Fareed Zakahari Opens his Reparations Account .... a narrative ... by Fred

Recorded here are the stiring words of one of the Republic's more insightful editorialists as he proposes a method to heal the wounds of this great nation as they came to me, as, to quote MLK,  "I had a dream today". 

Fareed Zakaharia: "Delayed, qualified and mealy-mouthed reactions of many in America's leadership class tell a distrubing story about the country's elites - and the reason we are living in an age of populist rebellion."¹   I now urge all American's, especially "The United States technology pioneers .... prophets of the future who opine on space travel and artificial intelligence. Can they not see what is going on right here on Earth   ....  and condemn it?"^{1, 2, 3}  

As an American I do not want to  be on the Wrong Side of History ⁵. I therefore open this account to pay those victims⁴ - from the very inception of America as an independant nation - for the wounds inflicted by slavery, Jim Crow, and the most recent horrors inflicted daily by those statues; erected by the decendants of those who almost destroyed the Union.

"Today we hae a more merit based elite, what is often called a meritocracy."¹  Therfore I hereby voluntarily yield up all benefets adhereing to myself and to my posterity that are set forth in all "Affirmative Action" legislation. America is and must be a more merit based society.

Thus ends a dream. Hopefully not the American dream. 

¹ Fareed Zakharia quotations from his  Washington Post editorial

²  Will they be asked to condemn Censorhip Today

²  Who gets to decide what is labeled hate? Ministry of Hate gets richer

² How much longer will your bailed out bank allow you to spend your own money if you are on the Wrong Side of History?

³ A prophet: 

 Net wealth $69.9 Billion. Reparations account balance: $0.0. Now that is some white privelege. I wonder what the other prophets will do to make amends to America's victim class.

⁴   
Sergeant Major Christian Fleetwood, 4th USCT. 

I wonder what the Sergeant Major would have thought of America's greatest victim of slavery as he showed the world the proper way of "fighting for justice for people, to try to stop oppression" 

In the New South they know just what to do:

Tear it down! 

⁵  I, Fred, would rather  be on the right side of America's future; but that, apparently, is a minority opinion. It's looking pretty grim in the short term too, what with our nation's past not meeting the 2017 standards of the loosers of the 2016 election. It looks like it is going to be a long, cruel summer.  

 

Comments

[Cortes]

The rainbow coalition ought, logically, to distance itself from the Jim Crow Democratic Partei.

[Fred]

Cortes,

Black Americans make up about a third of the voting base of the Democratic Party. That is why party leaders need to rile up the base and distract people from other things like the poor dead lady (Minneapolis not Charlottesville). Otherwise the turnout is likely to be even lower than 2016 levels, which won't help them in the mid-term elections at all.

[BabelFish]

I an starting my low level campaign to preemptively rename my part of Jacksonville back to Ruby Beach or, perhaps Pablo Beach. For purely partisan reasons, I will support re-carving Mt. Rushmore with the visages of Ted Williams, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell and Tom Brady. Might as well get in front of these things.

[wisedupearly]

The Democratic Party is desperately tying to distract people from the economic realism of the original Trump campaign and populist attraction of Bernie Sanders.
Hillary Clinton was defeated but her stain lives on so forgive me if I am not impressed with Fareed's screed.
The country must have good jobs and a positive trade balance. What we see in the streets is the result of having neither.

[Lemur]

It's really messing with the heads of these minor aristocrats their vision of the world is going to be repealed and replaced.

[Gorgar Tilts]

Bring it.

The harder idiots push reparations, the faster the GOP will purge the cucks and become the White Identity Party in all but name. It's going to happen anyway, this will just hasten the process.

Saying "Slaves Built America" is like saying "Cows Built McDonald's."

Zuckerberg and Co are "white" until it comes time for reparations then suddenly morph into another "historically oppressed group."

Funny that, but people are waking.

[Eliot]

Lemur,

I would quibble with the word aristocrat, even with the modifier minor.

They lack the good grace.

