Tag Archives: Reparations

Why reparations now? By Mark C. Ross

Posted on December 20, 2022 | 1 comment

Are reparations proposals meant to keep blacks who might be thinking of straying from the Democratic party on board? From Mark C. Ross at americanthinker.com:

The absurdity of the concept of reparations for slavery, an institution that ended several generations ago, is beyond mind-boggling.  But there’s a blatantly cynical reason for the sudden lurch in that direction: formerly reliable Black voters are now slipping away from the Democrats.  This also explains Biden’s recently expressed profuse generosity toward the nations of sub-Saharan Africa.

What is also painfully obvious is the lame, demagogic pandering that is the Democrats’ knee-jerk response, especially to a defecting constituency: just throw money at them, and that’ll keep ’em on the reservation.  Never mind the exposure to ridicule attached to redistributing money from people who never owned slaves to people who never were slaves, since the despicable practice was abolished over 150 years ago.  “Oh, the wealth and education gap that plagues the inner cities is the enduring legacy of slavery.”  Even if this were true, just throwing money at the problem is of particularly dubious benefit.

The dystopic nature of our inner cities cannot be traced back to slavery.  Modern-day political machines are the culprits.  Paying women to have fatherless children; running schools that avoid imparting basic math and literacy skills while lowering the standards for achievement; suppressing police responses to avoid bad optics and litigation…all add up to imposed squalor.  And none of this can be traced back to slavery or any of its aftereffects.

You may call it the “Trump Effect” or whatever — “working-class” voters have been shifting to the Republican Party.  This includes Black folks and other “minorities.”  Nowadays, progressive Democrats are mostly appealing to trust-fund-baby treehuggers and other guilty, virtue-signaling middle-class liberals.  This is what’s happening.  And Trump didn’t even start it.  Some years ago, Pat Caddell, political adviser to Bill Clinton, bemoaned his perception that the Democrat party had been taken over by an “elite gentry.”  Trump did, however, accelerate the process of blue-collar defection by allowing the economy to fiercely expand and thus embrace many of those stuck on its bottom rungs.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Government, Politics, race relations

Tagged

Half-Black Man Ordered To Pay Himself Reparations

Posted on June 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

From The Babylon Bee:

SAN JOSE, CA—Local half-white, half-black man Michael Preston has been ordered to pay himself reparations since half his ancestors were oppressed and half were oppressors.

“Wait — what?” he said after he received a letter from Governor Gavin Newsom’s office informing him he owed himself over $25,000. “Uh… OK? I guess?” He then went down to the bank and ordered a transfer to himself. He was a little short of the total amount so he made it in installments, sending himself several payments totaling the $25,000 amount he owes himself for his ancestors oppressing his other ancestors.

“We’d like to thank Mr. Preston for atoning for the guilt of his ancestors,” said Governor Newsom. “Because of them, he has a unique place of privilege in life and has had a leg up on his fellow citizens, who are oppressed because of things that happened hundreds of years ago. Today, he has made that right. Well, until we ask for more reparations later. Frankly, it’s never going to stop.”

“We’d also like to congratulate Mr. Preston for receiving the reparations long overdue to his ancestors today,” said Governor Newsom. “Because of what happened to them, he is in a unique place of oppression in life and has never been able to get ahead of his fellow citizens, who are far more privileged than him because of things that happened hundreds of years ago. Today, that wrong has been righted. Well, until we send him more reparations later. Frankly, it’s never going to stop.”

Preston has said he’ll pay whatever to himself going forward as long as the state just leaves him alone and lets him live his life.

https://babylonbee.com/news/half-black-man-ordered-to-pay-himself-reparations

Leave a comment

Posted in Humor, race relations

Tagged

Perpetrators of Horrors, by Wanjiru Njoya

Posted on September 18, 2021 | Leave a comment

If you are white and British, you were born guilty. From Wanjiru Njoya at lewrockwell.com:

It has been announced that the good British people are the world’s leading perpetrators of horrors and will need to start paying out their slavery reparations right away. This is good news for all those on the receiving end of the payouts. It’s almost like winning the lottery. Everyone loves receiving free money from the government so it’s good to see reparations being promised. This might seem a bit unfair to any British taxpayer who has never personally perpetrated any horrors, but that’s too bad. They should have thought of that before choosing to be descended from horrid slavers and colonisers. Most people would agree that it’s only fair and just to make recompense for doing something bad even if you didn’t do it. The fact is that you live in a world where horrors occur, and that makes you a joint perpetrator of horrors. The balance of the world must now be restored. Time to pay up!

