Reparations for Past Slavery in the USA

[Clocker]

Interesting article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a54b37c6b16.htm

Frankly, I feel it is complete idiocy to pay reparations for the failures of others in the past. Does anyone think that 'reparations' are a good idea? There are many good reasons at the link above to say "No" IMO.

Here's a good one to get started:

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?

 

[jtr1962]

Interestingly, I was considering starting a thread on this very subject, but decided against it because of the undoubtably strong reactions it would generate on both sides of the debate. Anyway, I'm glad you started it here rather than on SR, where it would certainly soon be out of control.

I must say I agree with you that this whole idea of reparations is completely senseless and ultimately divisive. Here are my reasons:

1)Reparations are made to directly compensate somebody for an injustice, and in this context any reparations for slavery are illogical since there have been no slaves in the United States for over 130 years, and any person who was a slave died long ago.

2)It is planned to distribute reparations only to the poorest members of the black community according to the sponsers, so those blacks who overcame the odds and made it would not get anything even though their ancestors were also slaves. In effect, this is yet another handout which would reward failure and lack of initiative.

3)Any reasonable amount of reparations that wouldn't bankrupt the United States would be meaningless when distributed amongst the many potential recipients. Consider that perhaps 40 million people would be eligible, so even the huge amount of $1 trillion would only mean $25,000 each, hardly a life changing amount, yet the burden on taxpayers would be intolerable.

4)More than $4 trillion has already been spent on income redistribution programs meant to correct economic inequalities. If there is a common theme among these, it is that such programs cannot be effectively administered by the government, and as a result have no positive effects at all, and many negative ones(decrease in personal responsibility, increase in crime, higher taxes, creation of ghettos).

5)Previous programs giving preference to one race over another, such as affirmative action, have be divisive, and have created prejudice where none would have existed. Reparations would do so on an even larger scale. Furthermore, such programs create a disincentive to self-improvement among the very members of the race they are meant to help since people invariably chose the path of least resistance.

6)It has already been established through our legal system that one cannot be held responsible for the crimes of one's ancestors. Reparations would violate that cornerstone of our legal system, and set the precedent for many lawsuits based on that tenet. We don't need yet another round of frivolous lawsuits in our courts. The country cannot afford it, and in fact we should be doing everything we can to discourage people from becoming lawyers, including limiting the number of bar exams given per year.

7)Many of the current white citizens of the United States have had no part whatsoever in slavery since their ancestors entered the United States long after slavery had been abolished, so this would in effect make one guilty by association because of his race. The effect of this precedent is chilling in my mind. In my personal case, my mother's parents and my father's grandparents originally came here from Italy at the turn of the century. They obviously had nothing to do with slavery, and in fact endured a considerable amount of prejudice themselves.

8)Exactly who would be taxed and in what amounts to pay for reparations? If it is spread among all taxpayers, then you would have, in effect, successful blacks paying reparations to unsuccessful ones. If it isn't, then would it be a "pay only if you are not black system", and if so, how can you justify a tax based solely on race?

9)Regardless of how it is payed for, the amounts being talked about(i.e. trillions of dollars) are so huge the country cannot afford it even in the best of times, let alone in the middle of the greatest economic downtown since the Great Depression which we will be in once the next terrorist attack occurs.

10)Lawyers stand to receive a significant percentage of any awards recovered. Since these lawyers are living comfortably now, I fail to see exactly what good would be accomplished by this. Undoubtably, those who administer the distribution of the payout would also take a large percentage, leaving very little for supposed victims. If these lawyers really considered this such a worthy cause, they would be working pro bono. As it is, the U.S. legal system needs two significant reforms that exist in nearly every other nation with a similar system, namely the elimination of contingency fees(to be replaced with a set fee based on hours), and the implementation of the "loser pays" concept which will discourage frivolous "lottery" type lawsuits.

11)As that statement you quoted says, blacks in the United States enjoy the highest standard of living of any blacks in the world, including those countries led by black leaders. In this context, the idea of reparations is totally ridiculous.

