NOTE: At some point, before bed, I read through 50+ news sources and share my findings here. If you like it, share it. If you don’t, share it. Follow my blog now to support my work or to find new reasons to complain about it. My opinions are my own. All tips are welcome as well as comments on my video series – The Jim Stroud Show.
The Federal Government Paid a Billion Dollars to Keep Negative Vaccine News Out of the Mainstream Media
Every day I think things cannot get any crazier then, I am proven wrong by the kind of revelations I am about to share with you today. You will not hear about it in the mainstream news nor, on two of the most popular conservative networks on the air today – Fox and Newsmax. (Wow!) This is as shocking as it is nauseating. From The Blaze…
In response to a FOIA request filed by TheBlaze, HHS revealed that it purchased advertising from major news networks including ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as cable TV news stations Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, legacy media publications including the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, digital media companies like BuzzFeed News and Newsmax, and hundreds of local newspapers and TV stations. These outlets were collectively responsible for publishing countless articles and video segments regarding the vaccine that were nearly uniformly positive about the vaccine in terms of both its efficacy and safety.
Hundreds of news organizations were paid by the federal government to advertise for the vaccines as part of a “comprehensive media campaign,” according to documents TheBlaze obtained from the Department of Health and Human Services. The Biden administration purchased ads on TV, radio, in print, and on social media to build vaccine confidence.
So, how much did the government pay the media to promote positive stories about the vaccine? Another quote from the same Blaze article.
Congress appropriated$1 billion in fiscal year 2021 for the secretary of health to spend on activities to “strengthen vaccine confidence in the United States.”
This is one of the BIGGEST news stories – ever, that will likely NOT be reported in the mainstream news – ever! At least one person agrees with me. Here is a quote from Emerald Robinson. Who is that? She is an independent journalist who served as the chief White House correspondent for Newsmax (2020-2022) and for One America News (2017-2020). I guess you can add whistleblower to her resume as well. She said this on her SubStack.
That is the largest and most comprehensive breach of journalistic ethics that has ever occurred. Almost everybody took the money. Almost everybody lied about the vaccines (knowingly or unknowingly). Almost everybody refused to report anything negative about the vaccines — because they were paid to close their eyes. Almost everybody is implicated.
And here is another quote from Emerald Robinson from the same article.
In other words, the Biden Administration’s money did not just pay for pro-vaccine advertising at outlets like Fox and Newsmax: it paid for an outright ban on any negative coverage. There’s a word for that kind of thing, and the word is: propaganda.
This should be discussed on every news channel in the world, but it won’t be because of money. Did you hear how Pfizer lobbied to keep information about the potential adverse effects of the vaccine secret for 75 years? No? Guess why.
NOTE: At some point, before bed, I read through 50+ news sources and share my findings here. If you like it, share it. If you don’t, share it. Follow my blog now to support my work or to find new reasons to complain about it. My opinions are my own. All tips are welcome as well as comments on my video series – The Jim Stroud Show.
UKRAINE: If you follow the money, you realize war was inevitable.
Today, I learned a new word – inviolate. It means to be “not corrupted, defiled, or profaned; chaste; pure” according to Wordnik which aggregates the meaning of words from various dictionaries. I heard it from President Joe Biden’s Deputy National Security Advisor Johnathan Finer on CNN (of all places) when he explained to why Americans should care about Ukraine. He said, and I quote…
…borders should be inviolate …sovereignty should be respected.
When I heard him say that I thought I did not hear him correctly. How could he say that when the American southern border is practically non-existent due to all the illegal immigrants encouraged to cross by the Biden administration? Law Enforcement Today reported that over 2 million migrants illegally entered the United States in 2021 alone. So, where was the talk of chaste borders from the Biden administration then or now? But just in case you think I am making it up, check out the video below.
