The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery.
"You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the unanimous-consent vote. "It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice."
The Senate's apology follows a similar apology passed last year by the House. One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly deals with the long-simmering issue of whether slavery descendants are entitled to reparations, saying that the resolution cannot be used in support of claims for restitution. The House is expected to revisit the issue next week to conform its resolution to the Senate version.
Tashington, D.C. - The U.S. Senate resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation will be used as a lobbying tool to acquire reparations payments, say members of the black leadership network Project 21. The group urges the Senate to "move on," saying the apology will do little to heal perceived racial gaps.
On June 18, senators unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation in the United States. While the resolution was written with the intention that it could not be used to support claims for monetary reparations, reparations activists Randall Robinson told the Washington Post the legislation constitutes a "confession" that will aid the process of acquiring reparations. Harvard professor Charles Ogletree said the resolution should not be a substitute for reparations, saying "That battle will be prolonged."
Jerry Brooks (Auburn, WA): "I'll accept the Senate's apology, but let's move on already. This apology is something that might have been more appropriate long ago, and now it's likely going to be misused by those with a political axe to grind. In particular and despite its intention to the contrary, it is already being used to promote reparations. Not only is this an idea without merit, but an extremely foolish one to be clinging to while our nation is trying to recover from its current economic distress."
Brooks continued, "I also take offense to the ignorant partisan attacks involved in this debate. In trying to infer Republicans are responsible for slavery is downright silly considering that the party came about as part of the movement to abolish slavery."
Jimmie L. Hollis (Millville, NJ): "As an American of African ancestry, I think this apology is ridiculous and useless. It is just another 'feel good' action. If we are to start apologizing for every injustice and wrong done in the past, we will spend the next few decades just apologizing. Let's move on."
Bob Parks (Athol, MA): "Why the need to do this now? Are we attempting to keep the First Lady proud of her country?"
Parks added, "The problem is that, when you apologize, it's important that the recipient knows the reason for the apology and who is giving it. It wasn't the entire Senate whose former party slogan was 'the White Man's Party' or fostered the Ku Klux Klan or resisted black civil rights efforts until it was realized just how the black voting bloc could be used for political advantage. But why the entire Senate is apologizing for evil past doings, once supported by the Democrat Party, is a mystery to me."
Randall Robinson, author of "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks," said he sees the Senate's apology as a "confession" that should lead to a next step of reparations. "Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable," he said. "It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven't accomplished anything."
Cohen said he and Harkin worked closely with the NAACP and other civil rights groups on language that would not endorse or preclude any future claims to reparations. "It will not harm reparations but won't give any standing to it," Cohen said.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
“The Emperor Has No Clothes!”
“The Emperor Has No Clothes!” – Ominous Poll Numbers for Obama
Cataloguing Barack Obama’s mendacity is like attempting to isolate individual pellets during a driving hailstorm.
Each of his fabrications is astonishing in its sheer audacity, but quickly fades into anonymity amid the endless barrage. And because he issues them with such rapidity, the effect is a contagion of mass amnesia that soothes the fawning “watchdog” media and induces stupor among the public.
Obama’s preposterous “jobs saved or created” artifice is merely the latest vivid example.
In January, while advocating its proposed “stimulus” legislation, the White House issued a report warning that unless the bill was passed, unemployment could reach 8.5% by this month on its way to a peak of 8.8% in 2010. If the legislation was passed, on the other hand, the White House promised that unemployment would top out at 7.8% before steadily declining.
Obama also issued his absurd promise to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs, even though neither the Department of Labor nor any other governmental agency has any idea how to measure “jobs saved.”
Well. Congress passed Obama’s stimulus bill, but something has gone awry along the way. Since the date of passage, the American economy has lost approximately 1.6 million more jobs. And this month, the Department of Labor reported that the nation’s unemployment rate has reached 9.4%, some 1.6% higher than Obama’s expected peak.
So how did Obama respond?
By brazenly contending that he had somehow “saved or created” 150,000 new jobs, with 600,000 more coming this summer. Even the New York Times acknowledged that Obama’s concoction is “based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs.”
That makes sense, of course, since “an actual counting of jobs” would reveal that Obama’s promise was demonstrably false.
It appears, however, that we’re beginning to hear the steadily-increasing murmur that “the emperor has no clothes!”
That adage, of course, derives from the classic 1837 fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. In the story, the leader of a prosperous city habitually places greater emphasis upon his fashionability and popularity than upon sound leadership or effective governance.
Sound familiar?