12)Why doesn't a similar movement exist to extract reparations from black leaders in those countries where slavery(incidentally black-on-black slavery) still exists. This would at least make sense since the victims are very much alive. I suspect those behind reparations have another agenda.

I must say I'm also particularly interested in hearing what anybody who supports this idea has to say. I honestly can't think of one good reason to support this, and will probably come up with a few more good reasons not to as the discussion progresses.

To keep my responses unbiased I didn't read any of the article you linked to prior to writing my response. I may have more comments later on after reading the article.

 

[SteveC]

No, reparations shouldn't be paid. My family falls into reason number four:

America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery.

The earliest my ancestors came to America was in the 1870s, and three of my four grandparents and my mother were born outside the mainland U.S. Although most of my ancestors did come from a Caribbean island where slavery was permitted, it's highly unlikely they were ever slave owners, since they were always very poor.

How do you decide who pays what and to whom the money goes? Do only direct descendants of slave owners pay? Do only direct descendants of slaves receive money? What about if they are only part of either category? What if they can't trace their ancestoral history? Also, no one who is alive today was a slave owner in America. Why should they be accountable for actions which they did not control?

I'm not so sure that it was white Americans who were the first to start the anti-slavery movement, however. By the early 1800s, some European countries had already abolished the slave trade. The sad part is that there still is slavery in parts of Africa today.

Steve

 

[SteveC]

As I was writing that, jtr1962 made a much better post than I did. I agree with all of it.

Steve

 

[Tea]

JTR makes a poor point when he says that finding a meaningful amount of money would be impossible. To come up with the hypothetical trillion dollars he mentions would merely require a one-third reduction in the US "defence" budget for nine years - a reduction that ought to be instituted in any case, though it would need to be roughly twice that size of reduction to bring US defence spending into rough parity with most of the rest of the world. (Somewhere a little over 1% of GDP is a typical defence budget allowance in most countries. Remember also, with its huge economy, 1% of GDP would still make the US the most powerful military nation in the world, and by quite some margin.)

That quibble aside (and it is a mere quibble), JTR speaks for any human of sense. It's an absurd proposal, utterly lacking in any kind of philosophical or moral rationale, and hugely impractical were it ever to be attempted.

It's at times like these that I am grateful that I'm simian. Honestly, being a human being must be so embarassing sometimes.

 

[flagreen]

Which brings an interesting question to mind Tea, does Tannin keep you in a cage at night? Did he purchase you as if you were common livestock? Does he force you to sit in the back of the bus while rides up front? Has he ever put you on a leash? If so you might be due reparations yourself. Surely there is a Solicitor or two in Ballarat?

 

[Tea]

Cage? Good Lord no! Tannin's not in the least like that.

I mean to say, if I was locked up (and I'd like to see the 43-year-old human who could get me into a cage if I didn't want to be put, or make the bars strong enough to stand up to a little gentle oragutan bicep exercise) ... well ... who would get up in the middle of the night and make him a hot chocolate? (It's easy enough for me. I have nice warm fur on all the time, so I don't have to bother with finding a robe or anything. Takes me ages to get dry after I shower though. Stupid human hair dryers. I mean, why can't they make them a sensible size? About three foot square would be nice.)

Of course, I could lie, and knowing the courts these days, and what a few carefully-coached tears can do to a jury, no doubt get into him for all he is worth - but what would be the point? I already know his credit card numbers.

 

[flagreen]

Well just be sure he treats you nice. After all, those nightly trips to the kitchen to get him hot Chocolate could be worth a lot of bananas some day with the right lawyer.

