muffines of themselves... I hope they get LOTS of coverage.

[fdiron]

I'd agree with you, except there are just as many poor white people as poor black people in this country. Hell, I just read in the paper today that in the wealthiest county where I live (maryland), the average income of blacks is higher than the average income of whites. It would be a logical assumption that those wealthy blacks had ancestors that were slaves to, so how come I get no credit for that, but get blamed because other blacks are just as poor as I am?

Proportionately, the black community is in worse shape than the white community.  While there could be more whites below the poverty level than blacks, percentage wise there is a big difference.

[Wotan]

WHAT ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICA'S DEBT?
TIME TO TELL THE VOCAL CHARLATANS TO SHUT UP

By: William Mayer

We have recently been subjected to a lot of noise regarding the salamanderly issue of reparations, money to be paid to the offspring of the American slave experience - as little as two weeks ago California Governor Gray Davis established common cause with the most extreme forces in this movement.

Leaders from Jesse Jackson to Kweisi Mfume have demanded that, because of the despicable nature of slavery, money must change hands in similar manner to the plus $1 billion that was paid to square the moral account regarding the Japanese internment during WWII.
 
 
A little mining of the historical record reveals that the first Black slaves were brought to America in 1619 and the practice of keeping humans on this continent as legally provided for chattel continued until 1865 - a time span of 246 years.

Until Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the history of humanity - as far back as records exist - is commingled with an element of slavery.

The Bible acknowledges its existence, as does the Koran. It existed at the height of Greek achievement and throughout the Roman Empire.

Slavery was omnipresent, and not just Black slavery, as Caucasian slaves - especially the musically gifted and comely women - from as far away as Russian Georgia, were sold into slavery throughout the Ottoman Empire.

For 600 years, in the period before the arrival of the Europeans, it was the Islamic world that established the slave trading routes which laced across the African continent - slaves either captured in raids or paid to various sultans as tribute, as was the case in the African Nubian kingdom.

The aforementioned history lesson is not offered as a defense against the indefensible - it is a simple statement of fact - against which our little essay plays.

What was life like as a “free” African?

The short answer was, pretty horrendous, like much of the rest of the world at that time, however Africa was afflicted with a killer combination of inhospitable climates and traditional deadly maladies of malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal disease which made life especially precarious.

Tribal warfare also was an ever-present danger, one only has to examine the brief brutal history of Shaka Zulu and his bloody campaigns against his neighbors and finally his own increasingly malevolent actions against his own people which resulted in his assassination at the hands of his half brothers.

Life in much of Africa is still very hard today, probably harder in comparison with the rest of the world than was the case before the arrival of the Europeans.

Savage tribal warfare still exists [Hutus and Tutsis for example] now empowered by modern weaponry, totalitarian dictatorships abound, and then there is the terrible additional burden of AIDS which has reduced average life expectancy in Africa to less than 50 years - the worst, by far, in the world.

So we are left this contrast between a very hard “old world” and a seemingly even harsher “new world”

Some additional facts to put this in perspective:

The majority of slaves were brought to America between 1720 and 1780, by the time of the Civil War the institution of slavery had already weathered at least 5 generations.

25% of White Southern families owned slaves, the overwhelming majority owning but few - 2.8% of slave owners accounted for 25% of the total number of slaves held.

Approximately 4,000 free Blacks, themselves owned slaves

Was life as a slave hard?

Absolutely, but so was life in rural America.

Was the life of the average slave one of brutalization?

Not necessarily.

Slaves were valuable property and a very important part of the means of production, certainly brutality existed, but mistreatment made as little sense as the abuse of anything instrumental to putting bread on the table.

Does this ignore the moral dimension of owning another human, no, but it is important to look at this objectively.

Historical revisionism aside, the de-facto result of the Civil War was the death of American slavery, the price?

558,000 killed, 375,000 wounded, that is 933,000 either killed or wounded - approximately 1 out of every 20 Americans living at the time - a staggering figure.

And the economic price was also unfathomable - $5.2 billion [in 1990 dollars] expended.