Consumed by his frivolity, the emperor unwittingly hires two swindlers who convince him that they can produce the finest suit from the most exquisite fabric. The swindlers tell the emperor that the cloth is so elegant that it is invisible to stupid and incompetent people. When the emperor finally receives word that his new suit is finished and goes to try it on, however, he cannot see anything. Afraid of exposing themselves as stupid or incompetent by being unable to see it, the emperor and his ministers simply pretend to be awestricken by the non-existent new suit.
Oblivious to the swindle, the emperor proudly proceeds to exhibit his new “clothes” to the town. Afraid to speak up, the town’s citizens similarly pretend to see the wonderful suit, until an undaunted child exclaims, “the emperor has nothing on!” Although the crowd realizes that the child is correct, the emperor continues in his vain oblivion.
Andersen’s tale about exposing the emptiness and pretensions of the ruling class is obviously instructive today. From his “jobs saved or created” fiction to his assertion that he has no interest in running an automobile company while he does precisely that, the sycophantic media imitates the timid townspeople.
Accordingly, we await the collective realization that Emperor Obama has no clothes. But the murmur appears to be getting steadily more audible.
After Obama delivered his latest “American Apology Tour ‘09” address in Cairo, for instance, an observer in the United Arab Emirates noted, “he seems to say everything without actually promising anything.”
And here in the United States, scientific surveys provide ominous news for Obama. For the first time, a June 5, 2009 Rasmussen poll revealed that Obama’s “strong disapproval” percentage has equaled his “strong approval” rating at 34% apiece. To provide perspective, Obama enjoyed a +28% margin the day after entering office, with 44% strongly approving and only 16% strongly disapproving.
And in Europe, voters this week overwhelmingly rejected left-leaning and socialist candidates. It appears that people who have actually seen socialism in practice have developed a distaste for it. Foreign leaders such as Israel’s Netanyahu, France’s Sarkozy and Germany’s Merkel have already begun to criticize Obama’s directives, and this week’s election results portend even greater friction.
The chorus of people pointing out the emptiness and pretensions of Obama’s agenda is growing larger, and the consensus that the emperor has no clothes draws nearer.
Cataloguing Barack Obama’s mendacity is like attempting to isolate individual pellets during a driving hailstorm.
Each of his fabrications is astonishing in its sheer audacity, but quickly fades into anonymity amid the endless barrage. And because he issues them with such rapidity, the effect is a contagion of mass amnesia that soothes the fawning “watchdog” media and induces stupor among the public.
Obama’s preposterous “jobs saved or created” artifice is merely the latest vivid example.
In January, while advocating its proposed “stimulus” legislation, the White House issued a report warning that unless the bill was passed, unemployment could reach 8.5% by this month on its way to a peak of 8.8% in 2010. If the legislation was passed, on the other hand, the White House promised that unemployment would top out at 7.8% before steadily declining.
Obama also issued his absurd promise to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs, even though neither the Department of Labor nor any other governmental agency has any idea how to measure “jobs saved.”
Well. Congress passed Obama’s stimulus bill, but something has gone awry along the way. Since the date of passage, the American economy has lost approximately 1.6 million more jobs. And this month, the Department of Labor reported that the nation’s unemployment rate has reached 9.4%, some 1.6% higher than Obama’s expected peak.
So how did Obama respond?
By brazenly contending that he had somehow “saved or created” 150,000 new jobs, with 600,000 more coming this summer. Even the New York Times acknowledged that Obama’s concoction is “based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs.”
That makes sense, of course, since “an actual counting of jobs” would reveal that Obama’s promise was demonstrably false.
It appears, however, that we’re beginning to hear the steadily-increasing murmur that “the emperor has no clothes!”
That adage, of course, derives from the classic 1837 fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. In the story, the leader of a prosperous city habitually places greater emphasis upon his fashionability and popularity than upon sound leadership or effective governance.
Sound familiar?
Consumed by his frivolity, the emperor unwittingly hires two swindlers who convince him that they can produce the finest suit from the most exquisite fabric. The swindlers tell the emperor that the cloth is so elegant that it is invisible to stupid and incompetent people. When the emperor finally receives word that his new suit is finished and goes to try it on, however, he cannot see anything. Afraid of exposing themselves as stupid or incompetent by being unable to see it, the emperor and his ministers simply pretend to be awestricken by the non-existent new suit.
Oblivious to the swindle, the emperor proudly proceeds to exhibit his new “clothes” to the town. Afraid to speak up, the town’s citizens similarly pretend to see the wonderful suit, until an undaunted child exclaims, “the emperor has nothing on!” Although the crowd realizes that the child is correct, the emperor continues in his vain oblivion.
Andersen’s tale about exposing the emptiness and pretensions of the ruling class is obviously instructive today. From his “jobs saved or created” fiction to his assertion that he has no interest in running an automobile company while he does precisely that, the sycophantic media imitates the timid townspeople.