The Revd Dr Michael Banner said that Britons were the “leading perpetrators of the horrors” of slavery and that the “question of making recompense for them has to be faced”.

​Britain should pay reparations for slavery, says Cambridge Dean

It’s not yet clear how this will work. A few questions need to be answered. For example, what is meant by ‘Britons’? Do Britons have to be white to be guilty of perpetrating horrors? Will there be an exemption for black Britons? Do Britons have to be rich in order to incur liability for the perpetration of horrors? Or will poor Britons also have to pay up for any ancestral horrors that they didn’t commit?

Most likely, to make it more fair, it will be funded from taxes and become a national institution that could be called Our Reparations. The Royal Family could go out on their doorsteps every week, with all their children standing in a row, to clap for Our Reparations. HMRC could volunteer to collect our contributions through payroll taxes. It would not cost very much. Taxes would only have to go up the slightest little bit, you wouldn’t even notice. And anyway if you’re a Briton then paying higher taxes is the least you could do to account for your horrors. It’s a tax designed to heal all Our Wounds so you should be proud to help with the national healing effort. It’s a matter of national pride finally to wash away the stain of colonialism and make us all whole again. Think of it more like paying the Wages of Sin and earning your redemption.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Governments, History, Imperialism, Law, Money, Morality, Politics, Propaganda, Taxes

Tagged ,

America Is Only One Step Away From A South African-Style Social Implosion, by Brandon Smith

Posted on July 25, 2021 | Leave a comment

Today’s politics in either South Africa or the US boil down to two imperatives: get something for nothing, or protect your something from those who want to take it from. The purported justifications of the first group are nothing more than meaningless window dressing. The “but they mean well” excuses the second group makes for the first group are the worst kind of idiocy. From Brandon Smith at alt-market.com:

On the global news front I have been watching one event with special attention, mainly because it seems like almost no one else is – I am speaking of course about the social and economic collapse in South Africa that has been escalating over the past couple weeks. What is strange to me is that certain parallels between South Africa and the US are being summarily ignored.

Basically, the South African situation is a more exaggerated version of what is happening in America, and we need to consider if it is merely a preview of future events as the extra financial protections in the US begin to fall away.

Cultural Marxism And Social Unrest (The Reparations Con)

South Africa’s government under the ANC (African National Congress) was already going full communist in 2018-2019 before the covid pandemic. Under proposed amendments to the constitution, they demanded that “reparations” be taken from white farmers in the form of land grabs, which would then be redistributed to black citizens.

This is the classic critical race theory argument – That because colonialism once existed, all beneficiaries and their supposed descendants owe dues to the descendants of indigenous people who lost their lands. The problem is, only the descendants of WHITE colonists are required to pay dues.

This is exactly the same path that socialists/Marxists in the Democratic Party are pursuing in the US, with some states and cities demanding reparations for blacks be written into law because of slavery nearly 200 years ago. The reparations movement is tiny, but like all other social justice initiatives it is gaining power because politicians and corporations are supporting it artificially. Why? That’s easy: It’s all about divide and conquer.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Economics, Economy, Governments, History, Horseshit, Media, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged , ,

Reparations: Blueprint for a Shakedown, by Carl F. Horowitz

Posted on September 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

What would be the formula for reparations? Would they be based on how much better off black descendants of slaves would be if their ancestors had remained in Africa? Or is it just pick a number, preferably in trillions, and spread it around? From Carl F. Horowitz at chroniclesmagazine.org:

0920-REPARATIONS-2

 above: journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones (photo by Alice Vergueiro/Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo/Wikimedia Commons)
Nothing talks quite like money, and Robert L. Johnson, a wealthy black man who cofounded Black Entertainment Television (BET) four decades ago, lately has been talking about $14 trillion.

