-Caveat Lector-
3/31/01
I have debated David Horowitz several times on various lists. He is a
typical " true believer " whether it's dogma from the Left or the Right.
He has become a right wing propagandist. BUT. He is quite right to try
to stop this reparations rip off.
This is nothing more than a poorly thought out extortion scheme foisted
on all of us by professional race hustlers.
It is EXTREMELY dangerous and divisive. It will set race relations back,
and will force an anti Black backlash.
No one is being fooled here. Except for Liberals who are incapable of
clear thinking when it comes to ' victim ' issues, the rest of society
is looking at this extortion attempt with dumbfounded awe that anyone
is stupid enough to think that they will get away with this scam.
I hope ( but doubt ) that African Americans will come to their senses
quickly before their elites succeed in bringing back the bad old days.
I have no doubt that racists will be driven to violence over this shoddy
attempt at extortion.
IT'S NOT WORTH IT!
Joshua2
=======
Subject:
David Horowitz- 10 reasons against reparations.
Date:
Sat, 31 Mar 2001 10:15:42 -0500
From:
"Nurev Ind." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization:
Nurev Independent Research
BCC:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a
Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist, Too!
One
There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The
Crime Of Slavery
Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors
of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the
ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants
too?
Two
There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its
Fruits
The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only
whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for
Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as
well,
including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large
that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous
"nation" in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes
in
the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the
African
nations from which they were kidnapped.
Three
Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned
Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them
Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves. This is true even
for those who lived in the ante-bellum South where only one white in five
was
a slaveholder. Why should their descendants owe a debt? What about the
descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves? They
gave their lives. What possible moral principle would ask them to pay
(through their descendants) again?
Four
America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most
Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To
Slavery
The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and
then after 1960. What rationale would require Vietnamese boat people,
Russian refuseniks, Iranian refugees, and Armenian victims of the Turkish
persecution, Jews, Mexicans Greeks, or Polish, Hungarian, Cambodian and
Korean victims of Communism, to pay reparations to American blacks?
Five
The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations
Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On
Race Not Injury
The historical precedents generally invoked to justify the reparations
claim are payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans
and African- American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial
outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City. But in each case, the recipients of
reparations were the direct victims of the injustice or their immediate
families.
This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not
immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations
would be racial. As has already been pointed out, during the slavery era,
many blacks were free men or slave-owners themselves, yet the reparations
claimants make no distinction between the roles blacks actually played in
the
injustice itself. Randall Robinson's book on reparations, The Debt, which
is
the manifesto of the reparations movement is pointedly sub-titled "What
America Owes To Blacks." If this is not racism, what is?
Six
The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded
Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves
Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And
Discrimination
No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living
individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended
over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that
occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. The black
middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in
absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest
that
economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather
than
the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system
that
ceased to exist well over a century ago? West Indian blacks in America are
also descended from slaves but their average incomes are equivalent to the
average incomes of whites (and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes
of American born blacks). How is it that slavery adversely affected one
large
group of descendants but not the other? How can government be expected to
decide an issue that is so subjective - and yet so critical - to the case?
Seven
The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn
African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging
Message To The African-American Community.
The renewed sense of grievance -- which is what the claim for
reparations will inevitably create -- is neither a constructive nor a
helpful
message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others.
To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans
may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is
to
burden them with a crippling sense of victim-hood. How are the millions of
refugees from tyranny and genocide who are now living in America going to
receive these claims, moreover, except as demands for special treatment, an
extravagant new handout that is only necessary because some blacks can't
seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others -- many
less
privileged than themselves?
Eight
Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great
Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made
to
African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences
(in
contracts, job placements and educational admissions) - all under the
rationale
of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are
necessary
to achieve a healing between African-Americans and other Americans. If
trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in
order
to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to
achieve a "healing," what will?
Nine
What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?
Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade
was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence,
there
never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians - Englishmen and
Americans -- created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and
military
power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have
been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a
white
American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation,
blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of
Americans
of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all
men are
created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of
living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest
standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the
greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights
anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those
gifts?
Ten
The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets
African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them
Freedom
Blacks were here before the Mayflower. Who is more American than
the descendants of African slaves? For the African-American community to
isolate itself even further from America is to embark on a course whose
implications are troubling. Yet the African-American community has had a
long-running flirtation with separatists, nationalists and the political
left, who
want African-Americans to be no part of America's social contract. African
Americans should reject this temptation.
For all America's faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in
their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under
attack by the
reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America,
conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not
only on
white Americans, but on all Americans -- especially African-Americans.
America's African-American citizens are the richest and most privileged
black people alive -- a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that
is
under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American
citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea.
For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have
set
African-Americans - and all of us -- free.
http://search.excite.com/search.gw?c=all&s=anti+reparations+ad
http://www.adversity.net/reparations/news1.htm
http://www.adversity.net/reparations/anti_reparations_ad.htm
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