 

[Mercutio]

Living where I do, the reparations thing is a really, really big deal, even with otherwise intelligent/respectable people. There are bumper stickers and community rallies and guest-editorials in newspapers. The thing is, I can't for the life me imagine how a roughly $10,000 after-tax payout to every descendant of a slave (and don't forget, not every African-descendant in the US came from a slave-family and for that matter, whites were used in some rare cases as well) is going to magically make all the social problems associated with poor communities like Gary, Indiana better.
I'd guess that probably 80% of whatever monies could be gained would go out in stupid consumer spending, i.e., more poor families with 60" TVs but no food in their cabinets.
Assuming that things like scholarship funds or community-improvment projects were established, the argument would go that those things would not benefit the "average" slave-descendant. Nope, I imagine there would be a mass cry of "we just want the money". Besides, in the US there are already government-run community development and scholarship projects for the people crying out for their trillion dollars.

It's a huge land-grab, a scam. Frankly I'm sick of hearing about it. Do truly disadvantaged people deserve some help? Yes. That's why they get things like subsidized housing (like most of the apartment complex where I live). But guess what? That "help", doesn't. The people who are whining the most are often living in essentially free housing and getting essentially free food, but continue to make the same stupid mistakes that will keep them "disadvantaged" the rest of their lives (little things like having kids at 15, dropping out of school, and buying a 48" TVs or a cuter cell phone instead of paying on the debt they already owe). Those who don't make those mistakes don't stay "disadvantaged".

The whole situation reminds me of the time I walked into McDonalds and overheard the frech-fry cook arguing with his boss that he couldn't make any money unless he worked the cash register.

 

[flagreen]

Well said Mercutio. I have often thought that the people you refer to, be they black or white, simply do not have a clue about life. Not about life in the world the rest of us live in anyway. Once in a while I'll watch one of those "Cop" television shows. Folks of the sort you describe above frequently make unscheduled "guest" appearances on these types of shows. If you have ever seen them then you know what I mean.

The thing that is hard to fathom is why some of these people do what they do. For example one fellow who is on parole is pulled over in a stolen car full of his buddies in down town Los Angeles and is found to have drugs in in his pocket, no drivers license of course and no tags on the car. He was just cruising the neighborhood like this. Now how smart do you have to be to know enough not go around in a stolen car with no plates on it, no drivers license, drugs in your pocket, while you are on parole? Yet the look of shock and disbelief on his face when he was told he was under arrest was dumb founding. It was if he were saying "you mean you're going to take me to jail just for that?".

I don't know, I think maybe the folks who are demanding this money really don't have any idea at all how that they are responsible in large part these days for their own state in life. They just don't know any other way to live. Nor do they have the slightest idea how things work in the real world.

 

[Mercutio]

Crap. Bill and I are in agreement about something fundamentally related to politics.

... and in Hell, Satan just had to put on a pair of earmuffs.

 

[flagreen]

... and in Hell, Satan just had to put on a pair of earmuffs.

As did The Giver.

 

[Clocker]

Do we need to make up a fake member so that someone will argue FOR reparations or something?

Is everyone in the forum WHITE or are there some African Americans among us who also disagree with reparations?

C

 

[Cliptin]

Do we need to make up a fake member so that someone will argue FOR reparations or something?

Is everyone in the forum WHITE or are there some African Americans among us who also disagree with reparations?

C

All of my black friends whom I asked about it, agreed with Merc. These were college fellas a few years ago.

 

[jtr1962]

Do we need to make up a fake member so that someone will argue FOR reparations or something?

Is everyone in the forum WHITE or are there some African Americans among us who also disagree with reparations?

C

Given the types of people who frequent this forum(i.e. above average intelligence), I don't think you'll be able to find anyone here who actually thinks this is a good idea, regardless of color. This is how intellectually bankrupt this whole idea is. The only types of people this idea will appeal to are those who are easily brainwashed by politicians into thinking that handouts will lift them out of their misery, and since most of them can't read above third grade level(or use a computer), I somehow doubt we'll be hearing from them any time in the near future.

We haven't heard from The Giver yet on this subject, although something tells me he won't be in favor of the idea either.