That’s what it will take, he insists, for whites in this country to make amends to blacks for enslaving them in bygone centuries. Only a transfer of wealth of this magnitude would “cause America to live up to the concept and the notion that this nation was born on the idea of American exceptionalism,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on June 1.

What reparations have to do with “American exceptionalism,” that oft-abused term, is not at all clear. What is clear is that in recent years, demands for reparations to the descendants of enslaved blacks have escalated alarmingly and, for the first time, with some prospect of success.

Living American whites, of course, were not around centuries ago to extract slave labor from blacks—or, for that matter, from the many whites who were slaves or indentured servants during our colonial era. But reparations enthusiasts have a retort: All of today’s white wealth on some level is an inheritance of racial oppression. Even “good” whites must recognize their complicity in crime and atone by accepting enforced restitution.

In the world of academia, this ostensibly unearned wealth is called white-skin privilege. In the world of law, it is called unjust enrichment. A number of years ago, University of Hawaii law professor and critical race theorist Mari Matsuda revealed the leveling instinct of this shaming campaign. “Members of the dominant class continue to benefit from the wrongs of the past and the presumptions of inferiority imposed upon victims,” she wrote. “They may decry this legacy, and harbor no racist thoughts of their own, but they cannot avoid their privileged status.”

Continue reading→

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Law, Politics, Propaganda, race relations

Tagged

On Juneteenth, A Conversation of Reparations, by Bill Bonner

Posted on June 19, 2020 | 1 comment

Reparations is a no less worthy cause for government funny money than many of the other “causes” the government has already rewarded. From Bill Bonner at bonnerandpartners.com:

Week 14 of the Quarantine

In those days they shall say no more, the fathers have eaten a sour grape and the teeth of their children are set on edge…

– Jeremiah 31:29

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – Many years ago, during the anti-war riots of 1970, we attended a student rally at the University of New Mexico. Jane Fonda had come to Albuquerque to support the protestors.

Speaker after speaker got up and railed against the war, and against racism. Each one was careful to include the local victims – “Chicanos” (Hispanics) and “Native Americans” (the American Indians, who were an important minority at the University of New Mexico).

Then, after Ms. Fonda had left the podium, we heard drums… and saw a contingent of Indians headed toward the stage. One, a stout young man, took the microphone:

“Stop using us, man” was all he said.

The crowd was silent. What did he mean? Weren’t they trying to help?

The Indians marched off and the rally went back to its usual windy complaints.

Reparations

And today, here at the Diary, we end this week’s ramble by looking at where bad ideas and bad money come together. That is, we will look at “reparations”… and a group that has been badly used for centuries. In preview: Once you begin handing out free money, it is hard to stop.

For years, “reparations” seemed like just another dumb gripe. But it’s becoming real. Last week, the California Assembly agreed to take the case for “reparations” seriously. Joe Biden says he is not opposed to the idea, as long as American Indians are included.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Debt, Economy, Government, Politics, race relations

Tagged , ,

The 5 Craziest Ideas from the Democratic Primary Freak Show, by Doug Casey

Posted on October 10, 2019 | 3 comments

There was abundant competition among Democrats’ many crazy ideas, but 5 winners emerged. From Doug Casey at internationalman.com:

Democratic primary

International Man: Elizabeth Warren proposed an annual tax on a person’s wealth. What do you make of this?

Doug Casey: When you tax something, you discourage it. If Elizabeth Warren wants to tax people’s wealth, that’s going to encourage people to hide their wealth. And discourage them from getting wealthy. So, it’s poison from an economic point of view.

