Zev - I totally misrepresented myself with that question. I certainly am not arguing the point that the anti-Semitism of the Nazis has deep roots, I was wondering more about the evolution of anti-Semitic propaganda emanating from the Nazis as their political development progressed from an extremist sect to a national political entity.
I’ll try to get back to the rest of the posts here a little later today; my boss is back in today and I have paperwork to shuffle. 
Consider how Haitians are treated in your country, Mighty_Girl, and how your cedula specifies your skin color. That might give you a glimpse how American blacks were treated pre-1960s.
I have to disagree with you on that count. Your statement only makes sense if discrimination doesn’t really exist- a blind man can see that it does, and no one would choose to be a target.
I mentioned that in response to a claim that no one had been attacked based on their race. If you would read the damn thread you would see that I retracted that statement after re-reading the comment and seeing that Mighty Girl wasn’t talking about the US.
You see people not wanting to take responsibility for their failure, I see plenty of people lashing out angrily at people who suffered and still suffer from discrimination. I see people who don’t want to admit that the real world isn’t a Horatio Alger story, that their success has been on the backs of others and that people don’t have the same chance of success in this country.
I said on page one of this thread that I think reparations are a bad idea, but the rage that some people react to the mere concept with is disturbing.
Grendel72** and Bricker, you’re BOTH right. There’s no question that racism is alive and well in America, and that poor people of color have a double bar to progress and economic self-sufficiency.
Yet, there are also people who use their skin color as an excuse for their personal failures. To take an extreme case, when Michael Jackson blames his recent flop album on racism, rather than on his own tainted reputation and lack of insight into current pop trends, and be believed by at least some black people, then you know there’s a problem with thr current cult of victimization.
While agreeing with the general thrust of your post, it should be noted that such efforts to eradicate the bigotry have been carried out by the Federal government (sometimes sporadically) not for 150 years, but for barely fifty years in U.S. courts and barely forty years in Congress, with numerous occasions in which the Feds were an active agent opposing equal treatment–segregation of the Navy after 1900, removal of blacks from all management positions in the Post Office and some other departments during the Wilson administration, continued funding of the Tuskegee Study following the development of penicillin (i.e., for 32 years of its 40 year span), the current drug policies that make penalties for “inner city” drugs more severe than equivalent “suburban” drugs.
In the long run, the best arguments against reparations are that they are inherently unworkable and that such an unwieldy plan will invite an unnecessary backlash.
Tom, Krauthammer’s for reparations? Yikes.
I agree that the best argument is “unworkable,” but I’m worried some will take this as license to rework it, when their efforts would be better served elsewhere.
For instance, I think the best thing we could do as a country to combat racism is not X number of dollars redistributed on a racial basis, but the following paragraph, said aloud:
“I, Colin Powell, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Just one man’s opinion.
I agree with Ace that a black president will be a great improvement upon society.
As I am in a young enough generation to have not grown up with outright racism (I have certainly seen some nasty people) I used to ask people about this issue a lot.
The best answer I ever received is that there are a lot of retired folks that vote and their generation still sees in black and white rather than quality of person.
So I have been waiting for the generation in power to progress to a point when our president will not have to be white to stand a chance.
Please, I beg your forgiveness! Heaven forbid I should correct a simple error that appeared to be leading a poster into unfounded indignation! May I continue to read your thread, mswas?
ps - I don’t think a black president will resolve the issue of reparations.
Also, I think that if reparations were paid out I don’t believe that they would need to be continuously paid. It would be a payout, a one time transfer of monies as an inheritance. I don’t believe the payments will be linked to company profits and paid out like dividends.
Even though the people in concentration camps did not receive large payments in the form of compensation monies, there was still a victory in the fact that the companies paid out something.
occ, I had noticed that Mighty Girl wasn’t talking about the US and had stated that I was wrong before your post showed up. Let’s just say we’re both guilty of not reading closely enough and posting in the heat of the moment.