 

[jtr1962]

The people who are whining the most are often living in essentially free housing and getting essentially free food, but continue to make the same stupid mistakes that will keep them "disadvantaged" the rest of their lives (little things like having kids at 15, dropping out of school, and buying a 48" TVs or a cuter cell phone instead of paying on the debt they already owe). Those who don't make those mistakes don't stay "disadvantaged".

Very true Mercutio. You do know what happens when you point this fact out, don't you? Then the so-called black leaders say you're blaming the victim. I would say if any one thing would benefit these people, it would be leaders who will finally tell it like it is, and stop excusing failure. People like Al Sharpton just don't cut it. The sooner these people recognize that their "disadvantaged" life style is largely the result of bad decisions they have made, the sooner they might actually start doing things to improve their condition. And once thier attitude changes, then a small amount of government help may actually go a long way towards making these people into productive members of society.

I have a very interesting anecdote relevant to this discussion. Up until I was 15 my family lived in a housing project(subsized rents of 25% of your income). When we first moved there, it was a fairly nice place to live. It was clean, most of the people were well behaved, and most adults under 65 worked. There was a fairly good mix of races there, and not much in the way of prejudice or racial tension. Many people only lived in the project temporarily, and saved money which they later used to buy houses(as my family did). In short, it was temporary stepping stone, not a permanent way of life, and a way to help working class people better their lot in life.

In the early 1970s things started to change. My siblings and I had our bicycles stolen several times by older children(although we always got them back), there was frequently urine in the elevator, some apartments had people coming and going all hours of the day, and for the first time ever, our apartment had roaches. Prior to this, I didn't even know what a roach looked like, that's how clean the tenants kept the building.

What changed? In the early 1970s NYC started letting welfare families into housing projects. Many of these "families" consisted of a single mother, usually young, who had never worked in her life, and many children. In most cases, the single parent was more concerned with screwing as many men as possible instead of raising her children, thus freeing them to create havoc among the other tenants. Apparently, there wasn't much concern with keeping their free apartment clean, either. The welfare family under us sent us loads of their cockroaches, and the exterminator told us the walls of their apartment were covered with them. Later on, this woman's teenage daughter got pregnant, and was of course rewarded with her own apartment elsewhere in the complex.

Needless to say, this situation created a new incentive for my mother to save money, and by 1978 we were thankfully able to leave that place forever and moved into the house where I live today. I heard through the grapevine that the situation in the project continued to deteriorate, although it never got as bad as some of the ones in Brooklyn, The Bronx, or upper Manhattan. As you may know from watching the news, some of those projects were actually taken over and largely run by drug dealers until Guiliani bought order back to the city starting in 1994.

The moral of the story? There are two. The first is that a small amount of help, given to the right people, can really help them better their situation. The second and more important one is that nothing creates a destructive underclass quicker than handouts without any responsibility attached, and in my opinion the politicians(largely liberal Democrats) who continue to espouse these ideas are a bigger threat to America than Bin Laden and his ilk could ever be. And I'll add those who favor reparations to that list.

 

[jtr1962]

JTR makes a poor point when he says that finding a meaningful amount of money would be impossible. To come up with the hypothetical trillion dollars he mentions would merely require a one-third reduction in the US "defence" budget for nine years - a reduction that ought to be instituted in any case, though it would need to be roughly twice that size of reduction to bring US defence spending into rough parity with most of the rest of the world.

I've mentioned in another thread that the US should reduce it's defence budget, although I think any savings should go first into paying down the debt and then once all of the short-term bonds are retired, a tax cut. Sure we could come up with a trillion dollars, but I would use it to build a national high-speed rail system if I had to do anything with it. That would benefit the country(and environment) more than any other way of spending the money.

It's at times like these that I am grateful that I'm simian. Honestly, being a human being must be so embarassing sometimes.

I agree, Tea, although from my perspective nothing beats being a feline, not even being a simian. And nobody will lock me in a cage, either. Despite my size, I can get very nasty when someone tries to put me someplace I don't want to be. My vet still has some nasty scars to prove it. Better hit submit and leave before JTR comes back to his computer and notices I've added to his post. Oh, oh, here he comes. Bye, Tea!

