Slavery Reparations and Al Sharpton - They will lose the center.

Here is one link from a liberal newspaper: http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6524

Al Sharpton supports slavery reparations.

For what percentage of the swing voters would this become a trump issue? (Ans: A lot.) By that I mean an issue so highly charged that it would out weight everything else. It doesn't matter if the candidate is white or black or other (I think at least one of the white candidates also supports reparations, but I'm not sure.), that issue is a super-loser for us. It is an issue that could permenantly alienate huge blocks of swing voters.

That's why Al Sharpton's candidacy is a sad joke. If by some freak chance he did become the nominee or even on the ticket, the Reps would dance for joy.

never had a hold on any part of the center. He can hardly lose it. Sharptn has never intended to win the nomination or be on the ticket. Anyone who doesn't comprehend this hasn't followed the man's career very closely over the years.

My post is aimed at all the posters that are getting excited about Al.

...on what he stands for.

But thanks for blowing a little sunshine up our assholes.

core of what civil law is founded upon. If you take something from somebody, and you've done it by committing a tort, you have to be responsible for the damages you cause. If you aren't, you put yourself in a position of unfair advantage, and you relegate the person harmed to permanent economic disadvantage which is way more costly for society and fort he overall economy than if you force private actors to compensate people for the harms they cause them.

This issue is very easy to demagogue. But, at its core is a very important debate. It’s not going to be solved by even a 200 post thread at DU. However, the most that anyone wants is, for example, what John Conyers has ask for and has been denied – simply, a congressional investigation on the issue of reparations.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s getting stonewalled simply because everyone knows that a rational, fact-based investigation would present a pretty compelling case for some form of reparations.

Sharpton is just as smart on this issue as he is on every other issue. And I really don't think this issue is even going to register on anyone's radar screen unless the Republicans manipulate it and lie about it.

"When you debate this issue, it's not crazy at all. This issue gets to the core of what civil law is founded upon. If you take something from somebody, and you've done it by committing a tort, you have to be responsible for the damages you cause...."

This is *precisely* what much of 'The Troubles' is about.

While I think I understand and even agree with your theory, my focus is on real world practicalities. Sometime you just can't untie an evil knot that was tied in the past. Since most blacks ancestors were brought here against their will - do we return their decendents to Africa, with a settlement check? Of course not. (Although the KKK & Aryan Nation would love that, minus the settlement check.) My point - before I get flamed for it - is that theory taken too far can cause it's own suffering and wrongs that would be as great of the original wrongs.

We have to look at the real situation as it exists today, and ask where to we go from here? What will work, and what won't?

Carol M Braun made a similiar point last night when she said that we had to finish what we started in Iraq, not that we are in it. That's not her exact words, but close enough. It's also on her web site.

here without using it propertly. However, your posts are a pretty good example of what a strawman argument really is. You're tossing out all these arguments against reparations based on positions that I think serious reparations advocates don't take.

You also need to think harder about how the civil justice system works. And you need to think about how America gives reparations to American Indiands.

To state a case well and fully requires more than a sentence or two. The nature of any forum such as this is that arguements need to be boiled down to their raw essence. That will lead to the appearance of the strawman type arguement in some cases. My point is that the blacks are not the only aggrieved group and that justice, in theory, needs to be done for them too. However the knot is too complex with too many greater problems created in trying to untie it.

And, that it is a big time loser as a vote getter. It will run off huge numbers of swing voters. If GWB wins in a landslide he will carry a large number of senators and representitives with him. The Dems will then be marginalized for at least a generation.

Since 72 we have taken some really serious defeats. We have fallen back and tried to defend a new line, only to be defeated again. Another major defeat like 72 and we can hang it up. I don't think we can absorb another major defeat.

Am I being alarmist over this issue? Ask Duke if he thought, at this point in his campaign, that a screw-up involving one prisoner would become such an issue. And don't think that Rove isn't watching every candidate and every debate, and has his people doing their research. You know they use focus groups, just like we do. They know the power of this issue, and if we give them a chance they will use it.

In every state in which lots of former slaves were left with nothing of the fruits of their labors (except, maybe, 40 acresa and a mule from the fed gov't) and big businesses got to retain the benefits of that labor, communities were created in which the prevailing wage rate was driven down by the fact that there were lots of people who needed to work for nothing, and big businesses were left without effective competition which would increase the pace of innovation and decrease prices.

That's just an aside.

I still have no idea what's motivation your sense of alarm. Do you really think Al's going to get nominated and that Rove is going to use Al's stance on reparations to sink his nomination?