Uh, Ace, you do know that Colin Powell is Republican, don’t you?
some payouts happened and now the IRS wants the money back and people might end up paying fines for not giving the money right back…
(sorry I am not link savvy)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/13/national/main506099.shtml
Looks like I retain my capacity to suprise you, Gobear.
You on the other hand, are utterly predictable. Poor stereotype, childish retort. If you go on vacation, let me know. I’ll write an very small shell script to replace you – I very much doubt anyone would notice.
Yeah, it was late, and all that, when I first posted. My apologies to you, and to mswas if I came off as obnoxiously cynical.
Olentzero, I feel a little bit unjustified in bringing this up since you’ve elaborated on your question about the roots of Nazi scientific theories, but I can’t let it alone.
Something that isn’t mentioned with nearly enough frequency is the source and justification of some of the Nazi party’s eugenics programs.
It’s tempting to place all of the guilt on a universally vilified political group-- it makes it easier to pretend that it’s a singularly egregious sociological anomaly. Unfortunately, a large part of the Nazis’ practical “solution” to their perceived (or projected) problem can be traced back to Canadian origins.
See the Sexual Sterilization Act, which was ostensibly intended to improve the gene pool by excluding “mental defectives.” In practice, the vast majority of people to fall under the act were aboriginal people, who were determined to be sub-par intellectually after doing poorly on a series of patently eurocentric questionaires. Canada’s eugenics programs continued until the early 1970’s, since nobody successfully made war on us.
The Nazis were able to implement eugenics as policy because they were able to point to “forward-thinking” nations like Canada who had already done the same. The scientific justification used was primarily the work of Madge Macklin, an American scientist who went on to found the Canadian Eugenics Society.
Grendel:
In regards to victimization. Gobear summed it up rather nicely, and I’d like to go a step further and say that the culture of victimization is not limited to racial lines. I’ll give two examples.
A person hurts themselves through their own negligence (poors hot coffee into their lap) and sues for it.
A 35 year old blames their parents for their dating inadequacies.
These both transcend racial boundaries. Clearly it is not impossible for for black people to be successful. I’ve met quite a few who are pretty successful in many different fields, people I would definitely look up to. Colin Powell for instance. Whom, I would vote for and even work on his campaign, despite the fact that he’s a republican. 
It also saddens me every time they talk to a successful black person and the first thing the interviewer asks is what it was like having to come up the ranks as a black person. That rankles me, many times I’ve seen the exact same scenario with a white person born of poor immigrants, yet people ask them what it was like coming from a poor background, not from a racial background. Racism persists in all these little subtle divisions we make. Colin Powell, is just one of the smartest, most thoughtful men in Washington, in my estimation. The fact that he has black skin is about as relevant as the fact that Bush has brown hair and Clinton had greying hair. I would certainly not vote for him because he’s black.
I’d like to see a bunch of white people and black people get on the same bus to Washington to have a million person march on an issue that affects both of them, like poverty and how schools in poor districts are inferior to schools in wealthy districts, regardless of race.
As for the second part about Amadou Diallo, that wasn’t directed at you. Sorry that I didn’t make that clear.
Erek
How was it a “childish retort?” How was I stereotyping? In that other thread, you poured out venom on Republicans, ALL Republicans. Why does Colin Powell, a Republican, get your approval, when he carries out the policies of George W. Bush, somebody you are on record as calling a fool and a villain. It’s a genuine question that I think deserves an answer.
There’s lots of good conservatives. Even some good Republicans. Entirely consistent with what I said in the previous thread. Feel free to re-read it, and e-mail me with any discrepancies, rather than further this hijack.
Colin Powell is on life-support in this administration, specifically because he does not argues against the policies. That he eventually carries them out is testament to his adherence military protocol, not his personal views.
er. ‘argues against the policies he eventually carries out. That he does,…’
Well, that depends.
Say Colin Powell becomes the next US president (fingers crossed!). If he then takes a position against reparations, and promised to focus the funds on inner city educational programs, cultural integration, and other awareness programs, that might sit a hell of a lot better with the black population than if a white President had said the same.