Re: [sixties-l] (Fwd):Reparatiopns, DH & the Left

From: Jeffrey Blankfort (jab@tucradio.org)
Date: Sat Apr 07 2001 - 01:33:28 EDT

  • Next message: radman: "[sixties-l] Buzz on campus"

    Marty Jezer wrote:

    > I agree with one part of your comment. It is shameful that I, a Jew, can
    > show up at Tel Aviv airport and become a citizen with full rights. As for
    > the absolute right of return the issue is a lot more complex.
    > Israel was legitimized by UN mandate.

    Since the Palestinian Arabs had no say in the division of their country,
    why do we recognize the legitimacy of this UN mandate? This vote
    represented the old and new colonial powers, all of whom had contempt
    for the indigenous Arab population. It has no more moral legitimacy
    than did the Balfour Declaration which Jewish anti-colonialists never
    seem to question.

     The Arabs rejected it and started the
    > 48 war which they lost.

    The declaration of the Jewish state was seen as a declaration of war by
    the Arab countries which were careful not to enter any of the area that
    was assigned by the UN to be the Jewish state.
    > It's obvious that the Jewish military drove a lot, but not all, Palestinians
    > out of the area that was Israel.

    They drove or forced out most of them and then claimed, and still do,
    that the Palestinians were told to leave by the Arab rulers when there
    is not a shred of evidence to that effect. Whether or not they were
    forced out doesn't, however, change their status or the legitimacy of
    their claims.
     
    > It's no doubt a tragedy, especially the fact that the refugees was forced to
    > live in camps, and, to be fair, the Arab nations were happy to have them
    > there.

    This is one of the biggest distortions of the truth that has gone
    unchallenged in the West. No one visiting these camps would suggest that
    the Arab nations were happy to have them there, even when they used them
    weakly for propaganda purposes. The existence of these camps has always
    been cause for internal divisions in the countries where they exist.

    > The proposed settlement, while denying the right of return in
    > absolute terms, did, I believe, allow some to return where families were
    > involved. Others, who could prove displacement, would receive financial
    > compensation. (The was to be worked out: had Arafat accepted Barak's
    > proposal there would have been momentum to resolve this issue favorably for
    > the Palestinians.)

    Since nothing has been favorable to the Palestinians, this is doubtful.

    There is also the questions of the settlements. As I
    > understand it the settlements within Gaza and the West Bank would have been
    > removed (justice would dictate that everyone of them should be removed, by
    > force if necessary, today); some on the border would have been allowed to
    > stay. I oppose that but with a settlement their existence would have been
    > negotiable.

    According to the very weak Oslo agreement, the Gaza settlements should
    already have been removed some time ago. The agreement that Arafat
    turned down would have maintained all the large Jewish settlements in
    the West Bank and would have given Palestinian territory in the Negev as
    "compensation." The maintenance of these settlements is what requires
    these Jewish-only roads. Every square inch of every Jewish settlement
    is illegal, according to international law and every single one of them
    and their inhabitants have should be sent packing.

     But the fact is the
    > Palestinians would have had a state: why would they also want to repatriate
    > to Israel when they could have their own country. The principle of right of
    > return in the absolute sense is a Palestinian political
    > ploy.

    Having no experience in losing your home or being connected to any piece
    of land, you wouldn't understand this, nor would most people, Jews or
    non-Jews who have never worked the land or grown up in a house in which
    your family had lived for generations. To call this a ploy is an insult
    to every Palestinian who lost there home.

    > People have been forced to relocate throughout history'; including I
    > imagine Bill, your and my ancestors. A fair peaceful solution in the Middle
    > East means there have to be compromises.

    I don't think anyone, particularly a Jew, has the right to tell a
    Palestinian that he or she should make compromises.

    >Israel has to give up control of
    > Jerusalem and its settlements (which they have), Palestinians have to give
    > up the absolute right of return (which means giving up a principle, not an
    > on-the-ground fact).