Biden’s Deputy National Security Adviser says Americans should care about Ukraine because “borders should be inviolate…sovereignty should be respected.” pic.twitter.com/oRC6ymfLSz
I am no expert on Ukraine and the politics between them and Russia. However, I am highly skeptical of how American interests intersect. On the other hand, I see how the personal interests of politicians are at play. At its core, the catalyst of Russian aggression is this: Ukraine wants to be a member of NATO and Russia does not want them to be. Republic World explained it this way…
Notably, Ukraine is a former Soviet republic and shares a border with Russia and the European Union. Though Ukraine is not a member of the intergovernmental military alliance, it is a “partner country”. According to NATO, if a county is not “an alliance” but “a partner”, it means that the country can join the group in the future. It is to be noted that Russia wants Ukraine to never join the alliance and therefore it is now seeking assurance from the Western powers.
On the other hand, the United States — which is also a member of NATO — stands in support of Ukraine saying, “it is a sovereign nation and therefore it is the right of Kyiv to decide on its own security alliances.”
Earlier, there were some reports stating “Ukraine does not want to join the NATO alliance and it was the Western countries which are forcing it to join. However, a spokesman for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed such media reports and asserted that “Ukraine remains committed to its aspirations to join the alliance and the European Union as set out in its constitution.”
On the other hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Western powers are using the alliance to surround Russia,” as reported by BBC. As per the report, President Putin wants NATO to cease its military activities in eastern Europe.
Sooo… If Ukraine’s entry into NATO means a war and a BIG destabilization in Europe then, why wouldn’t the United States (continue to) say (basically), “Ukraine we love you, but its not a good idea. No NATO for you.” Such was the posture in the last administration and as far back as 1991 when Ukraine gained its full independence. So what happened? Why the change now? There is great speculation that it comes down to money. Let’s consider the evidence, as circumstantial as it is. #Sarcasm
Joe Biden and Hunter Biden fly to Ukraine on Air Force 2. Afterwards, Hunter gets a job with Burisma of which he is woefully unqualified for but gets an extraordinary amount of money because of it ($1,000,000.00 annually). Joe Biden explains that nothing about the Burisma deal was fishy at all in the video below. The interviewer is rightfully curious as to what Ukraine was really getting with the employment of Hunter Biden. (Just as any other rational person would.)
It seems that certain Ukrainian authorities were wondering what was up between Burisma and the Bidens as well and launched an investigation into the matter. Joe Biden hears about it and has Ukraine fire the prosecutor who was looking into it. Joe Biden later bragged about it openly.
To be fair, it was not only Joe Biden trying to stop the prosecutor from doing his job. John Kerry and Obama played a role in it too. Kerry explains this quite passionately in the video below.
The open secret in DC, it seems, is that Ukraine is a big money laundering operation for certain elites and has been for awhile. Rudy Giuliani has been on that bandwagon for awhile now. Have you heard about it in the mainstream media? I doubt it. Here is one clip where he talks about it with Glenn Beck in 2019.
After hearing that, I did a bit more digging. (Here I go down the rabbit hole.) And I stumble across several connections between political families and Ukraine energy companies. For example, Nancy Pelosi’s son – Paul Pelosi has been investigated by the FBI for his dealings. The mainstream media has been silent about it but One America News Network (OANN) reported it. Check out the video below.
OANN also pointed out Adam Schiff’s questionable deals with Ukraine which the mainstream media also seemed to gloss over.
#MoveOnNothingToSeeHere
And while it may seem that the politicians connected to corrupt Ukraine dealings are all Democrat, I assure you they are not. Consider this quote from The Federalist.
As Democrats and the media remain fanatically obsessed with assembling some form of a “quid pro quo” from the infamous Trump-Zelensky phone call, new details have emerged regarding Burisma, the company for which Hunter Biden worked and the company that Ukraine’s top prosecutor had been investigating before Vice President Joe Biden had the prosecutor fired via a months-long pressure campaign. According to web archives, top Mitt Romney adviser Joseph Cofer Black, who publicly goes by “Cofer Black,” joined Burisma’s board of directors while Hunter Biden was also serving on the board.