Best,

Eliot

[Fred]

BabelFish,

Here's another Floridian's humor for you:
http://ninetymilesfromtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/08/keep-making-space-for-new-trump-statues.html

[Fred]

Gorgar,

The GOP might conciously decide to become a white rural party but that's not the way to win a national election. What common cause to Hispanic Catholics have with lGBTQ identity politicians and BLM activiests? How is the Black American family doing right now? Did the lasts 8 years provide the Change they Hoped for? We would all be better off if we would focus efforts on returing ourselves to an aspirational society and not a discriminatory "affirmative action" society. If state and national leaders aren't smart enough to understand that then we deserve better leadership and should vote it into office.

[optimax]

I should change my middle name from Lee to Emancipation before I get hanged. My mother didn't approve of his (father?) first choice -- Stonewall.

[elev8]

A poll showed 40% of blacks support tearing down the statues of Southern generals etc., but 44% of them think they should be kept.
I don't see a "riling up the base"-strategy as offering any hope of success.

[BillWade]

I'm with Fred on this: "We would all be better off if we would focus efforts on returing ourselves to an aspirational society and not a discriminatory "affirmative action" society. If state and national leaders aren't smart enough to understand that then we deserve better leadership and should vote it into office."

If we do that prospects of civil strife will diminish substantially.

I think Trump has lost his ideological base over the past few days with the departure of Bannon and will now let "Antifa" show themselves to be the complete idiots that they are (out of work, by choice, miscreants). If he can get the tax cuts done, keep the price of gas low, provide job availability, he'll have the majority of the people behind him, conservatives and liberals. The old media will now have to compete harder with the new media - the old media needs to get honest and fast.

[optimax]

Yes, it was my father who wanted my middle name to be Stonewall. His favorite history was Lee's Lieutenants. My paternal Grandmother's favorite book was Gone With the Wind. I think of GWTW as the white version of the Civil War just as Twelve Years a Slave is the black version. Both are true in their own way, if only part of the story. Unfortunately, the white version of the CW is taught by the cultural Marxists to the gullible youth to be a lie.

[Merasmus]

I take the Adolph Reed position that reparations based on offenses done to ones ancestors is inherently ludicrous, as well as a possible slippery slope. Because the reality is that every group has been a victim at some point or other.

That doesn't mean I oppose giving people money, or spending money to help them. Anyone that needs help should get it, not based on crimes committed against their ancestors, but simply because them being human and having a pulse should inherently entitle them to certain things. Humanist socialism, which I gather isn't a position likely to be popular around here. I'm one of those people who actually unironically believes in things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[Fred]

Merasmus,

You should read Article 16. The UN only recognizes 2 genders. They also agree with American conservatives:
"The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State."

It's a wonderful document.

[English Outsider]

Merasmus - you write " I'm one of those people who actually unironically believes in things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

The problem is that Human Rights don't enforce themselves. Here's an organisation that seems to attempt compliance:-

"The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations System inter-governmental body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights around the world. Its 47 seats are filled by member states elected for three-year terms."

I'm no cynic and I'm quite ready to accept that this organisation does a lot of good work, but neither this organisation not any other I know of ensures that millions of foreigners get one of the most basic human rights of all: the right not to be bombed, shelled or otherwise have their lives shattered as a result of the proxy wars or interventions you and I, through our respective governments, are committed to.

All this has been done, would you believe, in the name of "Freedom and Democracy", "R2P", "Western Values" and of course "Human Rights". Therefore we should not be too condemnatory of those who hear those terms that are so freely used by our politicians, and see behind them only piles of corpses.

[Merasmus]

...'kay? And that has to do with what?

[Fred]

Merasmus,

You really should keep up with the times in Oregon.
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/judge-grants-oregon-resident-right-be-genderless-n736971

[Merasmus]

@Fred

Okay and? This literally has nothing to do with anything I was talking about.

For the sake of argument though, there's a difference between sex and gender. And if someone wants to be legally genderless, fine, whatever. Explain how this impacts your life in anyway.

As for the importance of family as an institution, sure. But humans have a variety of different types of family structures and customs, so if you imagine it just means the American-style "one man, one woman, two-point-five kids, send grandpa to a home to die when he gets 'too old'" nuclear family, I've got news for you.

