Bellesiles argues that "[c]lass superseded race as the primary area of conflict; abolitionists became social [sic] Darwinists; onetime liberals came to see the wisdom of social control; those who fought for freedom demanded prohibition; elites battled to maintain their power in every corner of the country."
For this reason, and others, my sympathies were generally with Gates when he alleged abuse by the Cambridge Police Department. My main criticism of Gates was that he needlessly alienated potential support by failing to emphasize that many whites are also victims of this practice.
Gates, again, shows his willingness to think creatively in this piece for the New York Times:
But the sad truth is that the conquest and capture of Africans and their sale to Europeans was one of the main sources of foreign exchange for several African kingdoms for a very long time.....Did these Africans know how harsh slavery was in the New World? Actually, many elite Africans visited Europe in that era, and they did so on slave ships following the prevailing winds through the New World. For example, when Antonio Manuel, Kongo’s ambassador to the Vatican, went to Europe in 1604, he first stopped in Bahia, Brazil, where he arranged to free a countryman who had been wrongfully enslaved....
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to claim that Africans were ignorant or innocent.
Given this remarkably messy history, the problem with reparations may not be so much whether they are a good idea or deciding who would get them; the larger question just might be from whom they would be extracted.
Here is a segment from my all-time favorite"Outer Limits" episode. Some think that it was the inspiration for"The Terminator." The episode focuses on a soldier who comes from a future world dominanted by war where"the state is all." The writing reflects the fear of an all powerful government which was often apparent in science fiction shows during the 1960s such as the"Twilight Zone." Sadly, a modern writer would probably change this theme to something like"the corporation is all."
One of the news reports ironically concluded that the country was in safe hands because Harry S. Truman was the"second best informed" person about the war. Of course, later historians, and Truman himself, have noted that a dying Roosevelt kept his veep almost completely in the dark about the progress of the war.
Much of the fuss about the story appears to be directed at a paragraph that calls for a defense of liberal social programs. People seem to think that this is an example of anarchist hypocrisy about statism. Again, this story is the opinion of one person. Several anarchists we've talked to this week have expressed criticism of the call, pointing out that it represents a liberal take on the Tea Party movement. One anarchist pointed out that several of the links in the story point to articles on liberal websites.
Hat tip, Jesse Walker.
Now, if the General would take the next logical step of calling for us to withdraw from the Afghan disaster, he might actually go down as a true hero in the annals of military history.
If the tea party movement takes over this country they will really hurt poor people by getting rid of social programs like food stamps, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, student aid, free health care, etc
The first demonstration in detail - a true ”smoking gun” - of CRU scientists’ intent to defeat FOIA requests has appeared. It is long and compelling. As one might expect, it is written by one of the participants.The author is Willis Eschenbach, a name climateaudit.org regulars will recognize and whose contributions there are much admired.
The heart of the scandal involves denial of transparency in an effort to make replication of the CRU global temperature records, raw and adjusted, impossible. This is the real scientific crime here. It means making fulfillment of legitimate FOIA requests impossible.
Accordingly the insider leaking the CRU data dump announced it by posting under the nom deguerre"FOIA."
A diverse group of progressives, conservatives, and libertarians, including David Henderson of the Independent Institute, lawyer-activist Kevin Zeese, Jesse Walker of Reason, and historian Paul Buhle, have met with the goal of"bringing together conservatives, progressives, liberals and libertarians who oppose American militarism and Empire."
The website of the group, tentatively named Come Home, America Citizens Opposed to U.S. Militarism and Empire, is here and suggestions, and volunteers, are welcome.
I saw a huge new billboard in San Francisco the other day—part of the $350 million ad campaign supporting this year’s $14 billion Census—picturing an American Indian in full regalia against a black background, apparently in the process of worshiping the sky, with the stylized text “Tell your story.”If he’s wise, he might want to think twice about thereby providing information that can be used against him.
As examples, 1940 Census data was released and used to locate and intern Americans of Japanese, Italian and German descent, as outlined in these stories from Scientific American, “Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II: Government documents show that the agency handed over names and addresses to the Secret Service,” and USA Today, “Papers show Census role in WWII camps.”
Clearly, there were some very, very odd transactions that went down which may, or may not, have been abnormally facilitated by the Fed. Was this a normal Fed wire, or something more convoluted? My sense has always been that there was something a bit extraordinary about the way the funds went through the Fed system. It does smell, for sure, and to ask about it is not bizarre.
The crowd reflexively laughed at Dr. No's perceived looniness and pundits have already depicted his concerns as"wild" and"odd."
Well, it seems that Paul may have been onto something...or at the very least raised legitimate questions that deserve investigation. A few minutes on google news produced this 1982 story from the Milwaukee Sentinel by Richard Bradee of the paper's Washington Bureau:
"Police who searched the room the Watergate burglars used found $4,200 in $100 dollar bills, all numbered in sequence. Proxmire asked the Federal Reserve Board where the money came from. As he explained in a letter to the late Rep. Wright Patman (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Banking Committee:"I got the biggest run-around in years. They ducked, misled, lied, and gave me the idiot treatment."
