Obama's Agenda (political, of course)

[Selena_Kitt]

You obviously never worked for MY father.

*laugh*

I hear ya...

 

[john-the-author]

Nice post. This does, in a nutshell, show the big disconnect between right wing rhetoric and real life. Too bad they don't teach this in school.

Thanks, DeeZire!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STELLA

There's no evidence old slaves were abandoned.

There are plenty of memoirs, diaries, and letters from outsiders, commenting about the conditions and treatment of slaves. Look at DeBow's Agriculture Journal, too.

People accept that UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was an accurate depiction of how slavery was, but it wasnt. Slavery was pretty much how Margaret Mitchell depicted it in GONE WITH THE WIND. Slaves cost lots of money, and few planters abused them, because abuse hurt the planter more than the slave.

The horrendous treatment of blacks came about after emancipation. The Southern States created the convict lease system, and the contractors who leased prisoners are generally responsible for all the outrages against convicts (usually black convicts). It was so bad it became a scandal.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Slaves cost lots of money, and few planters abused them, because abuse hurt the planter more than the slave.

Right. I'm sure being a slave was just peachy keen, jelly bean.

 

[epiphany65]

Right. I'm sure being a slave was just peachy keen, jelly bean.

Much as I hate to agree with JBJ, slavery was abolished in all of Canada by 1803. This was not because slavery is wrong, but because slave owners realized it was much cheaper to hire former slaves at slave wages. Keeping slaves is expensive. You have to house, clothe and feed them, plus hire people to watch over them. If you can hire them and pay them next to nothing to do the same job, it's far cheaper. This still goes on today. If you look at who is doing menial jobs for poor pay you'll find it's minorities. This amounts to legalized slavery. Not much has changed in the past 200 years.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Much as I hate to agree with JBJ, slavery was abolished in all of Canada by 1803. This was not because slavery is wrong, but because slave owners realized it was much cheaper to hire former slaves at slave wages. Keeping slaves is expensive. You have to house, clothe and feed them, plus hire people to watch over them. If you can hire them and pay them next to nothing to do the same job, it's far cheaper. This still goes on today. If you look at who is doing menial jobs for poor pay you'll find it's minorities. This amounts to legalized slavery. Not much has changed in the past 200 years.

And folks wondered why Obama was talking about redistributing the wealth after the civil rights movement, and how unsuccessful it actually was?

 

[epiphany65]

And folks wondered why Obama was talking about redistributing the wealth after the civil rights movement, and how unsuccessful it actually was?

All it did was create an underclass. That's better than being someone's property, but not a whole lot in the long run.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

All it did was create an underclass. That's better than being someone's property, but not a whole lot in the long run.

And it's better for the upper class financially AND they get to claim they're supporting "equality." Funny how that worked out.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Much as I hate to agree with JBJ, slavery was abolished in all of Canada by 1803. This was not because slavery is wrong, but because slave owners realized it was much cheaper to hire former slaves at slave wages. Keeping slaves is expensive. You have to house, clothe and feed them, plus hire people to watch over them. If you can hire them and pay them next to nothing to do the same job, it's far cheaper. This still goes on today. If you look at who is doing menial jobs for poor pay you'll find it's minorities. This amounts to legalized slavery. Not much has changed in the past 200 years.

Emphasis added by me.

That's not entirely true. I know what I am saying, because I used to be a member of that underclass. Mostly, it's people who are uneducated or who have a handicap of some kind, which may or may not be self-inflicted. Some are minorities, but probably not most.

There are many minority people who have achieved success, and Obama is a good example of this. So are Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, Gov. Bill Richardson ans many more. I'm not saying it's easy fo them, or anybody else, but it is certainly possible.

 

[epiphany65]

Emphasis added by me.

That's not entirely true. I know what I am saying, because I used to be a member of that underclass. Mostly, it's people who are uneducated or who have a handicap of some kind, which may or may not be self-inflicted. Some are minorities, but probably not most.