But it’s even worse from an ethical or spiritual point of view. It sends a signal that wealth is evil. That it has to be kept under control and limited. That a political priesthood should determine how much is enough and who should get it. It’s especially perverse in that people like Warren act like they have the moral high ground. When in fact, they’re in the moral gutter.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Business, Capitalism, Government, History, Horseshit, Law, Media, Politics, race relations, Taxes

Tagged , , ,

Crazyland, by James Howard Kunstler

Posted on June 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

No argument here: much of the US, especially among its intelligentsia and political class, is crazyland. From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

Surfing the cable channels the evening before my Friday a.m. blog duties, I came upon Sean Hannity at Fox News completely losing his shit in a colloquy with Geraldo Rivera about the Iran drone incident. “Bomb the crap out of them!” Mr. Hannity ranted, several times, the veins in his neck throbbing visibly on the high-def screen. I thought I was having an acid flashback to Doctor Strangelove. Geraldo himself seemed a bit nonplussed and embarrassed by Mr. Hannity’s tantrum, but his attempts to calm down the raving anchorman only ramped up the hysteria. One wondered: are there any adult producers off-screen on that network?

Perhaps the Golden Golem of Greatness, our president, who is also known to follow the Cable TV news, witnessed the cringeworthy incident and realized that every other head-of-state on this nervous planet would also see it, and might infer he was doing the bidding of a crazed boob-tube performer if he actually went forward with an air strike. Earlier, he’d told reporters, “You’ll soon find out,” what the USA’s response to the drone shoot-down would be. He should have just kept his mouth shut. Planes and ships were on their way to the bottleneck in the Persian Gulf known as the Straits of Hormuz. Before they could deliver any payloads, Mr. Trump called the whole thing off suggesting that maybe some “loose and stupid” Colonel Borat type on Iran’s side had gone rogue in the incident.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Collapse, Culture, Government, Horseshit, Politics, race relations

Tagged

National Reckoning, My Eye, by Taki Theodoracopulos

Posted on April 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

The manifestly unjust idea of racial reparations won’t go away among manifestly unjust leftists. From Taki Theodoracopulos at takimag.com:

Okay, sports fans, get your wallets out and start giving. That’s the latest brainstorm from a New York Timescolumnist who makes however unconvincing a case for reparations to black people. For slavery, that is. And that means you, whitey—or brownie, and I guess that goes for yellow ones also. He wants these reparations to be legislated into law, and everyone except African-Americans has to pay. His idea is hardly original. Race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Kamala Harris, even Jesse Jackson, have been dropping heavy hints for years. Black Americans want money, and the rest of us have to give it to them, “punto basta,” as they say in the land of pasta.

The media has managed to impose a kind of groupthink that tells us that America is rife with racism and bigotry, but looking around and watching television, the only racism I seem to notice nowadays is the one against whites who go to church and raise law-abiding families. Watch any Netflix or Amazon series and you’ll see what I mean. (Better not watch it, actually.) The priest is always a pervert, the religious families are selling drugs on the sly, and all cops and soldiers are rapists, racists, and bigots. All criminals are white, blond, and sporting Nazi tattoos. Well, you know the rest. Political correctness and diversity training have now become standard, and lockstep conformity is the order of the day. The media is most responsible for spreading this plague, and now we have a columnist for a malignant, anti-Christian, antiwhite, anti-male newspaper suggesting that we are all responsible for slavery and should lighten our wallets.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, History, Horseshit, Politics, race relations

Tagged

The Proximate Cause of All Our Woes Is: Civilizational Apoptosis, by Fred Reed

Posted on March 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

Fred Reed has repented and found salvation. From Reed at theburningplatform.com:

Today all manner of curiosities, as I once called them, propose that whites pay reparations for slavery. For example, our Democratic presidential candidates. Well, I am joining them. Yes. I am for reparations. It is only just.

Once I lived in moral darkness, and thought reparations was crazy as Aunt Sally, that we kept in the attic because she kept trying to eat the carpet downstairs. I wondered where we got such a daft Congress. I figured saturation mutagenesis, or somebody put brain softener in the water.

I am a poor sinner, but I have reformed. Bring on reparations. I believe that everyone who has been a slave should be paid a vast sum of money, to be paid by those who enslaved him. No exceptions. I do not kid around about reparations.

It was that AOC woman that changed my life, Alexandria Occasionally Cortés. I listened to her and saw that I was a reprobate, probably beyond redemption. I decided then and there to free all my slaves by sundown. I wasn’t sure how many I had. I asked my wife to tot them up, not an exact count but in even dozens.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, race relations

Tagged