 

[The Giver]

Note: The following is a presentation of Flagreen Entertainment and does not necessarily represent the views of it's management.

And now from the "You asked for it" department...

Greeting my friends from the great White world! As you know The Giver is uniquely qualified to discuss this subject from the point of view of Black America. Unlike many of my fellow forum members The Giver has done more than take a cursory look at this issue in that should reparations ever come to pass (not likely) his people shall stand to benefit from whatever form the reparations may take.

Let us stipulate that today's white Americans are not slave owners or in anyway responsible for the actions of their forefathers should they happened to have owned slaves, fair enough? Further let us assume no Black American today has ever been held in Slavery. Ok?

Where does that leave us then? Well are either of the above stipulations really relevant to the question of whether reparations are due Black America? The Giver would suggest they not. Consider that is a standard practice in world affairs following the conclusion of a war that "war reparations" be paid the victor should the vanquished be held responsible for beginning whatever conflict which was just fought. These reparations can be quite substantial. They are paid from the treasuries of whatever nation has agreed to pay them. Is that fair to the individual citizens of that nation who did not themselves start the war in question and more than likely had no choice but to fight it if called upon to do so? These reparations can and often do take decades to repay. During that time many new citizens will born within the paying country who could also justly claim "We were not even born when this war was fought!" Similarly new citizens will undoubtedly immigrate to that nation and they could proclaim "We protest! Neither we or our ancestors were here when then this war was fought!". Sound familiar? You may think The Giver brings this analogy into the discussion as some sort of justification for reparations due Black America. However this is not necessarily so, The Giver would suggest that those who protest in both the analogy and in America today are not personally responsible for what happened years ago or for what they were forced to do in the case of those who no choice but to fight in a war.

Never the less, pay them they must. Why? Read on my legions and you shall see...

There is concept known as "collective guilt" in international law. And this is the justification used to impose reparations on the tax payers of a nation such as those who must pay war reparations. Keep in mind that there are literally hundreds of precedents for these reparations being paid based on this concept. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, this is the case. It has been argued that these reparations are paid as much for the sake of the offending country as they are for the recipient nation as a means of righting the wrongs that nation "collectively" has committed. Indeed the United States, having been the recipient of some of these reparations, has thereby recognized the legality of such reparations.

Now then, those nations who receive these reparations do not disperse them directly to their citizens. And this will become important further on as you shall see. Typically they go into the receiving nations treasuries for what ever purpose that government sees fit to use them for.

Can anyone dispute that the Africans who were brought to America and sold into slavery were done a grave injustice? One doubts any thinking person would. Yes there were many other nations who were complicit in the practice of slavery. But they are a separate case from that which we discuss here.
Here we are looking only at the United Sates.

Did the United States profit collectively from slavery? Unquestionably yes she did. Not only did the slaver holders of old profit but also all of those who traded with the slave holders profited. And that includes virtually all industry through out the nation at that time. Including the government of the Untided States itself who profited from tariffs received as textile goods were imported back from Europe having been woven into cotton which originated in southern cotton plantations here in America. All of which was done without the Black slaves so much as receiving a penny for their labor.

You may be saying to yourselves "But Giver, Black America is not a nation we ever had a war with!" and of course that is true. But let's look at other forms of reparations which are not necessarily "war" reparations, but have been paid through legal action brought by other offended parties under very similar circumstances;

In July 1998, Volkswagen AG admitted that it had used labor from 15,000 slaves during the war, and announced plans to set up a fund to compensate these workers (many of whom are now dead). Until the announcement, the company had vigorously denied responsibility for using the slave labor, saying that they acted on government orders.