According to The New Yorker, Hunter joined Burisma’s board in April of 2014 and remained on it until he declined to renew his position this past May. Meanwhile, according to Burisma’s website, Black was appointed in February of 2017 and continues to serve on its board. The timelines would indicate that Black and Biden worked together at Burisma, and indeed, web archives from late 2017 show Black and Biden listed simultaneously on the board.
The point in my sharing all of this is simple. The mainstream media is putting all the attention on Russia’s President – Vladimir Putin and that makes sense. Yet, they seem more than willing to ignore how we got here. Much of it is tied to Putin, of course. But there are other reasons that are worthy of further investigative reporting.
Maybe, just maybe, some corrupt Ukrainian companies paid a lot of money to several US politicians for favors and corrupt dealings and when they demanded a return on their investments (getting into NATO) things spiraled out of control and war broke out.
NOTE: At some point, before bed, I read through 50+ news sources and share my findings here. If you like it, share it. If you don’t, share it. Follow my blog now to support my work or to find new reasons to complain about it. My opinions are my own. Your financial support is appreciated. Click here to send me a tip of $5.00.
This is why America’s southern border is wide open and will remain so.
On October 01, 2021, American Military News reported that 400,000 more illegal immigrants were heading to the United States.
President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing for as many as 400,000 illegal immigrants to enter the United States southern border in October in an unprecedented surge, Department of Homeland Security officials told NBC News this week.
On Thursday, NBC reported that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asked senior officials if the department was prepared for a spike of between 350,000 and 400,000 illegal immigrants in October alone, two officials familiar with the conversation revealed.
The number would be almost twice the 21-year record high that occurred in July, when more than 210,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States.
Back in September 2021, Senator Ted Cruz railed against the Biden administration for their lax border security policies. On his website, he said this…
“This year since Joe Biden has been president, over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have come into the United States. We are on pace for more than 2 million this year, which is the highest rate in 20 years, you want to see how much policy and politics matter. We went from the lowest rate and 45 years last year, to the highest rate in 21 years this year. And it’s all because of politics because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had made promises to the open border radicals in their party.
Sigh.
Overall, the American people are not happy with President Biden’s border policies nor are they happy with him in general. The headline below speaks for itself…
To quote that article specific to Biden’s handling of immigration issues:
…immigration issues: 25 percent approve, while 67 percent disapprove;
If President Biden’s border policies are so unpopular with most of the American people then, why isn’t the border sealed? Some would argue that its simply a matter of incompetence. However, I think at this point its more likely that his actions are intentional. If so, what purpose would it serve to let millions of unvetted people cross our border illegally? Quite possibly, power for his political party.
What is fast becoming conventional wisdom on the right is something called “Replacement Theory” or as some call it, “Great Replacement.” More often than not, the two terms are conflated into something very negative.
Great Replacement means white people will soon be outnumbered by people of color and extinguished as a race soon thereafter.
Replacement theory means Democrats are using immigration to transform America at a fundamental level and secure political power forever. How? By using illegal immigrants to outvote American citizens; thus replacing Americans.
If you think Replacement Theory is a far-right conspiracy theory, consider the FACT that several states are already pushing for non-citizen voting. Here is a quote from a October 6, 2021, Daily Signal article.
Litigation in Vermont has highlighted the expanding trend of noncitizen voting, which two cities in that state recently allowed. Municipalities in California and Maryland similarly allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Other jurisdictions are considering doing so.
So far, these efforts to allow noncitizens to vote don’t apply to national elections for president or Congress, nor to state offices such as governor or state legislator. For Democrats especially, though, this has been an emerging issue.
In July, The New York Times published an essay by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, a senior editor at The Nation, under the headline “There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote.”
Hmm… Who would illegal immigrants likely vote for? I think its almost assured that they would support the party that consistently gave them free stuff. Take for example, the $4.38 Billion dollars in free money received earlier this year. Here is a quote from Washington Examiner [03.22.21].
