[lbo-talk] South & North/Reparations

jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Thu Feb 10 11:00:09 PST 2005


On 10 Feb 2005 at 8:29, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> The government. Which pays out taxes leveled on the
> general population. Including African AMericans and
> other beneficiaries of reparations. And excludes the
> disproportionately white super rich who can structure
> their investments to avoid paying much (if any) taxes.
> Lovely. The more I hear about this idea the dumber I
> think it is.

What is dumb is using this reason to oppose reparations. One could just as easily oppose income tax on the same basis. The super rich avoid it making it unfair so why bother. The point of reparations would be to structure it so the "super rich" could not avoid paying their portion. What you really mean to say is the more you hear what you want to hear, the more your already held preconception is reinforced.


> Of course the fundamental objections are that it is
> totally utopian in the bad sense and would be utterly
> counterproductive. It will never happen this side of
> socialism (when it will not be necessary, as opposed
> to whatever policies would be useful to make sure that
> historically oppressed groups benefit equally with
> everyone from the new system), it pointlessly stirs up
> racial resentment by guilt-tripping the white working
> class and middle classes, and if it ever did happen,
> those groups and maybe others would say, OK, we're all
> square now and don't need to do anything more.

So now you're claiming only socialist governments can and therefore have paid reparations? You know this is not true so why write: "It will never happen this side of socialism" We certainly wouldn't want the recepients of any benefits of African slavery or Indian slavery and land confiscations to feel guilty. That would certainly suck and be pointless. No point in doing anything constructive since with every step taken forward someone might say: "OK, we're all square now and don't need to do anything more." If you want to oppose reparations surely you can do better than this?

John Thornton



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