Posted on 05/09/2006 10:02:08 PM PDT by peggybac
John Conyers: U.S. Owes Slavery Reparations
The left wing Democrat who will become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if his party wins back Congress in November wants to hold full blown congressional hearings on whether the government should pay African Americans reparations for slavery.
Michigan Rep. John Conyers has attracted attention in recent months for his House resolution calling for an impeachment investigation against President Bush.
But another Conyers cause-celeb is reparations, which he's been advocating since 1989, when he first introduced legislation to establish what he calls, "The Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African American Act." ( H.R. 40)
In a press release posted to his official congressional web site, Conyers explains how he intends to handle the hot-button issue.
"My bill does four things:
• It acknowledges the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery.
• It establishes a commission to study slavery, its subsequent racial and economic discrimination against freed slaves.
• It studies the impact of those forces on today's living African Americans.
• The commission would then make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies to redress the harm inflicted on living African Americans."
Conyers says:
"I chose the number of the bill, 40, as a symbol of the forty acres and a mule that the United States initially promised freed slaves. This unfulfilled promise and the serious devastation that slavery had on African-American lives has never been officially recognized by the United States Government . . . " He goes on:
"Just as we've discussed the Holocaust, and Japanese interment camps, and to some extent the devastation that the colonists inflicted upon the Indians, we must talk about slavery and its continued effects."
Though Conyers reintroduces his reparations resolution every year, would-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has never indicated whether she'd back the controversial proposal.
This will become a reality if the Rats get in power again. Count on it. All it takes is $$$ and we'll be giving until it hurts.
Sure, I think they deserve 12 million each in Monopoly money.
Yep, you guys just keep attacking the GOP and you'll get old Johnny where he wants to be.
Polls are looking good for that to happen this year.
Congratulations!
John Conyers owes reparations to his babysitting staff-members...
I'm expected to pay him for something not done to him by someone other than me. And why is that? Because the villains in this situation were white, like me, and beneficiaries like him will be black, like the original victims.
Yet in all of that, due only to race, the innocent will pay the unharmed because of what the real villains did to the actual victims.
Sure John.
You go first.
If reparations become an issue once the Democrats are running things, I'm claiming I want money because my relatives fought to free the slaves, and some of them lost their lives. Two can play that game.
As one article I read recently about the 'Entitlements' designed to help 'the poor' has now spent multiple TRILLIONS of dollars since it was established back to WW2 era and the percentage of poor still remains the same and yet the money could have bought EVERY single building, factory and asset in the entire country but now has nothing to show for it.
Let's start by re-distributing the DNC's campaign cash.
Reparations were paid in blood on a hundred battlefields of the Civil War.
250000 dead. Paid in full.
The really scary thing is that Alan Keyes agrees with him.
The Japanese internees got reparations because many of them were still alive. None of the slaves are alive, none of the people that owned slaves are still alive, and nobody has any public interest in reverting to a slave system.
As for "but the blacks are still being enslaved by everyone else!", I shall quote David Eddings:
'"You've enslaved us!" someone bellowed.
'"Not me, old boy," Stragen drawled. "You couldn't *give* me a slave. You
have to feed them, you know - even when they're not working."'
Preach!
You know what, John Conyers owes me money because parts of my family sponsored the abolisionist movement. Up yours John!
The Holocaust (of European Jews), Japanese Americans and immigrants, Amerindians, AND slavery have all been discussed.
Another nightmare to look forward to this november if we lose!!!
I had all but forgotten it. Good thing these guys are more inept than our side when it comes to strategic politics.
This may just get enough conservatives to hold their noses and go out and vote this fall and keep the house republican.
I think we could successfully start a movement that white people want reparations because we had family members who lost their lives freeing the slaves.
Alan Keyes, John Conyers, they can all stuff it.
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