    What are you talking about? Israel hasn't given up control of any part
    of its declared but illegitimate sovereignty over Jerusalem and it
    hasn't given up its settlements. And I repeat, no one, particularly a
    Jew, has any business telling a Palestinian ot the Palestinians what he
    or she or they have to do.

    Given that Israel is launching something just short of all out war on
    the Palestinians and the Zionized American joke of a left is silent
    about it, makes this situation all the more horrible.

    Jeff Blankfort
    >
    > Marty
    >
    > Original Message -----
    > From: <wmmmandel@earthlink.net>
    > To: <sixties-l@lists.village.virginia.edu>
    > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 12:33 AM
    > Subject: Re: [sixties-l] (Fwd):Reparatiopns, DH & the Left
    >
    > > A settlement that would have denied Palestinians the right to return to
    > > their own homes, for which they have the keys, and their own land, for
    > > which they have the deeds, while any Jew from anywhere who has never
    > > been to Israel can go there and become a citizen, is one that you would
    > > have the Palestinians accept? I don't like to use the phrase that
    > > follows, but that is simply shameful.
    > > William Mandel
    > >
    > > Marty Jezer wrote:
    > > >
    > > >
    > > ===================================================================
    > > Do you teach in the social sciences? Consider my SAYING NO TO POWER
    > > (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), for course use. It was written as a
    > > social history of
    > > the U.S. for the past three-quarters of a century through the eyes of a
    > > participant
    > > observer in most progressive social movements (I'm 83), and of the USSR
    > > from the
    > > standpoint of a Sovietologist (five earlier books) knowing that country
    > > longer than any
    > > other in the profession. Therefore it is also a history of the Cold War.
    > > Positive reviews
    > > in The Black Scholar, American Studies in Scandinavia, San Francisco
    > > Chronicle,
    > > forthcoming in Tikkun, etc.
    >
    > ------------------------------
    >
    > Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 13:23:47 -0400
    > From: Ted Morgan <epm2@LEHIGH.EDU>
    > Subject: Re: [sixties-l] Who pays whom for what?
    >
    > Hey, is it great having drieux back on this list or what? --at least if you
    > have the time to read his screeds. Hang in, ole buddy!
    > Ted
    >
    > drieux just drieux wrote:
    >
    > > > on 04/02/2001 20:42, Allen Cohen at SFORACLE@prodigy.net wrote:
    > >
    > > > Subject: Re: [sixties-l] (Fwd):Reparatiopns, DH & the Left
    > >
    > > Since it is important to put our Ciriculum Viritae on the table, so that
    > > we can work out how to resolve our class status prior to addressing which
    > > of us are the 'sons and daughters' of the 'rich kulaks' who should be
    > > purged, allow me to place this first, so that the correct concern can be
    > > levelled at which 'class bias' I bring to the table, prior to addressing
    > > the assumptions of the argument.
    > >
    > > My father started out as an 11-B humping an M-1 up the boot of italy,
    > > grandfather went in with pershing.... the draft dodger who fathered him
    > > missed out as we had no war he could attend, but his father fought for
    > > first the confederates and then the union forces, after the fed's busted
    > > the blockade runner that had rescued his german crew - but we do not want
    > > to go down the line that inherited this problem of getting busted by the
    > > feds as that way complicates matters. I could keep that line up through
    > > the glorious ancestors to our Frankish 'eurocentric culturally myopic'
    > > forfathers who were at Tours, and turned back the Islamic Jihaud of its day.
    > >
    > > My stepmother got her head cracked at selma marching with MLK before running
    > > off to be a social worker in watts, as was the trendy chic moment of young
    > > white liberals of the era, concerned about spreading the efficacy of liberal
    > > white guilt as the solution to the crisis of the era....
    > >
    > > But I hope that helps ground that while it was OK for those 'kennedy
    > > liberals' in New England to maintain the racist assumption
    > >
    > > German means Nazi
    > >
    > > and hence, that it was as equally relevant that I understand that 'we as
    > > white people' should not be associating with negroes - I of course, came