Christmas is coming early to millions of illegal immigrants in the form of a COVID-19 stimulus check of up to $1,400, according to a new analysis. The Center for Immigration Studies on Monday estimated that at least 2.1 million illegals could be eligible for $4.38 billion wired directly into their checking accounts, just like the hundreds of millions of legal Americans who started receiving checks last week.
NBC reported Monday that the Department of Homeland Security is offering migrants who were separated from their children by the previous administration the option to reunite either here in the U.S. or in their destitute countries of origin. Tough choice!
Biden is further sweetening the deal by offering “transportation, healthcare and mental health services as well as legal, career and educational services, with no costs being passed down to families.”
With “no costs” to the illegal immigrants, that means you, the taxpayer, will foot the bill.
With the Biden administration track record for giving free stuff to illegal immigrants, why is it surprising that the $3.5 TRILLION dollar spending bill being debated in Congress includes free community college for illegal immigrants? This according to Fox Business [09.27.21]:
Congressional Democrats’ controversial $3.5 trillion spending bill appears to include illegal immigrants in providing free community college. The reconciliation bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to establish a grant program for free community college, which would fulfill one of President Biden’s campaign pledges.
The grant program would extendfree community college to individuals regardless of their “basis of citizenship, alienage, or immigration status,” according to the most recent version of the reconciliation bill.
Two subsections of this portion of the bill also aim to ensure immigrants in the country illegally count as eligible students for free community college, which the bill broadly defines as any enrolled community college student that is attending at least on “a half-time basis.”
When you consider these things, the cartoon below makes a lot of sense.
And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, the southern border will remain open as long as the Biden administration can manage it. Please remember this in 2022 and 2024.
NOTE: At some point, before bed, I read through 50+ news sources and share my findings here. If you like it, share it. If you don’t, share it. Follow my blog now to support my work or to find new reasons to complain about it. My opinions are my own. All tips are welcome as well as comments on my video series - The Jim Stroud Show.
Back in 2018, I discussed China’s Social Credit Score on my video series – “The Jim Stroud Show.” I thought it was scary then and now, I find it absolutely terrifying. I’ll explain why in a moment. First, check out the video I produced in 2018 called – “The Social Credit Score in China is a Bad, Bad Thing.” In a nutshell, the Social Credit Score (SCS) monitors your every move via surveillance cameras, ranks you on your behavior then rewards and punishes you based on that score. I make predictions on the worse that could happen.
The due date of the Social Credit Score in China was 2020, although they gradually rolled it out prior to that date. Check out this video from May 1, 2019. It showcases a “model Chinese citizen” as ranked by their social credit scoring. Notice how people applaud the system and how journalists receive low scores when they write unfavorable news stories about politicians.
If Chinese citizens don’t like the program they cannot say for fear of damaging their SCS. On April 19, 2019, it was reported by The Globe and Mail that 13.5 million people were deemed untrustworthy and punished. Here’s a quote:
People deemed untrustworthy in China have been blocked from the purchase of more than 25 million plane and train tickets, as the country works to build a social-credit system designed to monitor and shape the conduct of its citizens.
Chinese courts have now added 13.5 million entries to a list of dishonest persons subject to enforcement, as authorities improve their ability to collect and share information, according to new statistics unveiled on Thursday by the National Development and Reform Commission.
By the end of March, people deemed untrustworthy had been blocked from buying 20.47 million air tickets and another 5.71 million high-speed rail tickets, the government said.
The release of statistics comes as China works to set in place a social-credit system intended to assess citizens’ reliability and ultimately to govern their ability to participate in a wide range of activities, such as exporting goods, accessing government contracts, converting currency and receiving Communist Party promotions.
The technology that China uses to pull this off is simply incredible. Check out this video on how China tracks you. [Posted: December 13, 2019] What really caught my eye in the video were things like toilet paper rationing, beauty rankings and how they are able to detect suspicious activity in large crowds.
