Posted on 07/31/2008 4:23:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If the press insists on hinging on every word of Obama, can't they at least ask for clarifications and details about his sweeping proclamations? Most are still waiting for the particulars of his idea to create a shadow Pentagon of civilian aid and civil support workers funded to the same tune of $500 billion a year. That seems a big deal that the electorate should ponder? How would it function? Where would the funding come from? What would be the relationship with the Pentagon?
And now what does the following mean from Obama:
I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged. I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.
Again more details: Does this mean an expansion of affirmative action, more of WWII taught as mostly Rosie the Riveter, Hiroshima, and the Japanese internment, or cash grants for past sins? Does the explicit reference to reparations mean they are here at last—which were on the front burner pre-9/11? Anyone in any government-supported university the last thirty years knows that admission policies, graduate and professional school recruitment, assigned readings, curriculum, minority hiring and promotion, and university polices do not "just offer words, but offer deeds". It would seem that the Obamas' own careers, in retrospect, have been helped a lot by "deeds" rather the mere rhetoric of the government.
Two themes seem to reoccur: one, sweeping rhetorical promises that either are not or cannot be backed by detailed proposals; two, a certain sort of resentment that after trillions of dollars invested in affirmative action, war on poverty programs, and government assistance targeted to the poor and minorities they can be summed up with a mere "not just offer words."
The messianic language, presumption that the election to come is a mere formality, and royal campaign style are worrisome. But far more importantly, these eerie promises of brave new programs go virtually unquestioned.
A final note: Ludacris is about as "talented" as Rev. Wright was "brilliant."
40 acres and a mule in alaska.
If they get the reparations, can we then hold them
responsible for their own condition? Will we be able
to have any standards?
Nah....THEN they will become some sort of victim of the psychological effects of accepting reparations.
When will the media start doing it's job? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. Their job is getting Obama elected.
Hmmmmm..... Maybe his 845 billion dollar foreign aid plan is actually reparations to those who lost people from Africa due to slavery almost three hundred years ago.
Any talk of debates yet?
Let me make it clear right up front: I am NOT a racist. I supported Herman Cain in his run for the Senate. And if he ever runs again, I would probably support him again.
I also consider Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams two of the finest economists and minds extant today. In case you don’t know them, both are black.
Sowell, Williams and Cain – among others — have spoken out against those fellow blacks who castigate and vilify America for a slavery now long in our past. And ALL thinking men and women oppose the periodic calls for reparations.
The fact is that the modern descendants of slaves brought here in chains in admittedly miserable, soul-gutting conditions now calling for reparations need to remember something:
They should not only be glad to be in America, they should be glad to be ANYWHERE!
Had their ancestors NOT been brought OUT of Africa – many by Muslim slave raiders —the blood of those ancestors would have run into the earth over there several centuries ago, victims of the OTHER black tribes that captured them in one of the interminable tribal conflicts STILL ravaging that sad continent and these modern day would-be “plaintiffs” would not even exist.
And I would remind you that slavery is STILL practiced in parts of Africa (mainly by muslims) and Asia today.
95% of the African slaves who were transported across the Atlantic went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions, and that less than 5% of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic went to the United States, it was remarkable that the vast majority of academic research, films, books and articles concerning the slave trade concentrated only on the American involvement, as though slavery was a uniquely American aberration.
And should the great-great-great grandchildren of SLAVE OWNING BLACKS also be subject to PAYING these reparations? If so, how do we find THEM?
And I have traced MY family back to the SLAVS. For those who don’t know, that word means “slave.” Do I qualify for reparations? From whom??
The official US Census of 1830 lists 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners.
-”Selling Poor Steven”, American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90
Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a telling of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony:
Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers’ Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378
And the holier-than-thou Northern liberals are strangely silent on recent archeological evidence from NEW YORK CITY clearly tracing the financing of the slave trade to NORTHERN BUSINESSMEN!!
At the height of his remarkable boxing career, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), once declared “I’m glad my great-grandpa got on that boat.”
And author Robert Hitt Neill tells of attending a Tennessee Mountain Writer’s Conference years ago with several other authors. Among them was Alex Hailey, celebrated author of “Roots.” Watching a TV news show, a group of them watched a demonstration in a Southern state against the “Rebel” flag incorporated into that state’s flag. The very next report covered a famine in Africa. Graphic images showed dead bodies, starving children with distended tummies and runny noses and dying people covered with flies, too weak to brush them away.
Mr. Hailey intoned in a low, serious voice, “Every time an American black sees a story like that, they should find a Confederate flag and kiss it.” He then pointed to the TV screen and continued, “Because these would be me and my descendants, except for American slavery. I thank God that my family and I are here instead of there.”
Next problem!
As a caribou, I resent that.
For starters, it’s estimated that reparations will cost every man, woman, and child in the US $2500, but the MSM won’t mention that salient fact. Voters might think twice about electing Obama, esp. when the elderly and (working) poor are having to choose between eating and heat. (Thank you, Nancy Pelosi and the dem congress.)
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