There are many minority people who have achieved success, and Obama is a good example of this. So are Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, Gov. Bill Richardson ans many more. I'm not saying it's easy fo them, or anybody else, but it is certainly possible.

You're right. I never meant to imply that it was absolutely impossible to break free of that system though. Some African slaves managed to win their freedom too and become free men.

 

[DeeZire]

There are many minority people who have achieved success, and Obama is a good example of this. So are Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, Gov. Bill Richardson ans many more. I'm not saying it's easy fo them, or anybody else, but it is certainly possible.

You are aware of the fact that Clarence Thomas's success was due, in large part, to affirmative action, right? And that he was in the middle range of being qualified for the Supreme Court? (In other words, there were many candidates more qualified than he was, but he was chosen because he was black.)

It would surprise me if you actually support affirmative action, but kudos to you if you do. If you don't then you really shouldn't be posting examples of successful minorities when they got where the are because of affirmative action.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Emphasis added by me.

That's not entirely true. I know what I am saying, because I used to be a member of that underclass. Mostly, it's people who are uneducated or who have a handicap of some kind, which may or may not be self-inflicted. Some are minorities, but probably not most.

There are many minority people who have achieved success, and Obama is a good example of this. So are Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, Gov. Bill Richardson ans many more. I'm not saying it's easy fo them, or anybody else, but it is certainly possible.

Yes, it IS possible, when it certainly wasn't when they were slaves and indentured servants.

But it isn't, as we know, easy or even probable in a statistical sense. And there are lots of obstacles put in the way of that sort of success... (things that affirmative action attempted, however successfully or not, to help alleviate... just the fact that it exists indicates we knew there was a problem...)

Even when you DO get yourself an education. It's still most often it's who you know, not what.

 

[freshface]

Emphasis added by me.

That's not entirely true. I know what I am saying, because I used to be a member of that underclass. Mostly, it's people who are uneducated or who have a handicap of some kind, which may or may not be self-inflicted. Some are minorities, but probably not most.

Maybe this varies by location, but there are a lot of places in the United States where the nasty, dangerous, low paid jobs are done by minorities. There's a reason why Immigration keeps raiding slaughter plants and meat processing plants. In the DC area, almost all of the people working construction and yard maintenance type jobs have brown skin.

As for self-inflicted lack of education, it may have something to do with children who don't get to go to school because their parents move too much/need the kids to work for pay/are afraid of answering questions because of their immigration status. I'm assuming you don't believe that handicaps are self-inflicted.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Yes, it IS possible, when it certainly wasn't when they were slaves and indentured servants.

But it isn't, as we know, easy or even probable in a statistical sense. And there are lots of obstacles put in the way of that sort of success... (things that affirmative action attempted, however successfully or not, to help alleviate... just the fact that it exists indicates we knew there was a problem...)

Even when you DO get yourself an education. It's still most often it's who you know, not what.

I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that most indentured servants in the
19th century were Europeans who contracted to work for a certain length of time for an employer, and the employer agreed to pay their passage and sponsor them as immigrants. If you used to watch Northern Exposure, the doctor in that show was an indentured servant of a different kind.

I have always said that most (not all) members of the underclass were there because of what they did, or because they did not do what they should have.

 

[cloudy]

I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that most indentured servants in the
19th century were Europeans who contracted to work for a certain length of time for an employer, and the employer agreed to pay their passage and sponsor them as immigrants. If you used to watch Northern Exposure, the doctor in that show was an indentured servant of a different kind.

I have always said that most (not all) members of the underclass were there because of what they did, or because they did not do what they should have.

Oh, it had nothing to do with the color of their skin....nothing at all.



(good god...what planet do you live on?)

 

[epiphany65]

I have always said that most (not all) members of the underclass were there because of what they did, or because they did not do what they should have.

Like being born white...

 

[john-the-author]

The case for Barack Obama

This was just posted on the chat listserve for the Unitarian church I go to. I don't know who said it originally, but I like it:

"The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:

He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice....

Let's be frank. Something new is happening in America. It is the imminent arrival of a new liberal moment. History happens, it makes its turns, you hold On for dear life. Life moves."