Sometimes past wrongs are impossible to correct. What do you do about biracial people? Do Latinos, Orientals, Amerinds, and other groups get taxed too? What about the claims that the Amerinds can make. (They could, in that theory, want the whole country back. And resort it to it's original condition upon leaving.) Orientals were slaves in all but name when they built the railroads. How about some payback for that? Do we give almost half the U.S. back to Mexico? We took it from them in war.

That slavery reparation is going to be a HUGE, HUGE tax. Saying you will only tax the rich won't work because even a total confiscation of all millionaires wealth won't be enough. How much racial resentment, and therfore backlash, do you think it would cause if suddenly the U.S. Gov't was sending a really big check to every black person in the country. Whatabout northern families that didn't own slaves and had ancestors in the civil war - do they pay reparations too? What about poor southern families that never owned slaves and were also oppressed by the caste system of the Old South - do they pay? What about immigrants that came in after 1865 and had nothing to do with slavery?

That knot can not be untied. It is impossible. All we can do is try to make sure there is equal opprotunity and equal treatment today.

that made their fortunes off of slavery?

inion on these questions.

My uniformed opinion says that people who can directly trace their ancestors to someone ripped off by a corporation which still exists, there should be a statute of limitations which allows those private parties to settle their problems.

I also suspect that a study will show that certain entities reaped huge rewards while specifica geographic areas (communities) suffred serious harm, and that there should be some targeted relief for the geographic area coming from those who benefitted hugely. E.g., maybe states should have a tax on huge agribusinesses which is targeted for small business loans (regardless of race) in communities particularly harmed by the fact that over the last 140 years they had to support people who were ripped off for their labor and never justly compensated.

Again, why can't we just get that congressional study so that our opinions can be informed?

There are lots of companies around today that wouldn't be around if it wasn't for the money they made off of slavery.

which could probably be pretty directly connected to slavery, and there's a lot of poverty that could have been (and still could be) erradicated by a transfer of that wealth from the people who got it negligently to the people who were wronged by those entities.

However, I'm just guessing, and we won't really know unless we make that first step which is taking the issue seriously and letting Conyers and others have the funding to study this issue.

American and the world has never let the passage of time totally let criminals and tortfeasors off the hook. There's no statute of limitations for murder. Victims of the Nazi death camps (including family members of the deceased) got justice 50-60 years later. Native Americans will probably still get justice some day, for 200 year old wrongs. Apartheid came to end even though it started a long time ago. American still has the opportunity to right wrongs with relation to slavery. And the question isn't so much, whether so much time has passed that we can't afford to do something about it. The issue is more appropriately, can we afford NOT to do something about righting this wrong. And, for the dozenth time, we won't even know the answer to this question unless we have an informed opinion.

the stockholders are 99 % completely unrelated to the owners who owned it during slavery.

I would guess it would be a very rare family that bought stock in a company in 1845, and still retains that stock 158 years later. I'ma stockbroker and I've never had a client tell me a story like that in 13 years.

The person who bought the stock 10 years ago paid full market value for it. The person who sold it in 1870 was the one who got the value from slavery.

If a company had to pay up now, it would be an entirely different group of stockholders who would be hurt than the ones who benefitted.

Just to list one problem of this issue out of many many problems.

I'm not sure how indentity of shareholders matters at all.

Corporate ownership could change 100% from one day to the next and it wouldn't be an excuse for the corporation to avoid civil liability for an act of negligence committed by an employee or by management.

There's way more to this question than indentity of the shareholders.

...intentional tort, you really think that firing everyone involved or selling every single share to someone else is enough to get the company off? You think if a company committed a tort to acquire a piece of property, they could keep the property if everyone involved lost their jobs and/or shares in the company?

You know what I'd do if that were the law? I'd own exactly two corporations and then I'd go have one corporation do something really bad, and then sell all the shares to my cousin. Then we could both do really bad shit and just keep swapping shares every time we did something bad. When I was in total control of the world, I'd just change the law so that my torts were no longer torts.

Yes, that study would be interesting, but Al Sharpton is running now. In a few months ballots will start being cast. And you can be doubly sure that the Reps will try to use this issue against the Dems. (Ask Duke about Willie.) You can be sure that it is a seriously hot button issue. Further, most people will make up their minds on this issue in about two seconds, and vote accordingly. So we Dems have to defuse the issue early, and that means throwing cold water on it.

Remember the way Clinton in 92 picked that fight with Jesse Jackson over Sista Soldier? He was putting just a bit of distance between himself and the extreme black positions so that he would not be seen as pandering. It worked. He won the election.

Some will ask about which is better - winning or having the moral high ground. Ans: Those who win make the laws. I don't like losing.

