Just to clarify, I mean to say I would not be eligible for reparations.
Reparations discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Just to clarify, I mean to say I would not be eligible for reparations.
There have been a few studies of it. Here’s one of the more recent
https://www.newsweek.com/slavery-reparations-could-cost-14-trillion-according-new-calculation-364141
Obviously the right thing to do. It's not like descendants of extremely wealthy slave owners don't still benefit from the fortunes of their ancestors.
It ever happening is something else entirely though. Especially with the rise of the alt right morons movement rampant throughout the western world.
It ever happening is something else entirely though. Especially with the rise of the alt right morons movement rampant throughout the western world.
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I know. I was quoting it for the race part.
Yes, makes sense. I suppose i could say that a limited budget would be better spent addressing inequality today but the American defence budget makes a total farce of that point. You'll have to forgive me on the last part, i dont know what i dont know. Not going to find out without asking a few stupid questions
No worries, common mistake made
Which is why when you asked about what else could be done apart from money I mentioned education, because a lot of people just don't know about the history of African Americans in this country post 1865 when slavery was abolished. Even leaving slavery out of the picture, they've been oppressed up until about 50 years ago, which is recent history wise
Fact
So just about 2-3 years worth of Federal budget? Peanuts...
There was another study about a decade ago that put the amount paid to each descendant at $1.5 million, with 2% interest, which placed the total bill at almost $60 trillion.So just about 2-3 years worth of Federal budget? Peanuts...
I'm irish i'd still be largely ignorant of it outside of what Buffy the vampire slayer or Iron Man thinks on the matter.
Reminds me of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers.
So just about 2-3 years worth of Federal budget? Peanuts...
That's only a fraction of the injustice perpetrated by this country.
You have a number?
The post you quoted has a number. So start there and then take the physical and emotional cruelty and murder and try to understand the scale of wrongdoing.
Yeah, but you said that it was only a fraction of the total bill the US supposedly owes its own population and the world. So if its only a fraction, supposedly you have the whole number...
is this pedantry enjoyable for you?
So you think it's a comically small number, then? Because the joke in that scene was that Dr. Evil was asking for a trivial amount of money. I guess the comparison would work if there was some other, earlier study, that had a much lower estimate, but your post was based on the single study that @Carolina Red linked.
Ok
Excellent points you made. Stick to your previous logic of "I fall into bucket X so can speak for the whole bucket". FB meme solutions to real problems, must be fun.
Right, like I said. Get off your computer and actually go visit ghettos. Tell these people about your views on reparations and idc where you're from or what your race is you'll get your ass whooped.
You're not doing very well yourself. You keep stating that people not affected by Slavery should also receive reperations (in the form of infrastructure investment etc.), without acknowledging that any reperations given only to those directly/indirectly affected will filter through the community anyway. Unless you think they're all going to spend it on jewelry, cars and clothes... You probably don't, but still...
For example, it's all good pointing at someone like 50 cent and stating he shouldn't deserve anything, but 50 and people like him are distributing their wealth, through charities, businesses and the like (obviously not as publicised as other things they may be involved in... Hmmm). In fact, some of them are trying to do the very things you are a calling for, but there's only so much they can do.
People used to live under a different 'ism' not to long ago - feudalism.
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
The capitalism is natural argument does not hold up in any shape or form. Since you've mentioned Marx -
There's isn't anything natural about capitalism, its economic system which depends on(To name a few)the natural resources of the earth, the involvement of people, constant growth. The fact capitalism is killing the earth through climate shows that it clearly isn't natural.
And to bring it back somewhat to the thread discussion, the argument of it's natural has be used to of course give the kings the right to rule but also to enslave millions.
Cheers although I should of said I was talking about his numbers in 2016.
This isn't the issue. My post you quoted is simply stating that reparations will mostly like not succeed because of the reasons I outlined earlier(Again I'm not against reparations but to be anywhere effective it needs a analysis of class and capitalism, which again is what the last essay was about).
If you want to discuss 20th century social democracy then ok but it's not what this thread is about.
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Doesn't he scale it to something comically large after no. 2 informs him that it's too small?
Anyways, my serious view is that it would be a very divisive event, and the larger the number the more divisive and unfeasible.
Not sure I understand your point. Why go a roundabout way of doing things when you can directly target it? Also, I'd rather help build the needy than give cash to 50cent in hope that he helps develop the needy.
Emotions based politics never works. You have to go by results. Supporting existing systems like affirmative actions is what we need to focus on.
Btw, whether I'm doing well myself or not I am at least speaking from my heart and what I have actually seen.