    > > to the discussion confused by my parental instructions that we, as G.I.
    > > Brats were a part of a community 'set apart' - a proposition that the nice
    > > white liberals in New England were willing to support, at the time, because,
    > > well, as we all know, anyone who was in anyway involved with the war in
    > > vietnam were a collection of rightwing death squading fascists. So when the
    > > candy-assed proto-RushLimbiots were confused by the fact that G.I. Brats did
    > > not get to choose their compatriots as 'liberally' as the nice white boys in
    > > new england - that I would make it clear that 'we stick together, we are
    > > family' - irregardless of race, creed, colour, religion, or affectional
    > > preference, because at the end of the day, we were G.I. Brats, and they
    > > would always be able to always be 'the locals'....
    > >
    > > So while they had half a chance of hoping that their fathers would be able
    > > to do for them as W's did for him, and DandyDanQuayle would do for him, and
    > > as Rush Limbaugh, and Gnewt Gingrich would be able to do the old fashion way
    > > by making it all up on the fly, whether with 2-S deferment or which ever is
    > > the correct story about how they missed 'the war' - some of us were destined
    > > to national service, because we were raised in those silly values of
    > >
    > > duty, honor, country
    > >
    > > and would execute on the 'liberal' rhetoric of
    > >
    > > Ask not what your country can do for you.....
    > >
    > > while the 'not the liberal intelligensia' were trying to find other avenues
    > > for implementing alternative strategies?????
    > >
    > > Do I get to litigate reparations from the nice white suburban
    > > SatOnTheirFaceCrowd who were not clear which of their 'ideals' they were
    > > willing to put their 'nuts in the grinder' to 'implement'????
    > >
    > > Or should I be nailed to the cross as an analyst, amongst the rest, for
    > > noting that it was not surprising, during the Yom Kippur War, that Gen
    > > Sharon would opt NOT to stay current in the literature, and would send his
    > > tanks forward without proper infantry support, to get slaughtered by the
    > > first generation soviet ATGM's - or merely not be as surprised that when he
    > > would find the conflict between 'political expedience' and his obligations
    > > under The Warriors Code, he would, well, what ever it was that actually
    > > happened in Beirut, when there was, what has become popular amongst liberals
    > > to refer to as 'ethnic cleansing' occured by forces with political
    > > allegiances, that would be as sacrificed in the breach, as the Montangard
    > > when the Americans would leave them hanging in the wind, when, as with the
    > > South Lebanese Army, it became impolite to extract them because of the shift
    > > in political expediency.....
    > >
    > > Or does that way complicate the moments for those who also, by right of
    > > birth, at sedar ask,
    > >
    > > "Father, father, why is tonight different from any other night...."
    > >
    > > and whether or not the simplistic racist policy of presuming that
    > >
    > > German equals Nazi
    > >
    > > is as valid outside of the new england 'liberal' goyim?
    > >
    > > So should I seek reparations from myself, because some of the bloodline
    > > comes from germany?
    > >
    > > Or, having, foolishly, opted to 'make a heap of all my winnings' meander
    > > off to the USofA, with $65 in my pocket, and the address of people from
    > > the old world, only to find at the 'employment office' - as they would be
    > > so nice, and polite, to warn me, "well you can apply there, but you do not
    > > have a chance, because they are 'under a court order'...." and hence I
    > > should again litigate myself for reparations since as a 'white person' I of
    > > course was the cause of my own inability to get the job I was qualified for,
    > > because, while the goyim were not clear about who to discriminate against,
    > > the liberal courts were sure that I should make sure that those who had a
    > > better case should get jobs.........
    > >
    > > Or should I litigate against myself, because, well, you know, there would
    > > be no drain on the tax payers, were we not funding the European Colonial
    > > Enclave in the middle east, if only those Jews were willing to adopt the
    > > correct implementation of the need of the Arab League to drive the Zionists
