Lerone Bennett has supported reparations for years, speaking in support of them before the Chicago City Council , in Jet , on PBS , before a National Reparations Convention, positions that some haver compared favorably to Marxist policies, and others have calles Stalinist .
Non-Sequitur's source, boondocksnet.com, is so noteworthy, I will present the linked page which he is apparently too bashful to present. In all your excitement, you turned Jim Zwick into Edward Zwick.
http://www.boondocksnet.com//ai/masters/
Anti-Imperialist Writings by Edgar Lee Masters
By Jim ZwickAlthough he began his career as a lawyer, Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950) is well-known today as a poet, his Spoon River Anthology still appreciated by many. Unlike most of the anti-imperialists, Masters opposed the Spanish-American War. "I had read enough in the papers to know that war was avoidable," he wrote in his autobiography, Across Spoon River (1936), "and I resolved to have nothing to do with it." He was roused to action by the annexation of the Philippines and the beginning of the new war there. He threw himself into studying the history of the Constitution and the United States' republican form of government, and within the next few years wrote a play, Maximilian (1902), a volume of poetry, and a series of essays on imperialism. During the 1900 presidential campaign, he wrote numerous essays and speeches opposing imperialism and supporting the campaign of William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialist Democratic candidate. In October of 1900, The Public, a Chicago-based weekly edited by the single taxer and anti-imperialist, Louis F. Post, called Masters' pamphlet, The Constitution and Our Insular Possessions (1900), "the best presentation of the Philippine question, in its constitutional and other legal aspects, that has yet come to our attention."
His literary and political efforts received favorable reviews from the anti-imperialists but hurt his law practice. His isolation led him to accept an offer to become the law partner of Clarence Darrow, one of the most prominent civil rights lawyers of the time. He explained in his autobiography:
I was known over Chicago and Illinois by this time as the author of the constitutional articles and political essays published in the Chronicle, and in Tom Watson's Jeffersonian Magazine; and also as the author of a pamphlet entitled "The Constitution and Our Insular Possessions," which had made the conservative lawyers of Chicago indignant at me. Thus my life had moved in such a way that I was unwelcome among the lawyers who were doing a large business, and there was no place for me to go but to the radicals.
While in practice with Darrow, Masters collected some of the essays written during and shortly after the 1900 campaign and published them as The New Star Chamber and Other Essays (1904). He published his early anti-imperialist poems in The Blood of the Prophets (1905) under the pseudonym Dexter Wallace. Darrow had been a vice president of the Chicago Liberty Meeting of April 1899 that led to the formation of the Central Anti-Imperialist League in Chicago, and he would later join the national committee of the All-America Anti-Imperialist League (1928). In 1904, Masters signed the Philippine Independence Committee's petition to the Republican and Democratic national conventions calling for the ultimate independence of the Philippines. His opposition to imperialism continued for many years. He returned to the turn-of-the-century events in the Philippines in his Spoon River Anthology (1915) and a verse play, Manila (1930), and in 1916 he reminded the country that it was the seizure of the Philippines that made it difficult to stay neutral as warfare raged in Europe. The Spanish-American War "changed the form of our government," he wrote in his autobiography, and entrance into the World War "would solidify that change."
I positively cannot understand why you left out what Zwick actually wrote about the All-American Anti-Imperialist League. That is at the following boondocknet.com link.
http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/ail/allamer.html
The All-America Anti-Imperialist League
by Jim Zwick* * *
Although it was started by the Workers (Communist) Party, many leading liberals and peace advocates within the United States signed on as members of its national committee, including the lawyer, Clarence Darrow; Roger Baldwin of the the American Civil Liberties Union; Freda Kirchwey and Lewis S. Gannett of The Nation; W. E. B. Du Bois, the leading African American intellectual; William Pickens of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Robert Morss Lovett of the New Republic; and Scott Nearing. Only one former officer of the Anti-Imperialist League, S. A. Stockwell, joined the new organization's national committee. Stockwell was the first president of the Minneapolis Anti-Imperialist League (1899), a nationally prominent leader of the single tax movement, and for many years a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
The League reached beyond middle class and intellectual circles for its officers to develop a multi-racial and multi-class coalition. Undoubtedly the League's most noteworthy member was Socrates Sandino, half brother of Augusto Sandino, the leader of the Nicaraguan revolution. Socrates Sandino made a national speaking tour for the League and gained considerable attention from the U.S. media. In 1934, both he and his half-brother Augusto were assassinated in Nicaragua. Besides the prominent people named on its letterhead, the League's leadership included representatives of the Filipino Association of Chicago, the Filipino Workers Club, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Sun Yat Sen Lodge, Machinists Lodge, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, Jewish Marxian Youth Alliance, Teachers' Union, Sociedad Mutulista, and other labor, national, and reform organizations. The All-America Anti-Imperialist League was replaced in 1933 by the American League Against War and Fascism.