Imagine thinking that people in poor neighborhoods would swing on you for having a completely different point of view, instead of having a conversation. What a sad way to live, thinking like that.
Along similar lines though abolition and the introduction of the civil rights act didn't wholly succeed in tackling discrimination or racism - African Americans were targeted with Jim Crow laws and later mass incarceration, but abolition and civil rights were both clearly still right and moved things in a similar direction, however flawed they may have been. Implementation of reparations would undoubtedly be flawed and would face opposition but it also would also signal a greater sense of recognition that African Americans (due to literally being owned and viewed as an underclass for the majority of American history) are owed more than basic social reforms which any leftist should believe in for all groups.
I'm all for class/capitalist analysis for the most part but I think when it comes to an issue like this it can sometimes end up ignoring the fact that African Americans weren't solely preyed upon due to capitalism alone (even if capitalism was the economic system in place at the time) and they weren't solely persecuted by one class group - other working class groups exploited them as well for their own self-gain, and so arguments of class unity can ring hollow to African Americans in the face of debates over reparations and the like.
Yeah when you're telling them they are less deserving of help than someone else and you are taking a massive dump on their struggles in this already unfair system, the least they could do is swing on you. Don't talk about an issue you're clueless about if you think it's so unimaginable.
The experience of the current black population in America is intrinsically and irreversibly linked to slavery and what followed in the aftermath of abolition. Regardless of policies aimed at social and economic equality being enacted, reparations is a moral obligation the US government at large and the former slave states in particular have.
We need a class/capitalist analysis for reparations, simply to make it effective. Without a understanding of how capitalism and class operates, these more than basic social reforms(which are ?)will be not effective. If we are talking about trillions of dollars, every global company will be looking to make profits, how do we get a effective infrasture program when the private sector will be desperate for contracts ? What use is cash when the healthcare insurance companies and drug companies can jack up their prices ?
Capitalism doesn't give a shit about a greater sense of recognition that African Americans are owed more, it cares about profit. So if we are going to argue for policies that will transfer trillions of dollars, we have to keep that in mind.
From the last essay I posted a while back.
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I don't know much about the arrangements between Israel and West Germany.
What I would say though is that the actions of the German regime against the Jewish community were beyond abhorrent, and were recognisably so at the time. This wasn't a case of opinions changing over the centuries, and the regime itself demonstrated that it was aware of the immorality of its actions through such shams as Theresienstadt.
Those guilty of the crimes were in a large part still alive, and there is certainly an argument that German citizens were complicit in them.
The concept of 'international law' largely took off as a result of those crimes as it was recognised that there are some actions which transcend national law and can never be permitted.
How about Germany's WWI reparations, which were only fully paid off in the 1990s?
It's a completely ass backwards argument. He probably does on the bolded. Thanks to the block function I'll never know for sure.
Not the best example, given the reputation they have as being one of the causing factors of Germany's economic decline after the war and the rise of the nazi party. (I don't fully agree with that argument though).
1) West Germany paid reparations
2) The Nuremberg Laws and Fuhrer Princip meant that all they did was legal.
3) Something having been legal isn’t a good argument against reparations.
It isn't the government that would be held to account though - it's the present day taxpayers. The government isn't an organisation sitting on pots of its own money, it's a largely bankrupt institution which takes responsibility for how it spends ours (not mine - I'm not from the States).
It's an interesting one because the victorious powers didn't chase after them during the Weimar years due to the ravage of inflation and Germany's inability to pay. Then Hitler said, nah I'm not paying that. Then there were two Germanys so no one knew who should pay and finally, once Germany was united, everyone agreed that Germany should pay a reduced amount, which they did. Eighty years after the fact. No one needed the payment and there were likely very few victims of the war left.
Slavery was seen as abhorrent by the time of abolition and long before it - significant portions of the US opposed slavery and many other countries had abolished it. Plenty of slavers themselves were hypocrites and a considerable number admitted they only liked it for economic reasons and because they fundamentally liked having an African American underclass that was always below them no matter what.
Yeah. In the course of regular business the government is considered a continuous entity that can be made liable for damages caused in the past. But something like this that proposes to transfer something like 5% of national wealth, half a year's worth of GDP, or several years worth of the budget, then it's the same as looking at net tax/welfare policy, because the government would be just a pass through for the transaction.
Yeah, returning stolen value can be expensive.
"Emotions based politics never works."
You skirted over my post and went back to your emotion based arguement. Why would someone feel a way about other members of their community getting their dues. You make it sound like they are disparate blocks without any kinship. That money would go into businesses, infrastructure, etc... Everyone in the community should benefit as a result.