    > > back into the sea - and hence, of course, there would not be a ten plus year
    > > war with Iraq...... that of course it is impolite to remind 'civilians'
    > > about, since they were all so happy to have a 'beyond the vietnam syndrome'
    > > parade, dance, and way too cool time.... in spite of the fact that 'my
    > > family' is still putting up sorties, at tax payers expense..... even if
    > > the 'liberal intelligensia' - whom ever they are - can not recall if they
    > > are supporters of this ongoing war.....
    > >
    > > Maybe a part of the really ugly subtext of the failure of David Horowitz to
    > > stay 'true' to his 'radical leftists' positions, is that perchance some of
    > > the blithe naivete of the sixties suffers under the unkind light of mere
    > > analysis by the same tools that recently KILLED the whole dot.com craze and
    > > the mythological notions that this some how created a 'new economy' that was
    > > in some way 'unique' and free standing from the old economy, where we
    > > actually defined 'equity value' based upon the ratio of 'price per share'
    > > being associated to 'earnings per share' - and that within really dull and
    > > boring old fashion metrics that even Karl Marx - heb that he was, son of
    > > middle class parents, would understand - and that maybe so much of the
    > > sheer romanticism of the 'sixties' about 'alternative lifestyles' suffers
    > > under the same painful glare.....
    > >
    > > Why is it no longer polite to note that one of the more 'unpleasant' side
    > > effects of the whole 'integrationist strategy' has been that the 'white
    > > owned' corporations were able to hire the 'best and the brightests' of the
    > > negro community - and offer them the 'black flight' to the suburbs - that
    > > would give us the whole 'bill cosby show' "huckstable family" and that whole
    > > "fresh prince of bel air" TV sitcom vision of the USA which would as equally
    > > deprive the 'urban center' of their 'middle class' as the 'white flight to
    > > the burbs' also infected the american cities to the level that so many of
    > > the urban metroplex's would implement statuatory requirements that the civil
    > > servants of the metroplex actually had to LIVE in the cities that they
    > > served???? or are we all spacing out on that moment, as if these laws had
    > > been enacted in some mythical vacuum?????
    > >
    > > I can empathise with those who had to 'come up the hard way' and hence still
    > > support the need to maintain the old double standards of 'affirmative
    > > action' as the only way to save the likes of 'will smith' to get high paying
    > > jobs amongst the 'liberal hollywood elite' as, well, all those jews who
    > > would change their names and 'pass' as goyim - but do we really want to go
    > > through the whole myth system we have created about what happened in the
    > > 'last good war'????? Or only remember that part of the process that dealt
    > > with the 'internment camps' for the 'persons of japanese ancestry' and the
    > > needs of the round eyes to make their own hollywood films about how to tell
    > > the differences between japanese and the chinese, who were our allies,
    > > except for the Maoists, who were responsible for keeping the 'Gung Ho' film,
    > > with randolph scott, off the play list, because, well, some folks might
    > > actually be able to remember whom the '8th route army' had been....
    > >
    > > Come On kiddies - how long do we have to maintain the whole desperate need
    > > for nice white suburbanites to placate their need to feel superior?
    > >
    > > Maybe we might suggest that they have to hit the mark on their own merits
    > > or face the reality check that the economy may make choices based upon who
    > > is actually able to survive,
    > >
    > > 'irregardless of race, creed, colour, religion, or affectional
    > > preference....'
    > >
    > > Oh dear - but if we were to smack down 'whitey' with that radical agenda,
    > > maybe if we were as equally as 'colour blind' and to warn the rest that they
    > > would need to prove 'mere competence' - in the same old fashion way that
    > > most of the G.I. Brat community has been aware of for years,
    > >
    > > "dead men do not wear plaid"
    > >
    > > is not merely a good joke for 'steve martin fans' - but has the small
    > > and ungainly moment that some folks learn about how to survive war, even