Are you really worried about the danger of Al getting nominated and this issue getting discussed?

Really?

Clinton went after Sister Soldjah (sp?) on a very narrow issue, and then he turned around and made racial justice a focal point of his presidency. Clinton made a dialogue on race an important part of his government's focus. And he opened the door for an America in which white voters no longer need to be assured that their Democratic candidate isn't too black.

You won't see any Democrat this year who will need to do something like that in order to win the election. But you will see Republicans who will try to demagogue on issues like, uhm, reparations, which is sort of what you're doing here.

Clinton would love an informed debate on this issue, by the way. He knows the costs of racism to society -- white and black -- in the south.

And I hope he attains that post.

as I have of being Prince of Atlantis. He's run for office in NYC before. Remember how that turned out?

Sharpton is loved by a few New Yorkers, and DESPISED by many, many more. Seriously, he'd lose by a landslide to EITHER Gray Davis OR Gary Condit in a race for mayor of New York. He is perhaps the most unpopular man in that entire city (well, OK, except for Saddam, OBL, etc.) and can't win a Democratic primary, much less a general election in New York City.

Who you voted for in 2000?

I find those kinds of questions, asked in public in a politically polarized forum such as DU to be problematic, for obvious reasons. Therefore, I am loathe to answer and set what I consider a bad precedent for setting up a litmus test for DUers. Moreover, it's a question that doesn't seem to be particularly grounded in this thread.

That being said, I will go against my better judgment and tell you:

After a great deal of thought and debate I voted for Gore/Lieberman in 2000. I have no recollection of who else I voted for that year.

138 years ago when the Civil War ended. It is over and "each drop of blood shed by the lash was repayed with the sword." 650,000 men, most of them white, men died over the issue of slavery of another race.

The reparations have been paid.

The Left just cannot let this thing die. :eyes:

I'm glad that the civil justice system didn't feel like the debt to the victims of the Holocaust was paid in 1945. Those Swiss banks made billions off the Holocaust, and they had no right to keep that money.

that profited from slavery all the more power to them.

But the rest of us have paid the debt. If blacks want to claim white people owe for past grievances then they also must acknowledge the validity of lives of people spent trying to right the problem and list those lives as the "amount paid to date". One hefty damn amount at that.

I am so tired of seeing this topic come up. I've felt the same way about it since high school and have seen no argument against my position that holds water.

...this article:

On slavery reparations: "If your grandmother stole a million dollars and your family was able to build an empire on that stolen money, do you owe a debt to the person you stole it from?"

For the sake of a little sorely needed context, here's the rest of that paragraph:

On black self-empowerment: "If I come from behind this podium and knock you onto the floor, that’s on me. If I come back a week later and you’re still on the floor, that’s on you." On the argument that misogynistic hip-hop is merely a mirror to society: "Well, I don’t know about you, but I use a mirror to correct what’s wrong with me. I don’t look in the mirror and see my hair messed up and my teeth need brushing and just walk out of the house that way." Best of all, on our President: "Bush has the kind of leadership that, when he gets to a fork in the road, he chooses the fork."

That sentence was not my motivation. I already knew that Al Sharpton had demanded slavery reparations. But I wanted to find a reference that I could show if anyone wanted me to prove that was his view. That was the first reference that I found that was in a liberal publication. It was no motivation, it was evidence. My motivation is that I don't want the Reps to be able to use this as a strong hot button wedge issue. On the Al Sharpton threads most of the posters are very favorable towards Al. But embracing Al means embracing slavery reparations and that is an issue that will be a killer to us. If the Reps can hang the slavery reparation issue around our necks, the election goes to Bush by a major landslide.

Don't think they can't define the terms of the issues. They have been having a lot of sucess doing it.

- I'm sick and tired of Dems being intimidated into choosing candidates based on what Republicans may think of us...and what issues they may use against us.

- Finding a perfect candidate that the Republicans will love simply means you'll be voting GOP-lite. Nothing would please the Bushies more than that.

- And simply put: screw the 'center'. It's the BASE of the Dem party that will bring in the votes.

You can't write off the center and hope that you base alone will deliver you. It can't. It just isn't that large. Any issue or set of issues that really gets our base motivated will also motivate their base. If we ignore, or alienate the center - we lose. That's all there is to it. Unless you think that McGovern & Mondale were "winners".

...about 'alienating' the center by working to get the votes of the traditional base. No one is saying we have to 'ignore' the center...but we don't have to give up Democratic values and principles to appease them either.

- You are a great example of why the Democrats are in the minority.

He serves little other purpose with Kucinich in the race.