There are negative effects of living on unearned money, be it reparations or a family fortune.
I believe the time has come to share some personal stories I've told in private with a larger audience of readers because it will give people some perspective on the Obama slavery reparations argument, a perspective that goes beyond the obvious fight over money and political control.
My father started World War II in the Polish Army as a heavy machine gunner. Later, after he was wounded in battle and came to live in a town, the Germans conscripted him for slave labor, repairing railroad tracks that were bombed by the Allies (mostly the Russians, I would presume). After the War, he filed a claim for restitution for slave labor and received a pension from the German government for the rest of his life.
In the days preceding my father's pending death, an experienced hospice nurse visited our apartment and told me that he didn't have long to live. I contacted the German Embassy in New York and enquired about what would be the procedures to end payment of these funds. It turned out that the rules were the same as for American Social Security checks: if a person dies before the first of the month, the money has to be returned to the issuer of the check. That was the situation my dad died under and I returned the check to the Germans and notified the Social Security Administration.
The slave labor reparations were not a legacy, passed down to any surviving spouse or children. For many years, my dad needed the money from those German checks. Needless to say, the Germans interrupted any higher education or job training plans he might have had. Years before, I had met the spokesman of the Holocaust survivors in New York, Benjamin Meed, a man often seen on local television. There is a database center at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum named after him and his wife. I was told that Mr. Meed had refused to take the reparations money from the Germans for the slave labor he did, calling it "blood money." I can't ascertain if this is true or myth – and don't believe his grown daughter, who I once met, or his other grown child would be so interested in discussing this with me, a virtual stranger, over the phone. Meed developed an import-export business in New York, according to Wikipedia.
I don't fault my father for taking the reparations payments or Mr. Meed for not taking them. The second part of the previous sentence seems odd, but last year I briefly met a distant relative whose parents were not in Europe during World War II who both faulted Mr. Meed for not taking the payments and, incredibly, myself for not keeping the checks after my father's death (whether they meant cashing them or just filling up a drawer, it would be an illegal activity). After I got over the shock of the impulsive remark and advice, I replied that I wasn't planning to re-fight World War II via the US Postal Service.
It has been said that Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty was a stealth reparations payment for black slavery. Paul Sperry wrote an article on Obama using government programs to create a stealth reparations program for US slavery over 140 years ago.
Whatever opinion I voice here is anecdotal and I'm sure that there are millions who won't agree with me. But the US government, in forcing Germany to pay reparations to the Jews, did not make it a multi-generational legacy, like a family that might own the patents to air conditioning or Jell-o or (famously) the Webster's Dictionary. The Democrats bemoan the not-consumed-by-taxes inheritance that Paris Hilton lives on, but they wish to create an inheritance for people far removed from slavery.
In the book The Golden Ghetto, the Psychology of Affluence by Jessie O'Neill, the author, a psychologist, talks about her life as the granddaughter of a one-time General Motors president and the negative effects of living on money she and her family didn't earn then had on her. If one wants to think that there are no negative effects of living on unearned money to be dealt with, be it reparations or a family fortune, one is deluding oneself. And righteous anger, be it authentic or self-created, won't change that.
Mr. Kemp doesn’t really offer evidence that Obama is proposing reparations for slavery. He’s simply paraphrasing the other rightwing demonizers of Obama who have been playing this theme since Obama emerged as a presidential hopeful. I took a quick look at AIM and several other sites where this attack on Obama appears, and not a smoking gun did I see. This whole line of rightwing nastiness is basically nothing more than a covert way of voicing opposition to Obama’s health care proposals. Obama has actually said that he does NOT support reparations, but to many confused conservatives, Obama’s denial actually counts as proof that he DOES support reparations. Call this the law of inverse propositions–what Obama doesn’t say is what he means, and what he says is what he doesn’t mean. Sound a little goofy? Yeah, it does.