Now, in today's multi-trillion dollar economy $5.2 billion seems like chump change, but consider the fact that in 1860 the entire Federal Budget was only $74,000,000. As further perspective understand that in 1861 our entire national debt was $90,581,000 and that by 1866 it had swelled to $2,773,236,000 - totally as a result of the war.

Taken together the Civil War cost over 70 times what the, then current, federal budget expenditure figure was. It increased the national debt by a factor of 3000% in 5 years!

The grimmest consideration regarding the above statistics is that they do not include the loss of earning power to families from the dead and wounded, the terrible property destruction, the loss in civil liberties [Habeas Corpus, for example] which were necessary to prosecute the war, and the inflationary destabilizing effects brought about by the huge expenditures - not to mention the very real and bitter hurt still felt, palpably and predominantly, in the South because of the war.

Enough about this mostly distant past - fast forward to the ‘50s and ‘60s, a time of revived concern over the status of Black Americans, especially in the South under oppressive jack-booted Democrat administrations.

The development of the modern Civil Rights movement is fascinating and wholly in keeping with the inherent goodness of the American people - in this case Blacks and concerned Whites joining hands to battle the vestiges of established, codified racialism, namely segregation and anti-Black poll practices.

The Civil Rights Act, passed by the power of Republican idealism, promised a color blind society, and close on the heels of this pivotal piece of legislation came Lyndon Johnson’s mammoth Great Society, firmly establishing the big government, top down, command economy model - yet another propitiation offered at the footstep slavery.

The price tag of the Great Society is still being computed, as many of the inefficient feel good programs created in its wake still exist - let's take a conservative figure, say $6 Trillion dollars - which just happens to be the size of our current national debt. Now of course not all of it represents direct transfer payments to Black America but it is hard to envision this huge alphabet soup concoction getting passed without the moralistic fervor surrounding the desire to finally put slavery behind us.

So what validity do the claims of modern day race baiters have?

Not much in our opinion.

America's moral outrage destroyed, once and for all, the underpinnings of slavery worldwide. There is simply no historical equivalent, anywhere in the world, to the effort that has been made to address the wrongs of slavery in the United States.

We have shed the blood of nearly 1 million combatants, ordered federal troops into racial "hot-spots", supported far-reaching legislation, given preferences based on color to those who were seen as victims of slavery, spent probably in excess of $6 trillion dollars in a vain attempt to improve their quality of life, all in an effort to make amends.

The most poverty stricken African American lives like a prince compared to his peers in Africa - his standard of living is much elevated as is access to health care, education and all of the opportunities afforded all in this great free land. He never has to deal with being hacked to death but a warring Tutsi or contracting Ebola.

His chances of being eaten alive by a lion or a crocodile are nill, and even if poor - a relative term - he still most likely owns two color television sets and a car.

The response?

An ever present squeaking - ingratitude to a degree that would be unthinkable were it not for our constantly being reminded of it by shucking and jiving pimps who use it for self promotion and as a fundraising tool. An entire industry has been created out of it allowing hucksters to blackmail US corporations for millions.

No currently living American has personally suffered the ill effects of slavery, no currently living American has ever owned a slave and the majority of slave importation took place over 250 years ago, what's going on here?

How far back do you go?

To the Neanderthals who were shoved aside by the more wily Cro Magnon?

Once you embark down that road, there is no stopping and it is obvious that despite unprecedented efforts to assuage what are now only the hurt feelings of people who have been programmed to view themselves solely as victims the effort has fallen on ears deafened by hate - hate engendered by the likes of married faux "Reverends" who impregnate staff members then use tax exempt funds to shut them up.

Spare me…please.

The time has long past for the majority in this society to tell these relatively few but vocal charlatans to shut the hell up and start working for it like everyone else - the price has been paid in extremis - you owe us.

William A. Mayer is Editor and Publisher of Pipe Bomb News, a weekly journal of political news and commentary. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

[easymo]

Here I go into the PC doghouse again.

Statistically, the two income, black, family. Has an annual income average on a par with two income, white, families.  Could it just be that the black males, that don't marry their pregnant girlfriends, are simply irresponsible.  And they are causing the normal results of irresponsibility, for themselves, and their single mother, girlfriends.