During the Civil War, Lincoln offered to buy out the (Union) Maryland slavers @ $300/person, but they turned him down. Doh!
I’m still wondering what happened to the northern slave mortgage holders, but no one talks about slavery capitalism and the Civil War. (You have to start at the Panic of 1837 and crab-walk towards it.)
From the article. Gunboat diplomacy indeed.
"France’s demand of payments in exchange for recognizing Haiti’s independence was delivered to the country by several French warships in 1825, twenty-one years after Haiti’s declaration of independence in 1804."
It was originally put in place because the Southern Pacific Railway had essentially total capture of California politics in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. The progressive movement introduced a lot more ‘direct democracy’ measures, including direct election of senators, the intiiative, the referendum, and the recall.
It is unsurprising that capitalism has once again managed, with the help of bought-and-paid-for judiciary, to flip the law’s intent on its head.
Kind of ironic given that how R’s are now desperately using this process hoping to install an R governor with a minority vote and then for Feinstein to subsequently croak so a non-elected R can be appointed to her seat.
The numbers are scary:
Diane Feinstein is 88, theres a 10.3% chance she dies before she’s 89.
Breyer is 83, there’s a 7.6% chance he dies before he’s 84.
Because Feinstein is a special unique snow flake? How is she different from the other female 88 year old Senators? (If by that, you mean there are other factors like race, education, income level, etc. that could further define her percentage, just say that.) Her chances are between 8% and 12%: still not comforting.
If she gave a crap about that, she would have retired and helped elevate a younger Democrat into the position. But she doesn’t give a fuck; she cares about herself.
Let’s not go there, please. This exact same line of bullshit was spewed when RBG died. It wasn’t fair then, and it’s not fair now.
Not how actuarial tables work.
That 10.3% of 88 year olds will die this year and that Feinstein has a 10.3% chance of dying this year are completely different things. The first is well grounded while the second is pointless speculation.
I don’t think RBG is the same thing at all.
Justices seem way more serving in their duties, and politicians way more self serving. A Justice shouldn’t be a political position - unlike being a Senator.
Feinstein may be a Democrat, but I don’t think a majority of people would view her views as exceptionally “progressive”. “Not as bad as a Republican” still isn’t “good”.
But beyond that (and the fact that many slave owners were, in fact, compensated), the very nature of slavery is that it involves stealing the fruits of the enslaved person’s labor. Enslaving someone meant one had already received ill-gotten financial benefit - reparations would be money given on top of a fortune gained from theft, to compensate the slave owner for their inability to continue stealing. It becomes doubly grotesque when talking about the descendants of slave owners, as I presume he is, because the long-term impact of slavery and its repeal on their families was to make them richer than they otherwise would have been.
It’s fair when talking about Feinstein because, by all accounts, she’s not been able to do her job for quite a while because of serious cognitive decline. (Not that I’ve ever been happy with the job she was doing.) She’s part of the Dem gerontocracy that’s not been grooming younger Democrats to take leadership positions because they never had any intention of leaving before they died, and apparently don’t care what happens once they’re gone. It’s been disastrous for the party, which is theoretically something they should be caring about.
Yes, exactly. Politics is a long game and a team effort. It is one of the things that weakens them as a party. Well said.
I don’t disagree with many of your points, but on the other hand she keeps winning elections, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Comments like “she should have quit years ago” often strike me as being sexist and/or ageist, and not particularly helpful to the discussion.
Good grief. Apparently, being a raving Loon is a prerequisite in order to have an ‘R’ by your name on the ballot.
Nope. Not even close.
He is a Fascist Death Cultist, to be more accurate. That is what so-called ‘conservatives’ have morphed into… or maybe always were, & were just masquerading under the semi-respectable moniker of ‘conservative’.
From the linked article:
In the 2000 column, Elder wrote “Women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events. Good news for Democrats, bad news for Republicans. For the less one knows, the easier the manipulation.”
Well, Larry, looks like only the last sentance of that utterance is correct.
But, we don’t need to be reminded just which side is chock-full of gullible shills, now do we…
First of all, they are long-dead, Larry.
Second of all, they had no business having slaves in the first place.
Third of all, their victims are the ones to whom reparations are owed.
You don’t know about the Law of Holes, do you, Larry?
Not in the time period his mind lives in.
The short version, as the Wikipedia entry explains, is that the money was interest on loans that the Haitian government had had to take out to finance the indemnity payments.
And a game Republicans have been playing better than Democrats. I would love it if the gamesmanship weren’t rewarded, but that’s how our system works. Even on the Supreme Court, I think the GOP has outplayed the Democrats. Since JFK took office in 1961, Democrats have held the White House for 29 years (counting this year as Biden’s first) to the GOP’s 32. And yet, the GOP have placed 16 Justices on the Supreme Court in that time to the Democrats’ 8. Now maybe that’s just luck, but I can’t help but think about Justice Kennedy retiring in 2018, allegedly under some pressure from GOP leadership, while RBG didn’t retire during Obama’s terms. And now we have Breyer also not retiring (yet). Now, I don’t think that kind of gamesmanship was going on in the 60s and 70s, but who knows? If it was, the Democrats certainly weren’t playing it. Thurgood Marshall retired while Bush I was in office, and that’s how we got Thomas. Of course, his health was already declining and he died two years later, so he may have been trying to hold out and just couldn’t do it any longer. A lot of this is speculation, I’ve just long found it odd how many more Justices have been appointed by Republicans. Even if you go back to the beginning of the Republican Party, Republicans have appointed 57 Justices to the Democrats’ 28. Granted, the parties were very different then, but still…it’s odd.
Democrats like RBG and Thurgood Marshall insist on dying in office,
to be replaced by their alternative-universe evil doppelganger:
Thurgood Marshall / Clarence Thomas
RBG / Amy Barrett
Meanwhile Republicans dutifully fall in line and resign:
Sandra Day O’Connor / Alito
Anthony Kennedy / Kavanaugh
They’re all dead that’s one basic reason.
Which is why they are doing it.