    > > if it was unpopular amongst the 'hipsters in the USA', whether they lived
    > > in palestine, or chechnyna, or afghanistan, or Tchad, or .....
    > >
    > > Or as uncle drieux was so impolite as to note to two 'swave urbanites'
    > >
    > > "look kid, I was involved in civil rights
    > > when you mamma wouldn't allow you across the street...."
    > >
    > > might be as useful an excuse to oblige persons to stand on their own
    > > merits, just as the G.I. Brat community,
    > >
    > > irregardless of race, creed, colour, religion or affectional preference
    > >
    > > just like shrapnel and small arms fire.....
    > >
    > > ciao
    > > drieux
    >
    > - --
    > Ted Morgan
    > Department of Political Science
    > Lehigh University
    > Maginnes Hall #9
    > Bethlehem, PA 18015
    > Phone: (610) 758-3345
    > Fax: (610) 758-6554
    >
    > ------------------------------
    >
    > Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 11:51:32 -0700
    > From: radman <resist@best.com>
    > Subject: [sixties-l] My 15 minutes By David Horowitz
    >
    > http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/2001/04/02/reparations/index.html
    >
    > April 2, 2001
    >
    > My 15 minutes
    >
    > "I couldn't be more pleased by the attention," columnist David Horowitz
    > says, as the controversy over his anti-reparations ad rages on.
    >
    > By David Horowitz
    >
    > My Andy Warhol moment has come just as I had hoped it would: on offense,
    > baiting the left. The ad I wrote and recently attempted to place in 50
    > college newspapers challenged a racial orthodoxy that is suffocating the
    > promise of American pluralism and pitting ethnic communities against one
    > another. It is sinking African-Americans into a sea of negativism and
    > hostile posturing that threatens to isolate them and sabotage attempts to
    > elevate those who have been left behind. Denouncing as "racist," "not
    > legitimate" and "anti-civil rights" a president who has brought more
    > diversity to Washington than any of his predecessors, and has vowed to
    > "leave no child behind," is just one emblem of the moral and political
    > bankruptcy of the current civil rights leadership. Claiming "reparations for
    > slavery" 136 years after the fact is quite another.
    >
    > As a result of the ad I attempted to place drawing attention to this
    > problem, I have been predictably attacked as a racial provocateur and a
    > racist. Those smears are the reason no one else has tried this before me.
    > The smears and attacks are also the reason, ironically, that so much
    > attention has been paid to this issue. More than twice as many editors have
    > refused my ad as have agreed to publish it (the actual score is 34-14), even
    > though I offered to pay for the space to run it. Only eight college papers
    > have been able to print it without incident. Six editors who published it
    > have been visited by howling mobs, and three of those have decided to
    > apologize for doing so. At the University of Wisconsin, Brown and Duke,
    > editors have courageously stood up to mobs bent on intimidating them. The
    > net result has been to bring the issue of intellectual freedom on American
    > college campuses -- and, to a lesser extent, the ad itself -- before
    > millions of Americans who otherwise would have been unaware of them.
    >
    > I couldn't be more pleased by the attention these issues are getting. And I
    > know from my e-mails, and from the widespread support I have gotten in the
    > press, that other Americans who cherish their freedoms are also pleased.
    >
    > What's going on here? When I stepped onto the stage last month in the Life
    > Sciences Building at the University of California at Berkeley, accompanied
    > by 30 armed campus police, I was reminded of the old Richard Pryor album
    > cover in which he appears cowering, half-naked and surrounded by hooded
    > Klansmen who are about to lynch him. The cover line is: "Is it something I
    > said?"
    >
    > Actually, it was something I said. Any understanding of the current
    > controversy can only be gleaned by first focusing on that fact. How is it
    > that the expression of ideas -- let alone ideas shared by a majority of
    > Americans (a Time poll indicates that 74 percent of the public is opposed to
    > reparations) -- should result in a university having to assign 30 armed