By February 1999, the German government, now led by Schröder, announced plans to pay reparations to victims of Nazi atrocities from funds provided by some of the country's largest companies. By agreeing to set up a fund that acknowledges responsibility for profiting from slave labor, the German government hopes to end the various lawsuits filed on behalf of Holocaust victims suing dozens of German firms and banks for damages. Though the magnitude of the German fund has yet to be specified, it is expected to amount to $1.7 billion, with a dozen major German businesses—including Deutsche Bank, Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, and Siemens—participating.

After years of denying that dormant accounts of Holocaust victims even existed, in 1997 Swiss banks produced a list of thousands of people with accounts that had seen no activity since the War. They set up a voluntary fund to aid elderly survivors of the Holocaust, and contributions to the fund quickly mounted to some $200 million. Payments ranging from $500 to $1,200 were sent to more than 100,000 Eastern European Holocaust survivors in November and December 1998, with those in Western Europe receiving disbursements in February 1999.

In July 1998, Volkswagen admitted that it had used labor from 15,000 slaves during the war, and announced plans to set up a fund to compensate these workers. Until the announcement, the company had denied responsibility for using slave labor, saying that they acted on government orders.

Though the $200 million fund was an important step in acknowledging the role the Swiss played during the War, it was largely a public relations effort. The fund was voluntary and admitted no liability — the banks had set it up rather than acknowledge responsibility for laundering the profits of Nazi looting and slave labor in factories.

It was not until March 1998 that an agreement was reached to negotiate a global settlement of many legal claims against the banks. The three most prestigious Swiss banks—Union Bank of Switzerland, the Swiss Bank Corp., and Credit Suisse—agreed to set up a restitution fund in the U.S. to repay Holocaust victims for economic losses facilitated by the Swiss.

Source - http://www.factmonster.com/spot/holocaust1.html

Once again precedent is established for reparations being paid to right past wrongs. It is note worthy that these reparations are being paid by essentially private institutions who profited from the slave labor in question. However in the Untied States the profiteers included the treasury of the United Sates itself. Unquestionably it would very difficult to single out any one corporation existing today who profited from slavery within America. Though undoubtedly connections to many could be established given time and great effort. But immediate funding should come from the U.S. Treasury who undoubtedly can extrapolate the value in today's dollars of those funds it received through tariffs on goods manufactured from American cotton. One would imagine such records still exist such that this could be done quite easily.

Also note from the above quotations that reparation funds are not paid directly to victims or to the descendents. It is crucial that this should not be done in the case of Black America either. In fact it would irresponsible of white America to pay the reparations due directly to Black Americans who qualify but are themselves incapable of using the funds responsibly. Folks such as those mentioned above by other posters in this thread are quite correct that such funds would most likely be squandered by the recipients. Should direct payment be made, it certainly would alleviate the collective guilt of the American people but it would not be making "whole" that which has been ripped "asunder".

Any reparations due from corporate America or the Government itself should go into a fund which should be established and maintained by a "Reparations Bureau" within the Department of Justice where strict over site by Congress can be assured. Those who qualify (native born black Americans only) should have access to these funds for purposes of education, job training and other programs to teach people such as those mention by Flagreen, Mercutio and JTR1962 how to live successfully in America today.

So should reparations be paid? It seems there is a substantial argument that they should be made. One thing is certain, black America such as is described within this thread by other posters needs help.

Your favorite Negro,

The Giver

 

[The Giver]

BTW - Anyone who thinks the above case for reparations is rediculous, take a look at this -

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/countries/iraq/iraq000616.htm

And ask yourself if the people of Iraq should pay these reparations for the actions of just one man - Saddam Hussein

 

[Tea]

My thanks to The Giver for that lucid and worthwhile post. It makes a very weak case for reperations, but it does make a case, and that is something no-one else has managed to do. Well posted!

The fundamental weakness of the case is the logical fallacy that it rests on: that war reperations, simply because they exist, are therefore good, just, rational, and something to be repeated.