 

[Boxlicker101]

You are aware of the fact that Clarence Thomas's success was due, in large part, to affirmative action, right? And that he was in the middle range of being qualified for the Supreme Court? (In other words, there were many candidates more qualified than he was, but he was chosen because he was black.)

It would surprise me if you actually support affirmative action, but kudos to you if you do. If you don't then you really shouldn't be posting examples of successful minorities when they got where the are because of affirmative action.

Can you prove that first statement. He was an honors student in high school and graduated cum laude from Holy Cross College. AA may have helped get him enrolled in Yale Law School, but it didn't help him do the course work.

You might well be right about the SCOTUS. AA is alright when it is some kind of outreach program, but not when it becomes quotas. When that happens, qualified people are pushed aside in favor of those who are less qualified, which is just not right. It isn't right when it happens to minority people and it isn't right when it happens to those in the majority.

Another thing wrong with AA is that minority people who succeed ae always suspect, even when their success was earned. Clarence Thomas is an example of this.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that most indentured servants in the
19th century were Europeans who contracted to work for a certain length of time for an employer, and the employer agreed to pay their passage and sponsor them as immigrants. If you used to watch Northern Exposure, the doctor in that show was an indentured servant of a different kind.

I have always said that most (not all) members of the underclass were there because of what they did, or because they did not do what they should have.

Oh, it had nothing to do with the color of their skin....nothing at all.



(good god...what planet do you live on?)

I wouldn't say nothing, but I would say not much. It's not the color of a person's skin that gets her pregnant at 15 or that gets him or her addicted to drugs or causes that person to drop out of school or become an alcoholic or any of the things that I consider to be self-inflicted handicaps. It might be a contributing factor, but it is not the cause.

As proof, there are tens of millions of minority members who are not part of the underclass. I'm not saying they are great successes, but they are contributing, self-supporting members of society.

 

[epiphany65]

Can you prove that first statement. He was an honors student in high school and graduated cum laude from Holy Cross College. AA may have helped get him enrolled in Yale Law School, but it didn't help him do the course work.

You might well be right about the SCOTUS. AA is alright when it is some kind of outreach program, but not when it becomes quotas. When that happens, qualified people are pushed aside in favor of those who are less qualified, which is just not right. It isn't right when it happens to minority people and it isn't right when it happens to those in the majority.

Another thing wrong with AA is that minority people who succeed ae always suspect, even when their success was earned. Clarence Thomas is an example of this.

Did one of us have a brain turmur for breakfast? That's 2 posts of yours today I agree with.

 

[epiphany65]

This was just posted on the chat listserve for the Unitarian church I go to. I don't know who said it originally, but I like it:

"The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:

He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice....

Let's be frank. Something new is happening in America. It is the imminent arrival of a new liberal moment. History happens, it makes its turns, you hold On for dear life. Life moves."

I'm hopeful. Not only that Obama will be elected, but that this heralds a turn-around in American politics. Maybe after decades of neo-cons, there will be a swing back towards the centre.

 

[john-the-author]

Can you prove that first statement. He was an honors student in high school and graduated cum laude from Holy Cross College. AA may have helped get him enrolled in Yale Law School, but it didn't help him do the course work. Another thing wrong with AA is that minority people who succeed ae always suspect, even when their success was earned. Clarence Thomas is an example of this.

I'm not honestly sure where Clarence Thomas may be w/r/t affirmative action. I do know that as a lawyer/judge, he's always been very mediocre. His nomination had nothing to do with his actual qualifications as a jurist but his politics. All of the legal organizations who expressed an opinion about his actual professional qualifications did not rate him at all highly. There were many more qualified jurists available, but Thomas was philosophically desirable.

On the court, I don't believe he's yet had an opinion that didn't suggest he has his nose three feet up Scalia's ass at all times.

 

[trysail]

Harvard's Ferguson Praises `Ascent of Money' as Markets Plunge
Review by James Pressley

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Niall Ferguson, a canny chronicler of financial history, knows a thing or two about market timing.