I never knew that the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners was a Communist organization. Good catch, Non-Seq. As well, I knew the ACLU was on the left, but I never realized it was as far left as The Brigade. I never knew that the NAACP was as radical, whacko, liberal left as The Brigade either. The Machinists Lodge as well. Who knew? Thanks for pointing this all out, Non-Sequitur. </sarcasm>
How about your Brigade Commander? How deep do you have to dredge to find him? Your fearless leader.
Gee. I'll bet if you had to pick between being John Wilkes Booth or your Brigade Commander, you probably would not be able to decide.
In labeling Bennett a Marxist-Stalinist, Non-Sequitur provided six links. Below I provide -ALL- six links and -ALL- comment by, or about, Bennett. The provided evidence, or lack thereof, clearly shows Non-Sequitur for the racist bigot, smear-job artist that he is.
ONE
http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa051200a.htm
ABOUT.COM -- NO AUTHOR
[nc] Non-Sequitur here provides proof that a city of Chicago committee heard testimony from Lerone Bennett.The question of slavery reparations was raised at an April 26, 2000 joint hearing of the Chicago City Council Finance and Human Relations committees. U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) told the committees that, "The future of race relations will be determined by reparations for slavery," according to a Chicago Tribune report. The committees heard testimonies from Rush along with Claud Anderson, author of "Black Labor White Wealth; The Search for Power and Economic Justice," Lerone Bennett, executive editor of Ebony magazine and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), among others. For her part, Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) joked following her comments, "I want 40 acres and a Lexus," referring to a post-Civil War promise that former slaves would receive 40 acres of land and a mule.
TWO
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_23_97/ai_62298398
Jet, May 15, 2000
The Chicago City Council's Human Relations and Finance committees unanimously adopted a resolution to seek government hearings on the issue of reparations for the descendants of slaves in America.The full Chicago City Council is scheduled to address the resolution on May 17.
The city's Finance and Human Relations committees recently held a joint hearing in City Hall chambers on the resolution proposed by Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman that calls for state and federal hearings on the reparation issue.
Tillman already has garnered the signatures of half of the City Council's 50 members and the endorsement of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Participants at the hearing included Lerone Bennett, Jr., executive editor of EBONY Magazine and noted historian, Illinois Congressmen Bobby Rush and Danny Davis, and Wade Nobles, a San Francisco state psychologist who said slavery damaged both Blacks and Whites.
[nc] Non-Sequitur here provides proof that a city of Chicago committee heard testimony from Lerone Bennett. This is the same committee hearing as above. This amounts to two sources documenting nothing.
THREE
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/race_relations/july-dec00/reparations.html
PBS, September 5, 2000
"Chicago City Council members prepare to host a national discussion on paying reparations to descendants of American slaves. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports."
LERONE BENNETT: The question is not what are we today, the question is what would we have been today if we'd had all the billions of dollars that belonged to us. The question is how much greater we would have been and how much greater white people would have been if we had been given the money we deserved to have, and if we had the economic development that we should have now.
[nc] Yep. Lerone Bennett said money is owed. It is not yet clear how the racist bigot, smear-job artist Non-Sequitur turns this into proof that Bennett is a Marxist, Communist, or Stalinist.
FOUR
http://www.americanpolicy.org/more/dollarandsense.htm
The Dollars and Sense Answer to Black Reparations
By Tom DeWeese
Over the weekend of Friday, February 2nd, a National Reparations Convention was held in Chicago to draft a plan to see payment for blacks today based on the belief that the nation owes the present generation for the slavery imposed more than a century ago.Historian and Ebony magazine editor, Lerone Bennett, Jr., says, "We're not talking about a sentimental argument. We're talking about the fact that America owes us some money."
[nc] Yep. Lerone Bennett said money is owed. It is not yet clear how the racist bigot, smear-job artist Non-Sequitur turns this into proof that Bennett is a Marxist, Communist, or Stalinist.
FIVE
http://members.cox.net/smrose7/Marxist%20Concepts.html
Capitalism, Racism, Imperialism, Communism, Fascism, and Other Related Concepts
Dr. Steven Rosenthal, Professor of Sociology
Here is a brief introduction to the sociological analysis of capitalism, social classes, and class struggle; race, racism, super-exploitation, and the criminal justice system; imperialism and imperialist wars; fascism and communism.. This analysis is derived from the work of the two classical sociologists who contributed the most to a critical analysis of capitalism, racism, and imperialism, Karl Marx and W.E.B. DuBois. Throughout the essay there are links to articles you may be reading during this semester that provide or more detailed explanations or applications of these sociological concepts and theories.Black historian Lerone Bennett, in The Road Not Taken, a chapter from his book The Shaping of Black America, 1975, pp. 61-82, originally published in Ebony, vol. 25 (August, 1970), pp. 71-77), provided a good historical analysis of how racism was developed in colonial North America. According to Bennett, the African, European, and Native American workers on the colonial plantations were at first all indentured servants, that is, temporary slaves. They were largely unconcerned about the color of their skin. They worked together, made love together, rebelled, and ran away together. The plantation owners, desperate to control their labor force, pushed Africans down into hereditary slavery in order to divide and conquer. They used their control of colonial society to impose laws intended to force blacks, whites, and reds apart. Bennett shows that racism is not "natural." It is not something that is "just there." European laborers had no inherent fear or dislike of Africans. A century of terror, law, and religious propaganda were required in order to drive white and black labor apart in Colonial America.
