Slave Reparations

[Gonzo]

AMENDMENT XIII

Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Huge story in the USA today(02/22/02). Instead of going after the government, it's corporations. Among them, Aetna, FleetBoston.

It was bad. It was legal. It IS over. Get on with life.

 

[fury]

It happened in the past. It didn't happen in the here and now. It won't happen any other time either. The suffering is over for the victims of slavery. I say fuhgeddaboutit. The US shouldn't pay them. That would only make the descendants of slaves lazy, like unemployment checks make the bums lazy. We don't need any more laziness in this country, in fact we could do without the laziness we have now!

 

[s4]

FUCK NO

 

[alex]

That would only make the descendants of slaves lazy, like unemployment checks make the bums lazy.

Don't you mean WELFARE CHECKS ?

 

[patweb]

When they start charging the decendents with the crimes of their ancestors, then I am all for it. Otherwise, who suffered from the loss? Many would argue that the decendents of slaves were better off than the people they left in tribal Africa (I won't argue that supposition).

 

[Shadowfax]

Hell no they shouldn't! Same thing like happening to the Jews at the moment, only that happened a shorter while ago, in the era 1940 ~ 1945...
It sounds harsh, but they really shouldn't pay those people. They apologised over and over again and a few thousand wouldn't make things forget.

It happened in a whole other time frame. We shouldn't forget, perhaps, but like Gonzo said, get on with life!

 

[Gonzo]

The American government paid the Americans of Japanese ancestry in, about 1997, for travesties from the WWII era. The difference is, slavery was legal-taking the homes & businesses & material goods of American citizens wasn't. If some more AofJA come forward in 150 years they will be entitled to nothing because there are no remaining victims.

 

[AMDnut]

No stinkin' way!!!

 

[s4]

i'm not going to say what i really think on this topic

 

[Gonzo]

Go ahead S4, we're a week behind on anything good to fight about.

 

[Gonzo]

it has started:

From Peter Viles
CNN Money Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Attorneys for a former law student, who discovered evidence linking U.S. corporations to the slave trade, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday that could seek billions of dollars in reparations for the descendants of slaves in America.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn names FleetBoston Financial, the railroad firm CSX and the Aetna insurance company, and promises to name up to 100 additional corporations at a later date.

It accuses the companies of conspiracy, human rights violations, unjust enrichment from their corporate predecessors' roles in the slave trade and conversion of the value of the slaves' labor into their profits.

Why aren't they in Brazil or the Sudan or any of 100 other countries stopping slavery TODAY???

 

[flavio]

S4 are you pro-slavery or something? What's the secret?

 

[Gonzo]

His great great great grand parents were the original slave owners, only they prefered buxom blonde slavs over africans

 

[Gonzo]

on a serious note, if one dollar is "settled" or this goes to court & wins, will we see the next american revolution?

I for one have a household that can't be held accountable. My fathers family was in AZ before it was a state & the US came to us. My wifes father was born in Italy & immigrated when he was 3 or 4. Her mothers family wasn't here until the 1890's. Even with the government not the actual defendent, we will all end up paying for it. Higher insurance premiums, higher shipping rates which in turn means inflation at the consumer level.

Watch this very closely.

added for humor value:

 

[Gonzo]

we're already paying and it's a hoax on our idiot IRS

IRS pays imaginary slavery tax credit
Washington Post

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service, flooded by more than 100,000 tax returns seeking non-existent slavery-tax credits, mistakenly paid out more than $30 million in erroneous refunds in 2000 and 2001.
One IRS employee is under investigation for allegedly helping process returns that claimed the credit, officials said Friday. At least 12 current and former IRS employees, all low-level workers in processing centers, applied to receive the credit.

While it has been known for years that some fraud artists advertised the false credit and offered to help blacks get it - for a fee - this is the first indication the cost to the government has been as high as $30 million.

Many of the mistaken payments, including one to a former IRS employee, were for $43,209.

That's the figure Essence magazine suggested in an article on the subject in 1993 as being the updated value of 40 acres and a mule - which some freed slaves were briefly given during the Civil War.

Claims for the reparation credit totaled $2.7 billion just in 2001, an IRS spokesman said.

The tax agency is now trying to recover the money it paid out, though officials would not disclose how much has been collected.

In one case, a taxpayer received $500,000 in refunds, and the IRS said "most" of the money was returned after it sued.

"You've got to look at the big picture," IRS spokesman Terry Lemons said.

"Our system does catch the vast, vast majority of these. But things happen, and a check goes through," he said.

Starting Monday, the IRS will begin levying a $500 fine on taxpayers who do not withdraw the claim if they have been caught.

A number of prominent blacks have pushed for some sort of compensation for the nation's legacy of slavery, but no law has been enacted.

The IRS has waged a high-profile campaign to alert blacks about the marketing of the false credit claims. The agency previously has conceded it has mistakenly paid some claims, but an investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration concluded last month it was significantly higher than reported.

The agency used to rely on manual detection to catch the false claims, but has begun using a computer program that identified 96 percent of returns seeking the credit.

Officials say the reparations credit claims began appearing on tax filings after the Essence article cited the $43,209, and many of the returns seek exactly that amount.