paying off ex-slaves

[Forstater, Mathew]

in my recent debates around kc on the issue, i've formulated a few responses to
the 'usual' myths/arguments against reps.  when someone says that 'it happened a
long time ago...' my basic response is: the issue is not the amount of time that
has passed, but rather, first, whether or not an injustice was committed (are
there time limits to addressing injustices?) and, second, are there present
effects of the past injustice? if there are, then that would be more important
than the amount of 'time' that has passed. In fact, not so much time has passed
at all! I'm under 40 yrs. old and still there were people who lived under
slavery still alive during my lifetime! We know that disadvantages, and not just
advantages, are transfered across generations. In the U.S., we know that the
effects of past discrimination are still felt by one's descendents after more
than 100 years. One of the most striking areas where we can see this is asset
accumulation (wealth). There is no question that present African American wealth
was effected by slavery/jim crow. It is amazing what opportunities arise in our
society from even a relatively small amount of wealth. Over half of all
businesses in the U.S. are started with less than $5000. Average annual tuition
at a community college is less than $1200. Average down payment on a house for a
low-middle income family is less than $3000. These are just examples of the ways
in which a relatively small amount of savings can affect economic independence,
job prospects, etc.

Also, an important fact is that in the case of reps for Japanese Americans,
around 1/3 of taxpayers at the time reps were paid were not alive at the time of
the internment. This is an important precedent. Of course, the whole issue of
'charging' individuals who were personally implicated through their anscestors,
etc, e.g., owning slaves, has to be refuted. First, slave-owners were not the
only ones to benefit. Also, if reps are paid out of taxes, then present day
African Americans would also be paying their share of the bill. But I suppose
all of these myths are easily responded to by lboers. But it is amazing how
common these myths are, no matter how obvious the flaws in logic or how many
times they have been refuted in the past. This idea that 'African Americans are
better off than they would have been if they stayed in Africa' in the e-mail
sent by Kelly is one that was in a letter I received from someone in the KC area
who saw me on teevee. This was followed by asking me why shouldn't all workers
receive reps for past exploitation. I guess they thought I would be against
that.

-----Original Message-----
From: Kelley Walker [mailto:kelley at interpactinc.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 4:48 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: paying off ex-slaves

this, below, is the kind of shit we're up against. i am so tired of the 
debates in this country being skewed in the worst possible way.!  a minor 
reparations debate has just erupted elsewhere.  comments are typical and i 
see, Gordon, Horowitz simply encouraged the reinteration of latent 
sentiments.  what? 1. that one can compare slavery to, among other historic 
evils, the killing of christians by the romans or the Inquisition, as if 
that's the freakin issue.  that the reparations movement is based on "back 
to Africa" Black Nationalism (oiy). 3. when someone mentioned the forty 
acres and a mule deal-- simply blown off as of no consequence.  anyone see 
Cspan -- pathetic, disgusting crap from the phone ins.  utterly absurd crap 
spouted the the, uh, differently klewed.

i go by snit at this list and i wrote the text set of by carrots >s, hence 
the references to "snit" (reply, below plus a couple of other choice ones 
pasted below that.

 > horowitz is slime b/c he stirs up shit by propagating lies and other

 > ignorant filth--among other things.

 >

 > campuses can be PC but that's nothing new!  they were PC long before

 > horowitz was born, but their politics were uh different.

This is an egregious lie.  "PC", as snit well knows, is a definite
political position.  It does not mean "has some sort of political view",
as she also well knows.  To say that something can be PC and not-Pc is an
attempt to be simultaneously cute and disinformative.  This "PC" remark
of hers is a standard Leftist technique called "moral equivalency",
or as Horowitz once exemplified it, "Stalin had three million people
liquidated but I am subjected to the moral liquidation of American
soap operas!"  The archtypical example is the "moral equivalency"
of Communism (20,000,000 dead in the USSR alone) and "McCarthysim",
(Zero dead, perhaps a few hundred *real foreign agents* suffering the
moral equivalent of being shot in the back of the neck, namely difficulty
in getting employment in sensitive positions.)

The use of PC instead of spelling it out, "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS", is
a propaganda technique, remarked by Orwell as a component of Newspeak.
"Snit plusgoodwise bellyfeels PC duckspeak".  Translated, "Snit is very
good at the viscerally sincere, unconscious replication of Politically
Correct doctrine."  Snitologists are counselled to keep track of the
various key issues or personalities that cause the snit to change to
duckspeak.  I believe that this is the third post in which snit has
iterated some kind of duckspeak rendition of the anti-Howrowitz line.
It is no accident that they all are scatological.

The reason snit hates and slanders Horowitz is that Horowitz is an
apostate third-generation communist, and it is for the apostate, for him
who once was an hereditary Levite of the True Belief, that the zealot
reserves hir most toxic opprobrium.  Hir remarks are similar to those
which a communist zealot reserves for defectors.

The offense of Horowitz is that he knows too well what goes on in the
febrile minds of the Leftists, and speaks candidly of same.  This is the
"shit" and "ignorant filth" that he stirs up.

It is painfully obvious that snit has been running open-loop for too long,
and has left the linear region of discourse. 'Monax' has been delegated to
apply correction, to cage the snittish gyros with the synchros of Truth.

It is touching to see an obsolete Party line toed so faithfully, and by
a Samaritan at that.

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<troll>
They should also be forced to pay the difference in the additional benefits
they have recieved living in the U.S. vs if they were still in Africa.  So
lets say the average ex-slave earns $35,000/yr in the U.S. vs the average
african earns $5,000/yr ... they owe our country $30,000!
</troll>

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You're not trolling you damn right !!!
Those 'black' people here asking for compensation are fucking clueless !!
I've lived in Africa (being African)... and those guys asking for
compensation NEVER DID LIVE IN AFRICA, they are CLUELESS, trust me. The
"Rosy Africa" idea is something they read or heard about through people like
Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad etc... That's a fukkin pipe dream.
They should go to Africa today and we'll see if they still fucking open
their big mouths. This really cheeses me off... It's always NON-AFRICAN
people that fukkin do the talking and shit but they don't know shit... Some
people are actually ACTIVELY involved in helping Africa (forgetting
themselves in the process), they're not helping themselves like most of
these fuckwits asking for compensation intend to do...
<...>
I'm African, I speak a tongue from Senegal (West Africa), I also speak
French (mother tongue as I was born and grew up in France), English (lived
in London for 5-6 years), Spanish. I traveled a bit. I think those people
that want compensation are idiots, plain and simple. Evil things happened
4-500 years ago: SO FUCKING WHAT ??? Life carries on, we all learn from our
mistakes and move on. I just wish some black people were less busy being
black and more busier being human and active society members. I mean for
Christ' sake ? Should we ask compensation for what happened during the
inquisition ??? We're in 2001 and some of us believe that Singularity is a
few years away, it saddens me to see that some people are still looking for
compensation for stupid crimes made centuries ago.

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