Amongst a host of problems with this argument, consider these points:

1: War reperations are generally honoured in the breech. Remember the massive reperations that were imposed upon Germany after World War 1? Most of the debt was never paid, but was forgiven by the allies in (from memory) about 1930. That part of it that was paid formed a crushing burden on the German economy and contributed substantially to the terrible economic conditions that led directly to the rise of Hitler and all the horror that followed. Even worse, it provided wonderful ammunition for Hitler's politics-of-hate campaign.

2: War reperations are something that (if paid at all) are paid by the loser to the winner and have nothing at all to do with justice or reason (save by accident). If we were to follow the war reperations model faithfully, then we would have to require that the descendants of slaves pay (who, generally speaking, remain poor and ill-treated by comparison with society as a whole) the descendants of slave owners. You might object to this by saying that the rich white slaveowners lost the Civil war, but the fact remains that, at the end of the war and indeed today, they remain rich, while their slaves (generally speaking) remain poor.

3: War reperations have been proven over and over again to do no good to the party that recieves them. It was one of America's great gifts to the world that after the appalling chaos and horror of the worst, most bitter war in history they had the forsight to insist on aid to Germany and Japan, not pointless reperations. It is as a direct result of this wise and generous plan that the world economy is as healthy today as it is. (It could be healthier still, of course, but without the Marshall Plan and its equivalent in Japan, we would all be a good deal poorer.)

4: Since when did America pay the slightest attention to international law? Did I miss something?

5: If it is reasonable to consider that reperations are due to those who have unwillingly contributed to another's wealth, and that some guilt attaches to those who actively benefit from this arrangement (which I freely grant is so), then the first order of business must obviously be to extract them from those individuals who are personally guilty of benefiting from the exploitation of others (as opposed to the descendants of those individuals who were personally guilty at one time but who are no longer alive). Clearly, even if one can make a case for extracting reperations for the children of the victim from the children of the perpetrator (something that is a long way off being demonstrated, by the way) the case of the still-alive perpetrator and the still-alive victim must take a vastly higher priority. And here we have the record of the present-day United States, with its vast litany of commercial and military sins against the Third World: it's shameful record of exploitation, invasion, covert action, and cultural imperalism.

First pay the victims of Bophal and the victims of all the other Bophals that have never made the headlines, compensate the orphan children of all the mothers and fathers that die in off-shore sweat-shops every year (and there are thousands of them), restore democracy to all the brutal US-sponsored dictatorships littered around the world, put Chilie's copper back in the ground so that Chile's children can dig it up and sell it in their own sweet time, take those CIA bullets back out of President Allende's heart, thank God that the anthrax you spread in Cuba in the Sixties was a technical flop, return those Addidas jogging shoes to the child who manufactured them for you without benefit of health care or better food than a bucket of rice a week, replant the forests of Borneo and Brazil and all those other places you have despoiled (while all the while pretending that it was some other country's fault), establish a seed capital fund to restart indigenous culture and entertainment industries in all those dozens and dozens of countries whose culture has been despoiled by the Hollywood moguls with the full blackmailing protective power of the US State Department behind them, pay a fair market price for the commodities that are all you allow your client economies to trade, and undo the massive damage you have done to our planet. (If you can. I oubt that anybody can, but you must try.) (Do you know that there are only two countries who have refused to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change? America and one of America's most shamelessly arse-licking lapdogs, the name of which I dare not mention, out of an over-riding sense of shame.)

Oh dear, there are just five problems. There are more, but those five will do. The kettle is boiled long since. Time I made that hot chocolate for Tannin and went back to bed.

 

[The Giver]

Hmm.. so then you categorically dismiss the concept of "collective" guilt as being valid? This what the above rational rests on, not on war reparations per se. This is why The Giver went out of his way to say the following;

"You may think The Giver brings this analogy into the discussion as some sort of justification for reparations due Black America. However this is not necessarily so..."

The war reparations were introduced to explain the "collective guilt" principle.

 

[The Giver]

P.S. What's the going rate for "Cultural Imperialism" reparations?