@English Outsider

I'm talking about the principles, not specifically about the UN as an institution. I also have no truck with human rights being used as an excuse to cover for empire, as when R2P has been used to justify military action.

I think it's pretty clear I was primarily talking about how a government treats and supports its own citizens, which is what this reparations issue is about.

[English Outsider]

Got the correction and glad to establish that common ground with you.

It's a narrow patch of common ground, though, that you and I occupy together. We are a small minority. To one side of us we have the great mass of those who, tacitly or explicitly, see nothing wrong with causing or allowing the killing of large numbers of foreigners in order to further the interests of their various countries. These are the unashamed proponents of the "Grand Chessboard". Even in Russia there are such - read Dugin for the worst of it, and don't let's pretend that Putin is a knight in shining armour in that respect - but because the West is so much more powerful at present it's us causing most of the deaths.

To the other side of us we have the great mass of Clinton Democrats who faint if they see a swastika at home but are happy to support Neo-Nazis abroad. That inconsistency is even more visible in Europe and destroys the moral authority of the broad left. Put that together with the support of the broad left for crony politics and that other moral authority the broad left used to have, an authority based on concern for the disadvantaged, evaporates.

"Real" left wingers often say to me "But we're not doing the whited sepulchre act. We're the genuine left and find the Clinton Democrats or the Blair socialists abhorrent too." We find that said indignantly on the Colonel's site, from time to time - "Don't put us in the same box as those frauds!" Such "real" left wingers might support Sanders, or Corbyn or Wagenknecht in Europe, and with them there's a lot of common ground, particularly on foreign policy and maybe often in domestic policy. Perhaps that's the small patch of common ground you and I occupy together, as I said above.

It's not common ground from which such as you and I can make common cause. That's because, lying athwart that patch of common ground, athwart too across racial or confessional differences and athwart our tribal or class differences, the great ideological rift of our times has widened to a gulf across which we can scarcely communicate, let alone cooperate.

How to define that rift? It's a feature of ideological rifts that definition is never easy and the rift itself means different things to different people. We can label the savage controversies of the past with some convenient tag but that gives us little insight into them. What were all those people tearing their societies apart over the difference between Homoiousios and Homoousios really on about? The economists and the historians can look at it from their various perspectives but really the best they can do is say "Here was an ideological war. We find these currents feeding into it. We give it this label. That's all we can manage."

So it is with the current rift. If we wish to be tendentious we can label it the battle between the Progressives and the ordinary person. If we wish to be tendentious the other way we can label it the battle between civilised values and deplorable values. There is no neutral label and we use whatever labels we wish. Coming into fashion are the labels of "progressive" and "traditionalist". I really dislike those labels because on the Continent "traditionalist" carries a lot of baggage with it that I find dubious in the extreme so I, unashamedly tendentious in this instance, prefer the labels "Progressive" and "Ordinary". Freely accepting, of course, that my ordinary is so far removed from yours that you're entitled to find a label equally tendentious the other way.

The Progressive, be he (it?) Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, CDU or SPD, believes that all human beings are in essence identical. Gender, cultural or national differences are superficial. Those differences are there mostly because of defective education or conditioning and the more advanced we are the less emphasis we place on them. Those who aren't advanced need to be helped to become more advanced. If they refuse such help that is because they are morally defective. Or deplorable, to use Mrs Clinton's famous term. Make no mistake. She honestly meant it.

Since we are, in essence, as like as peas in a pod it's within our powers to devise a blueprint for a more satisfactory society. One in which suffering, even evil, should not exist. We must strive for that better society and along the road we should do our best to minimise those superficial differences between us that at present are causing so much trouble.

That's the best I can do to define the term "Progressive." We can point to the fact that many who propound such views are just latching on to them for self-serving reasons. Or that they support them because they don't like to speak out against the fashion. But all ideological movements have hypocrites and the timid within their ranks. That doesn't mean they don't also have true believers in there as well. There are a lot of progressive true believers. The really fervent ones are buried deep in our universities and we don't see a lot of them. But those universities are the modern equivalent of theological seminaries and, as with the theologians and opinion formers of the past, we do see the results of their work. Live them, in fact.