All of this AMAZING surveillance technology made me wonder where China was on its goal for making SCS fully functional over its citizenry. I was relieved to learn that it was not yet perfected, although (obviously) very close to their original vision. And while the existence of SCS in China is scary enough, the more horrifying thing is that it is coming to America in the guise of “Vaccine Passports.”
According to internal communications, the administration is anxious not to fumble the passport rollout, after stalled or failed efforts on coronavirus vaccinations and testing kneecapped previous responses at critical early points. “A chaotic and ineffective vaccine credential approach could hamper our pandemic response by undercutting health safety measures, slowing economic recovery, and undermining public trust and confidence,” read one slide from a March presentation from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. At the same time, proof of vaccination “may be a critical driver for restoring baseline population health and promoting safe return to social, commercial, and leisure activities.” There is also some focus-group evidence that vaccine passports could help convince Americans who do not want to get inoculated to sign up for a shot.
So, a vaccine passport might be used to rank people’s behavior in order to allow them to interact with society, do business and have fun in public. It sure sounds like the SCS from China to me. And just like in China. politicians would likely be exempt. Case in point, here is a quote from Jen Tsaki, White House Press Secretary.
Well, I would say the President travels, as does the Vice-President, on a private plane. That is the purview of every president and vice-president throughout American history. That is of course different than traveling on a commercial flight and going to mass events. As you know, the President is not hosting rallies, nor is the Vice-President. We take the role of being models quite seriously, but I think most Americans would recognize the difference.
The more I look at this, the more I see SCS and the more I see SCS, the more I wonder how much of China’s influence is affecting the USA’s strategies on this. For that matter, I also wondered how China was influencing other countries with similar programs? According to this Wikipedia article, Chile, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and Venezuela all have some form of this system in place. And for sure, the United States has a version of SCS already in effect. You see it used to censor Conservatives all the time. Most recently, Facebook announced that not even President Trump’s voice would be allowed on its platform. Not a big surprise once you realize that the SCS used in China was built (in part) by bigtech giants Google and Facebook.
So, what could be more horrific than China’s SCS being practiced in the USA and assorted countries? Only this, China running a SCS program for EVERY country in the world. If you think that can’t happen, consider this quote from Newswars.
The chairman of data firm PANDA claims that China has asked the World Health Organization to appoint Beijing to oversee a global vaccine passport system, an ominous prospect given how China’s social credit score system operates.
Today, some would call this a conspiracy theory or simply, utter nonsense. In this, I would be VERY happy to be wrong. Yet, I don’t think I am. A one world government is being formed right before our eyes. Funny, I think I read a book predicting this would happen one day. I think it was in Sunday school.
…
Thanks for reading this. Please share it with your network. 😉
DISCLAIMER FOR THE EASILY TRIGGERED: Slavery is wrong. I make no apologies for it. None of the research presented herein is intended to lessen the injustice of African slavery in America or slavery in any incarnation. If you disagree with what I have researched and decide to call me a (insert your insult here) I will say now, that you’re rubber and I’m glue. What you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Such is my present-day retort and likely my future rebuttal, should I feel so inclined. If you’re still curious as to why I posted this disclaimer, read on.
The City Council in Evanston, Ill., voted 8-1 late Monday to approve a plan to make reparations available to Black residents over past discrimination and the lingering effects of slavery.
The plan, which could be the first of its kind in the U.S., is to distribute $400,000 to eligible Black households. The Associated Press reported that qualifying households in the city of 73,000 would be eligible to receive $25,000 for home repairs or down payments on property.
Ald. Robin Rue Simmons, the lawmaker who proposed the initiative back in 2019, called the approval a first step but said more needs to be done.
“It is, alone, not enough,” she said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We all know that the road to repair and justice in the Black community is going to be a generation of work. It’s going to be many programs and initiatives and more funding.”
Further down in the article it reads…
Qualifying residents must either have lived in or been a direct descendant of a Black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 to 1969 and who suffered discrimination in housing because of city ordinances, policies or practices.