Accordingly, we await the collective realization that Emperor Obama has no clothes. But the murmur appears to be getting steadily more audible.
After Obama delivered his latest “American Apology Tour ‘09” address in Cairo, for instance, an observer in the United Arab Emirates noted, “he seems to say everything without actually promising anything.”
And here in the United States, scientific surveys provide ominous news for Obama. For the first time, a June 5, 2009 Rasmussen poll revealed that Obama’s “strong disapproval” percentage has equaled his “strong approval” rating at 34% apiece. To provide perspective, Obama enjoyed a +28% margin the day after entering office, with 44% strongly approving and only 16% strongly disapproving.
And in Europe, voters this week overwhelmingly rejected left-leaning and socialist candidates. It appears that people who have actually seen socialism in practice have developed a distaste for it. Foreign leaders such as Israel’s Netanyahu, France’s Sarkozy and Germany’s Merkel have already begun to criticize Obama’s directives, and this week’s election results portend even greater friction.
The chorus of people pointing out the emptiness and pretensions of Obama’s agenda is growing larger, and the consensus that the emperor has no clothes draws nearer.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
This was an excellent article and worth reading- Thanks Jonah Goldberg
The government effectively owns General Motors and controls Chrysler, and the president is deciding what kind of cars they can make. Uncle Sam owns majority stakes in American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and controls large chunks of the banking industry. Also, President Obama wants government to take over the business of student loans. And he's pushing for nationalized health care. Meanwhile, his Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that it reserves the right to regulate any economic activity that has a "carbon footprint." Just last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said climate change requires that "every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory." Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has his eye on regulating executive pay.Of course, nationalization of industry is only one kind of socialism; another approach is to simply redistribute the nation's income as economic planners see fit. But wait, Obama believes in that, too. That's why he said during the campaign that he wants to "spread the wealth" and that's why he did exactly that when he got elected. (He spread the debt, too.)
And yet, for conservatives to suggest in any way, shape or form that there's something "socialistic" about any of this is the cause of knee-slapping hilarity for liberal pundits and bloggers everywhere.
For instance, last month the Republican National Committee considered a resolution calling on the Democratic Party to rename itself the "Democrat Socialist Party." The resolution was killed by RNC Chairman Michael Steele in favor of the supposedly milder condemnation of the Democrats' "march toward socialism."
THE HOPE FOR SOCIALISM
The whole spectacle was just too funny for liberal observers. Robert Schlesinger, U.S. News & World Report's opinion editor, was a typical giggler. He chortled, "What's really both funny and scary about all of this is how seriously the fringe-nuts in the GOP take it."
Putting aside the funny and scary notion that it's "funny and scary" for political professionals to take weighty political issues seriously, there are some fundamental problems with all of this disdain. For starters, why do liberals routinely suggest, even hope, that Obama and the Democrats are leading us into an age of socialism, or social democracy or democratic socialism? (One source of confusion is that these terms are routinely used interchangeably.)
For instance, in a fawning interview with President Obama, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham mocks Obama's critics for considering Obama to be a "crypto-socialist." This, of course, would be the same Jon Meacham who last February co-authored a cover story with Newsweek's editor at large (and grandson of the six-time presidential candidate for the American Socialist Party) Evan Thomas titled -- wait for it -- "We Are All Socialists Now," in which they argued that the growth of government was making us like a "European," i.e. socialist, country.
Washington Post columnists Jim Hoagland (a centrist), E.J. Dionne (a liberal) and Harold Meyerson (very, very liberal) have all suggested that Obama intentionally or otherwise is putting us on the path to "social democracy." Left-wing blogger and Democratic activist Matthew Yglesias last fall hoped that the financial crisis offered a "real opportunity" for "massive socialism." Polling done by Rasmussen -- and touted by Meyerson -- shows that while Republicans favor "capitalism" over "socialism" by 11 to 1, Democrats favor capitalism by a mere 39 percent to 30 percent. So, again: Is it really crazy to think that there is a constituency for some flavor of socialism in the Democratic Party?
When the question is aimed at them like an accusation, liberals roll their eyes at such "paranoia." They say Obama is merely reviving "New Deal economics" to "save" or "reform" capitalism. But liberals themselves have long seen this approach as the best way to incrementally bring about a European-style, social democratic welfare state. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (Robert's father) wrote in 1947, "There seems no inherent obstacle to the gradual advance of socialism in the United States through a series of New Deals."
WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE
Part of the problem here is definitional. No mainstream liberal actually wants government to completely seize the means of production, and no mainstream conservative believes that there's no room for any government regulation or social insurance. Both sides believe in a "mixed economy" but disagree profoundly about where to draw the line. One definition of social democracy is the peaceful, democratic transition to socialism. A second is simply a large European welfare state where the state owns some, and guides the rest, of the economy. Many liberals yearn for the latter and say so often -- but fume when conservatives take them at their word.