Class Struggle. Summarizing Lerone Bennett's analysis using Marxist concepts, we could say that there was sharp class struggle in colonial North America between capitalist plantation owners and working class indentured servants. The capitalists sought to suppress this class struggle by dividing the workers into a "white" race of indentured servants, a "black" race of permanent slaves, and an "Indian" race that was mostly exterminated. Class struggle is the inevitable conflict that takes place between workers and the capitalists who exploit them. As Karl Marx wrote in the opening pages of The Communist Manifesto, class struggle has been going on for thousands of years, ever since human societies became divided into opposing classes.
Primitive Accumulation. The process Lerone Bennett described is part of a global process that Karl Marx called primitive accumulation. The first capitalists used the most primitive (that is, brutal and violent) methods to accumulate the capital they needed and to create a vast class of proletarians (workers) who owned nothing but their ability to work. They kidnapped and enslaved tens of millions of Africans and Native Americans and worked them to death in gold and silver mines and on sugar and tobacco plantations. W.E.B. DuBois, in The World and Africa, praised Marx, stating that "it was Karl Marx who made the great unanswerable charge of the sources of capitalism in African slavery." Read the analysis Marx wrote about primitive accumulation that earned Dubois's praise.
[nc] The author actually praises Bennett for having provided "a good historical analysis of how racism was developed in colonial North America." The author proceeds to summarize Bennett's "good historical analysis" using Marxist concepts. Lerone Bennett is not found to be in error, is praised as having provided "good historical analysis," and is not shown to be a Marxist. It will never be clear how the racist bigot, smear-job artist Non-Sequitur turns this into proof that Bennett is a Marxist, Communist, or Stalinist, other than through sheer racist bigotry.
SIX
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=3205
Black Stalinists Will Fail (Reply to Robert George)
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 6, 2000
Against my argument that blacks owe a debt to America, George counters that "just because a given group overcomes evil circumstances, does not mean that those responsible for that evil should be commended - or rewarded for their actions. For example, one could make the argument that the Holocaust created greater worldwide support for the creation of the modern state of Israel. But no one would suggest that the Nazis should be commended for wanting to bring about the extinction of the Jewish people."As in so many other invocations of the Israeli case, the analogy itself is inappropriate. America did not create slavery, while Germany was the fount of the plan to exterminate the Jews. Germany was not the inspiration for the Zionist idea, but America was for the idea that black slaves should be free. America was conceived in the revolutionary idea that all men are created equal and endowed with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Without this commitment, without America, blacks would still be slaves. Therefore blacks directly owe their freedom to America, to the American idea, and to the Americans - white Americans - who consecrated their lives and their sacred honors to the realization of the idea.
There is a powerful tendency on the part of black leaders these days to foul their own nest, to desecrate America and its heritage of freedom. Lerone Bennett Jr., the editor of Ebony, who once wrote a book about the arrival blacks on this continent "Before The Mayflower" has now written a 600-page diatribe against Abraham Lincoln to prove that the "The Liberator" himself - the American President most profoundly connected to the integration of blacks into the American narrative of freedom - was little more than a KKK racist. I myself quoted the attack by Randall Robinson (who is a Stalinist) on Thomas Jefferson, the author of the words that freed Robinson's ancestors (and therefore himself). Robinson wrote that Jefferson was a slaver and a rapist and that the honor that Americans (who voted for the Civil Rights Acts and gave trillions to blacks to redress their grievances) still paid to him, merely showed how evil and racist they were too.
[nc] Here, the racist bigot, smear-job artist Non-Sequitur advocates for the position that blacks owe a debt to America. Here, the racist bigot, smear-job artist Non-Sequitur advocates for the position that Blacks owe their freedom to America.
[nc] Bennett sees it otherwise. I have presented many of Bennett's arguments on FR and the racist bigot, smear-job artist Non-Sequitur cannot make any counter-argument on the merits so he calls Bennett names such at Marxist or Stalinist.
[nc] Here Randall Robinson is labeled a Stalinist.
As for the merits of what Robinson purportedly said:
http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/index_20020501.asp
Debating Reparations with Horowitz and Ogletree
By Lee Hubbard
Charles Ogletree is a professor of law at Harvard University.
[Hubbard to Ogletree] What do you think of David Horowitz and his role against reparations?His silly ideas and public posturing has actually placed the reparations debate back in the mainstream dialogue in America. Now, by trying to sell books that attack reparation supporters he has generated more public dialogue, more understanding and more support for an idea that was once thought of as being extreme. He has contributed to a deeper understanding of reparations based on the simplistic notions he promotes.