The article reminded me of a conversation I had with a very dear friend of mine about race issues in America. (My friend happens to be white.) She asked me what percentage of black people would likely hold her personally responsible for slavery? I told her that I could not quantify a percentage but likely many African Americans would hold her personally responsible for the sins of her ancestors because of news reports like this.
Now, I’ve heard several arguments made for reparations on numerous occasions, but I tend to reject them. Why? For me, it always comes down to this – who should pay?
The topic of reparations for African Americans is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseum and typically for political advantage. Case in point, here’s a quote the Washington Times. The headline reads, “California moves to consider reparations for slavery.” The date of the article is August 29, 2020.
California lawmakers are setting up a task force to study and make recommendations for reparations to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves, as the nation struggles again with civil rights and unrest following the latest shooting of a Black man by police.
The state Senate supported creating the nine-member commission on a bipartisan 33-3 vote Saturday. The measure returns to the Assembly for a final vote before lawmakers adjourn for the year on Monday, though Assembly members overwhelmingly already approved an earlier version of the bill.
“Let’s be clear: Chattel slavery, both in California and across our nation, birthed a legacy of racial harm and inequity that continues to impact the conditions of Black life in California,” said Democratic Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles.
She cited disproportionate homelessness, unemployment, involvement in the criminal justice system, lower academic performance and higher health risks during the coronavirus pandemic.
Although California before the Civil War was officially a free state, Mitchell listed legal and judicial steps state officials took at the time to support slavery in Southern states while repressing Blacks.
The legislation would require the task force to conduct a detailed study of the impact of slavery in California and recommend to the Legislature by July 2023 the form of compensation that should be awarded, how it should be awarded, and who should be should be eligible for compensation.
The panel, which would start meeting no later than June 2021, could also recommend other forms of rehabilitation or redress.
A sober minded person might ask, what does slavery that happened centuries ago have to do with today’s homelessness, unemployment, health risks associated with the coronavirus and the other social issues mentioned in that quote? Outside of inciting the passions of would-be voters, what immediate benefit does it provide to the people of California?
When reparations are discussed it is typically proposed that the US government should be paying African Americans an undetermined amount of money for the suffering inflicted upon their ancestors by all the white people in America. If we look at this logically and without angry rhetoric, that argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. To illustrate that, let me share with you some inconvenient facts.
Inconvenient fact #1: Very few white people in America owned slaves.
According to data on White Slave Owners from a US Census Bureau 1860 Report, only 1.6 percent of whites in America owned slaves. I’ll quote that number again, 1.6. Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. In other words, 4% of slaves from Africa went to North America. The other 96% went to South America.
Inconvenient fact #2: Native Americans owned and traded in slaves!
According to the Oklahoma Historical Society website and Smithsonian Magazine, from the late 18th century on, Native Americans in the South, like whites, owned slaves. And, when the U.S. government “removed” the five nations to “Indian Territory” (now the state of Oklahoma) in the 1830s, they took their slaves with them, so that “[b]y the time the Civil War broke out more than eight thousand blacks were enslaved in Indian Territory.” Overall, enslaved people accounted for “14 percent of the population” of the Indian Territory, and it wasn’t until after the Civil War that emancipation arrived for some of the slaves.
Inconvenient fact #3: African Americans owned slaves too
In the essay, “The Known World of Free Black Slaveholders: A Research Note on the Scholarship of Carter G. Woodson,” Thomas Pressly uses the research of Carter G. Woodson to state the following: In 1830, there were about 320,000 free blacks in America. Out of that 320,000 free blacks, roughly 4,000 owned 12,900 slaves. Pressley breaks it down further to say, 1% of black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves, 4% owned between 10-19 slaves and 94% owned 1-9 slaves. And 42% owned just one slave.
Should white people today be forced to pay reparations when only 1.6 percent of whites during the slavery era owned slaves? Should we demand payment from Native Americans and African Americans as well? Both groups owned African American slaves too. I could go on but, no, I’ll share a bit more.