Personally, I think socialism is the wrong word for all of this. "Corporatism" -- the economic doctrine of fascism -- fits better. Under corporatism, all the big players in the economy -- big business, unions, interest groups -- sit around the table with government at the head, hashing out what they think is best for everyone to the detriment of consumers, markets and entrepreneurs. But, take it from me, liberals are far more open to the argument that they're "crypto-socialists."
The government effectively owns General Motors and controls Chrysler, and the president is deciding what kind of cars they can make. Uncle Sam owns majority stakes in American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and controls large chunks of the banking industry. Also, President Obama wants government to take over the business of student loans. And he's pushing for nationalized health care. Meanwhile, his Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that it reserves the right to regulate any economic activity that has a "carbon footprint." Just last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said climate change requires that "every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory." Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has his eye on regulating executive pay.Of course, nationalization of industry is only one kind of socialism; another approach is to simply redistribute the nation's income as economic planners see fit. But wait, Obama believes in that, too. That's why he said during the campaign that he wants to "spread the wealth" and that's why he did exactly that when he got elected. (He spread the debt, too.)
And yet, for conservatives to suggest in any way, shape or form that there's something "socialistic" about any of this is the cause of knee-slapping hilarity for liberal pundits and bloggers everywhere.
For instance, last month the Republican National Committee considered a resolution calling on the Democratic Party to rename itself the "Democrat Socialist Party." The resolution was killed by RNC Chairman Michael Steele in favor of the supposedly milder condemnation of the Democrats' "march toward socialism."
THE HOPE FOR SOCIALISM
The whole spectacle was just too funny for liberal observers. Robert Schlesinger, U.S. News & World Report's opinion editor, was a typical giggler. He chortled, "What's really both funny and scary about all of this is how seriously the fringe-nuts in the GOP take it."
Putting aside the funny and scary notion that it's "funny and scary" for political professionals to take weighty political issues seriously, there are some fundamental problems with all of this disdain. For starters, why do liberals routinely suggest, even hope, that Obama and the Democrats are leading us into an age of socialism, or social democracy or democratic socialism? (One source of confusion is that these terms are routinely used interchangeably.)
For instance, in a fawning interview with President Obama, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham mocks Obama's critics for considering Obama to be a "crypto-socialist." This, of course, would be the same Jon Meacham who last February co-authored a cover story with Newsweek's editor at large (and grandson of the six-time presidential candidate for the American Socialist Party) Evan Thomas titled -- wait for it -- "We Are All Socialists Now," in which they argued that the growth of government was making us like a "European," i.e. socialist, country.
Washington Post columnists Jim Hoagland (a centrist), E.J. Dionne (a liberal) and Harold Meyerson (very, very liberal) have all suggested that Obama intentionally or otherwise is putting us on the path to "social democracy." Left-wing blogger and Democratic activist Matthew Yglesias last fall hoped that the financial crisis offered a "real opportunity" for "massive socialism." Polling done by Rasmussen -- and touted by Meyerson -- shows that while Republicans favor "capitalism" over "socialism" by 11 to 1, Democrats favor capitalism by a mere 39 percent to 30 percent. So, again: Is it really crazy to think that there is a constituency for some flavor of socialism in the Democratic Party?
When the question is aimed at them like an accusation, liberals roll their eyes at such "paranoia." They say Obama is merely reviving "New Deal economics" to "save" or "reform" capitalism. But liberals themselves have long seen this approach as the best way to incrementally bring about a European-style, social democratic welfare state. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (Robert's father) wrote in 1947, "There seems no inherent obstacle to the gradual advance of socialism in the United States through a series of New Deals."
WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE
Part of the problem here is definitional. No mainstream liberal actually wants government to completely seize the means of production, and no mainstream conservative believes that there's no room for any government regulation or social insurance. Both sides believe in a "mixed economy" but disagree profoundly about where to draw the line. One definition of social democracy is the peaceful, democratic transition to socialism. A second is simply a large European welfare state where the state owns some, and guides the rest, of the economy. Many liberals yearn for the latter and say so often -- but fume when conservatives take them at their word.
Personally, I think socialism is the wrong word for all of this. "Corporatism" -- the economic doctrine of fascism -- fits better. Under corporatism, all the big players in the economy -- big business, unions, interest groups -- sit around the table with government at the head, hashing out what they think is best for everyone to the detriment of consumers, markets and entrepreneurs. But, take it from me, liberals are far more open to the argument that they're "crypto-socialists."
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