Sellers have sliced more than $10 trillion off global stock- market value this month, the U.S. is mired in its worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, and hedgehog Andrew Lahde has shut his fund, telling investors, ``Goodbye and good luck.''

So what does Ferguson do? He publishes ``The Ascent of Money,'' an upbeat account of finance from Mesopotamia to McMansion. His thesis: ``Money is the root of most progress.''

After that windup, you might expect me to trash his book. Alas, I can't.

Ferguson, a Scotsman who teaches at Harvard, is the bestselling author of books including ``The House of Rothschild'' and ``The War of the World.'' His new work, like the last three, was conceived as a TV series as well as book. His reputation is riding so high that someone would short him if he were a stock, as Adam Smith biographer James Buchan recently wrote.

``The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man,'' Ferguson writes. ``Far from being the work of mere leeches intent on sucking the life's blood out of indebted families,'' he says, ``financial innovation has been an indispensable factor in man's advance from wretched subsistence to the giddy heights of material prosperity that so many people know today.''

Ferguson mercifully lifts the reader above today's doom and gloom with this smart reminder of how mankind has benefited from the rise of bankers, credit and markets. The book works as either a primer or a refresher course, though a serious student of financial history may learn little from these pages.

Clay Tablets

Cantering off in swift, declarative prose, Ferguson traces the rise of money from ancient clay tablets and Roman coins up through the Medici's foreign-exchange dealings; the development of banks; the Dutch formation of a joint-stock, limited liability corporation, the United East India Company; and the resulting creation of the Amsterdam stock market, where bulls were already battling bears in the early 17th century.

As befits a storyteller with a TV deal, Ferguson whips up a good old-fashioned narrative history, complete with heroes and villains, visionaries and scoundrels. Nathan Rothschild is seen shipping gold coins to the Duke of Wellington's army during the Napoleonic Wars. Two hard-drinking Scottish Presbyterian ministers Robert Wallace and Alexander Webster set up what Ferguson calls the first true insurance fund in 1744.

Flawed financial alchemist John Law of Edinburgh introduced 18th-century Paris to the stock-market bubble. We even glimpse a grinning Alan Greenspan accepting the Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service from Ken Lay just weeks before Enron Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001.

British `Narco-State'

The tales, though familiar, are told with brevity and irreverence: The opium-trading British Empire was ``history's most successful narco-state.'' Long-Term Capital Management LP became ``Short-Term Capital Mismanagement.''

Ferguson delights, too, in challenging conventional interpretations of events. The Rothschilds, he argues, made their fortune in spite of the Battle of Waterloo, not because of it. The real turning point in the American Civil War, he argues, came when Union forces captured New Orleans in April 1862, preventing investors in Confederacy cotton bonds from taking possession of the cotton underpinning the securities.

Each chapter teases out a topical thread -- be it real estate or risk -- and toggles ahead in time to show how past trends created present realities. A chapter on banking lands in Bankruptcy Court in Memphis, Tennessee. A discussion of bonds closes with a Congressional Budget Office forecast that the U.S. federal debt will balloon to more than $12 trillion by 2017.

Fittest Survive

Like many economists these days, Ferguson sees finance through the filter of evolution: Each shock to the system results in casualties, as the weakest institutions expire.

``Financial history is essentially the result of institutional mutation and natural selection,'' he writes.

Ferguson closes on a somewhat defensive note. While writing the book, he was often asked if he had selected the wrong title, he says. He stands by the name.

``There have been great reverses, contractions and dyings, to be sure,'' he writes. ``But not even the worst has set us permanently back. Though the line of financial history has a saw- tooth quality, its trajectory is unquestionably upwards.''

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Like being born white...

or being born in a "free" country.

You've pretty much won the world lottery, Box, being born a white man in America.

 

[Boxlicker101]

or being born in a "free" country.

You've pretty much won the world lottery, Box, being born a white man in America.

I largely argee with you, although I believe that, among white Americans, women enjoy more privelege.