Inconvenient fact #4:Whites Were Slaves in North Africa Before Blacks Were Slaves in America
A new study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 – a far greater number than had ever been estimated before. In a new book, Robert Davis, professor of history at Ohio State University, developed a unique methodology to calculate the number of white Christians who were enslaved along Africa’s Barbary Coast, arriving at much higher slave population estimates than any previous studies had found.
Most other accounts of slavery along the Barbary coast didn’t try to estimate the number of slaves, or only looked at the number of slaves in particular cities, Davis said. Most previously estimated slave counts have thus tended to be in the thousands, or at most in the tens of thousands. Davis, by contrast, has calculated that between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa from the 16th to 18th centuries.
Now, should today’s white people demand reparations from today’s black people for the crime of enslaving their ancestors for two centuries? For some reason, lack of education mostly, so many people in America believe that America created the institution of slavery. I assure you America did not invent slavery. A cursory glance into a bible proves that. But, I digress, because I am veering off from something, I really want to say in 3 points.
Point #1… The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of “resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees” after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for losses in Jewish livelihood and property resulting from Nazi persecution. | That was justice and the right thing to do.
Point #2… When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, President FDR forced Japanese Americans to be relocated and incarcerated in concentration camps. There was no justification for this strategy and later, research proved it was motivated by fear and racism. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government and authorized a payment of $20,000 to each former internee who was still alive when the act was passed; a total cost of 1.6 billion dollars. | That was justice and the right thing to do.
Point #3… Reparations were paid to Jewish and Japanese survivors who were personally affected by the trauma. So, should African Americans be paid reparations? The African survivors of Slavery, who were personally traumatized centuries ago, should have been. But not the African Americans of today because who can truly know who owes what? Statistically speaking, very few whites enslaved black people, Native Americans enslaved black people, black people enslaved black people and blacks enslaved white people for two centuries. So, again, who pays?
No doubt, some of you reading this will have a problem with what I’ve shared. Perhaps, you are calling me names now. (No doubt. Its why I posted the disclaimer at the beginning.) If so, let me leave you with one final quote where a certain group is demanding social justice because of slavery. This quote is from BBC News.
The West is being asked to pay Africa $777 [trillion] within five years in reparation for enslaving Africans while colonising the continent. The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, meeting in Accra for its first international conference, also called for all international debt owed by Africa to be “unconditionally cancelled”.
The Accra Declaration issued at the conference says that money will be demanded from ”all those nations of Western Europe and the Americas and institutions, who participated and benefited from the slave trade and colonialism”.
The conference, co-chaired by Dr Hamet Maulana and Mrs Debra Kofie, announced plans to set up an international team of lawyers from Africa and the diaspora to pursue all legal means to collect the money. The group will also be contacting the International Court of Justice, as well as the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity for assistance.
Mrs Kofie told the BBC the reparation figure was based on the number of human lives lost to Africa during the slave-trade, as well as an assessment of the worth of the gold, diamonds and other minerals taken from the continent during colonial rule.
She says Africa’s turn has come. “We are the only group that have not received reparations. The Jewish people have received reparations. The native Americans have received reparations. The Korean comfort women and so-on and so forth,” she said.
The declaration added that all those in the diaspora, who want to return and settle in Africa, should be allowed to do so and that those who enslaved and colonised Africa should provide seaworthy vessels and aircraft for such repatriation.
The date of that article from BBC News is August 20, 1999.
Thanks for reading this far. I know it was a rather long rant today. A shorter one tomorrow. (I think. It all depends on what I read.)
Jim Stroud
P.S. Did you know that reparations were actually paid to slaves after the Civil War? This was thanks to a measure initiated by Abraham Lincoln (R). However, after his assassination, his Vice President – Andrew Johnson (D) assumed power and reversed it. Click here to listen to my podcast where I discuss that bit of history. (Or, just listen to it below.)