The ordinary believes that each culture or sub-culture has its own ecology. That's constantly changing - ecologies do - but too sweeping a change and destruction rather than development results. The progressive wishes to destroy the past in order to build the future. The ordinary wishes to build on the past in order to transition to the future.

As I say, tracing out any ideological rift is not easy and the above attempt gives only pointers rather than an encyclopaedic definition. I think close definition is sub-contracted out to "Fred" on the Colonel's site, and "Fred's" more at home with this strange cult that dominates our current thinking, but those pointers I've attempted might serve as a rough guide.

I'm more at home with the manifestations of the cult. The difference between the progressive and the ordinary is this. The progressive sees a photograph of a bearded man six months pregnant and thinks "Coming along nicely, our society." The ordinary sees the same photograph and thinks "What the hell!". There's your rift.

How does this translate to politics? The progressive wishes to remove our past and will use any pretext to do so. People grounded in their heritage and culture are obstacles to his vision of progress. Let's take a prominent figure from the past, an iconic figure for many and the epitome of courageous endeavour for many more, whatever side their forbears supported - General Lee. Narrow down his motivation to a desire to perpetuate the institution of slavery - ahistorical but most will accept the stereotype. Associate those who are proud of their heritage, of their past, with neo-nazis and white supremacists. Widen that association to the deplorables generally. Widen it further to the President. Job done. We've weakened that bothersome pride in the past. We've further discredited the President. One more step on the path to progress as we see it.

I've watched the process from a distance and don't pretend to follow the entirety of it. But it's the most poisonous bit of politics I've seen in a while, and whatever common ground such as you and such as I might have - would have in happier circumstances - is swept away by a refusal to accept the cult, the way it's being advanced, and the breathtaking mendacity of those who stick labels like Nazi or White supremacist on any ordinary person who finds the cult repellent. Push any political stratagem too far and you get push back. I sense there's going to be push back on this one.

[Merasmus]

Honestly? What are you blabbering about?

"Gender, cultural or national differences are superficial. Those differences are there mostly because of defective education or conditioning and the more advanced we are the less emphasis we place on them. Those who aren't advanced need to be helped to become more advanced. If they refuse such help that is because they are morally defective. Or deplorable, to use Mrs Clinton's famous term. Make no mistake. She honestly meant it."

I've never heard any progressive claim culture didn't matter. The obsession with education as a panacea for all ills, as opposed to just giving people jobs and not throwing them in jail, is very much a liberal thing, not a progressive one. You seem to be projecting White Man's Burden imperialist ideas onto the left. From everything I've seen, the obsessive focus on 'moral failing' is very much a conservative one. The left would much rather focus on concrete material issues, like who owns the means of production and resources, and providing jobs to those who need them.

Clinton is a liberal (specifically a neo-liberal). She fundamentally hates significant portions of this country and views them as inherently defective. This attitude is widespread among liberals, and we really saw it come out in force after Trump won (all while claiming Loves Trumps Hate and how we shouldn't be divided and similar slogans, of course). Whereas the actual left has been hammering away at the point that whole swathes of the country were betrayed and abandoned by liberal Democrats, and have chosen to make a quite rational vote as a consequence. The solution is to stop throwing them under the bus and actually listen to them and address their complaints.

"There are a lot of progressive true believers. The really fervent ones are buried deep in our universities and we don't see a lot of them. But those universities are the modern equivalent of theological seminaries and, as with the theologians and opinion formers of the past, we do see the results of their work. Live them, in fact."

News to me. American universities, particularly the most prestigious ones, fundamentally produce people who serve power. This weird idea many conservatives seem to have the US colleges are filled with subversive commies or whatever, poisoning the minds of vulnerable youth, is amusing. Would that that were even 10% true; we might be living in a very different country.

[Fred]

Merasmus,

"American universities, particularly the most prestigious ones, fundamentally produce people who serve power. "

Perhaps you should see a bit more of the country than the South side of Portland.

[Fred]

You left out the courts.