“I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it’s Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.” (Obama’s comments during a meeting with members of UNITY ’08)
Or maybe not: “There’s enough flexibility in the term ‘reparations’ that Obama can oppose them and still have plenty of common ground with supporters.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/02/obama-opposes-slavery-rep_n_116506.html
One thing is certainly true, “right-wing nastiness” is a vapid observation.
MM: Gestell’s agenda has already been exposed. See the comment section to http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2010/01/11/you-cant-say-that/
Not only does he have no real grasp of American politics, he applies a methodology to analyzing Conservatism that he refuses to apply to Liberalism. This allows him to make his vapid comment about “rightwing nastiness” while exonerating the Left from accountability for anything they believe, say or do.
“There are negative effects of living on unearned money, be it reparations or a family fortune.”
Amen,
let’s tax inheritance at 100%. And ban gifts to children.
Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit. Let’s just tax inheritances of families fortunes at a sufficiently high level to ensure children of rich parents have to earn their own way. Cap inheritance at, say, 100K.
Yeah! What right do those bastard rich people have to bequeath their private property to their progeny upon their death? Just because you own something doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want with it!
Or even better – how DARE those bastard rich people subject their poor, innocent children (well, not poor at any rate) to the negative consequences of getting lots of money from their parents!
Of course that’s sarcasm. We all know better than that. Such a shame those socialist ideals of Roosevelt took root and grew, huh? Can you imagine – not only did he try to introduce high inheritance taxes – but that man once said conservation was a “national duty”?
Mountain Man:
Why don’t you put the rest of Obama’s quote when he said that in?
“I have said in the past, and I’ll repeat again, that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed.”
oh, that’s right – it doesn’t seem as ominous in context. That’s why we’ve got to quote out of context…
Why is it that some people think that the great thing about our country is that it is a land of EQUAL opportunity, and yet can simultaneously believe that poor kids do not have a right to good schools and children of rich parents should get their inheritances tax free?
I have submitted an article to Intellectual Conservative to address the issue of death taxes and how they hurt small businesses which own machinery and buildings, making them – on paper – worth millions. Today you can see the site I quote twice, http://www.nodeathtax.org for the essence of what I say, and more.
I’ve written a piece to address Death Taxes and the problems with leaving adult children of business owners a forced sale. Hopefully Mr. Alexander will post it.
I’m having trouble posting comments here myself today.
The plight of the typical small business owner who has some buildings and machinery and wants to leave the business to their adult children is taken up at http://www.nodeathtax.org
After the NY Times wrote editorials condemning those that transfer title to their property to their wive’s names, guess who did the same? Pinch Sulzberger of the NY Times.
http://www.nysun.com/article/72232
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03032008/gossip/pagesix/penny_pincher_100200.htm
Sulzberger’s wife later in the year filed for divorce.
http://ready2beat.com/current-news/general-news/caroline-kennedy-has-affair-arthur-sulzberger-jr/linkout?link=http://www.nytpick.com/2008/12/should-nyt-report-rumored-sulzberger.html?widgetType=BlogArchive&widgetId=BlogArchive1&action=toggle&dir=close&toggle=YEARLY-1230786000000&toggleopen=MONTHLY-1230786000000
Speaking of using only partial quotes, here’s one from 1964:
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Why wasn’t Barry Goldwater recognized as man of “virtue”, instead of a man of “extremism?” Could it be that, as with Obama, saying something isn’t necessarily perceived as meaning something?
It’s actions and policies that speak loudly, not words like “I’m going to close Gitmo in a year”, “my stimulus package will create X million private sector jobs”, “my bailout package will keep unemployment under 8%”, “I’m going to run the most transparent government ever”, “health care negotiations will be on C-Span”, “there will be no lobbyists influencing my administration”, “my health care plan will be deficit neutral” (— I guess this one is okay as long as we look at 5 years of benefits and 10 years of taxes), “there will be no tax increases on anyone making less than $250,000 year”, “I won’t tax health care benefits”, etc., etc.
Yep. It’s the context that always matters. The context of actions, not rhetoric.