    > police escorts to protect me during my campus appearance?
    >
    > The answer is that we live in a time of racial McCarthyism. Fifty years ago,
    > witch hunters warned that there were "reds under the beds"; now it is
    > something like "racists in the heads" -- a closet bigot behind every white
    > face. There were in fact reds under the beds during the McCarthy era -- a
    > lot more of them (as recently opened Soviet archives show) than many had
    > previously thought. And, of course, there are still racists among us. The
    > problem of McCarthyism was the abuse of a reality that prompted leg itimate
    > fear in people. McCarthy and his allies exploited those fears to achieve
    > political agendas unrelated to matters of national security. McCarthy
    > exaggerated the facts, made false accusations and used sinister innuendo to
    > assault his political opponents in the Democratic Party and to stifle
    > opposition from all quarters. Nobody wanted to be accused, however falsely,
    > of being a Communist, or coddling Communists or being associated with
    > Communists.
    >
    > This is exactly what is happening on matters of race on our college campuses
    > and in the political arena today.
    >
    > My reparations ad was a straightforward argument that blacks living today
    > are two, three and four generations removed from slavery. Hence, their claim
    > would not conform to existing reparations formulas as applied to victims of
    > the Holocaust, interned Japanese or survivors of the Rosewood race riot. The
    > claim, I argued, would pit the black community against all other ethnic
    > communities, and would focus blacks on their victim status and on negative
    > thoughts about their experience in America. It is possible, by way of
    > contrast, to look at African-Americans as a people who started literally
    > from nothing -- stripped of their language, culture and family roots. But
    > just 136 years later, thanks to their own efforts and the opportunities that
    > America afforded them, they are (statistically speaking) the 10th richest
    > nation in the world. Normally, such an attitude would be called
    > "empowering." In the dispute over my ad, however, it has been called
    > "racist."
    >
    > In apologizing for his decision to publish my ad, the editor of the campus
    > paper at UC-Berkeley explained that the ad was a "vehicle for bigotry" -- a
    > weasel phrase typical of McCarthyism. What is a "vehicle for bigotry"? Does
    > it mean that someone might misread it and use it to promote bigotry? Does it
    > mean that facts or arguments appearing in the ad may be used by bigots
    > themselves? Or does it mean that some black person's feelings were hurt by
    > the ad, which on sensitivity-trained campuses is interpreted in these times
    > as tantamount to "racism"?
    >
    > Actually, in these times and on campuses in particular, the definition of
    > racism is increasingly suspect. Case in point: The Badger-Herald, a
    > University of Wisconsin student paper, published the ad on Feb. 28. Five
    > days later, the rival student paper, the Daily Cardinal, published an ad
    > written by the Multicultural Students Coalition. The ad did not reply to the
    > 10 points presented in my ad (and, to this date, there has not been a single
    > ad to my knowledge replying to those points). Instead the Cardinal ad
    > attacked the Badger-Herald as a "racist propaganda machine." The editorial
    > offices of the Badger-Herald were then besieged by a mob of 100 students
    > demanding the resignation of the paper's editor, Julie Bosman, and apologies
    > (for racism) from its staff. These are tactics that have a long and
    > regrettable history that originated with the fascist and communist mobs of
    > the '30s that were sent to break up the peaceful meetings of their social
    > democratic rivals. It's the politics of smear and intimidation, designed to
    > silence opposition and stamp out free speech. Nothing could be more inimical
    > to a university setting, yet not a single student involved in these
    > activities has been disciplined or reprimanded by the University of
    > Wisconsin administration.
    >
    > Tshaka Barrows is a spokesperson for the Multicultural Students Coalition.
    > The Daily Cardinal interviewed her about her campaign:
    >
    > Cardinal: Does the Horowitz ad fit your definition of racism?
    >
    > Barrows: Exactly. Because of the reality of our society, his prejudice was
    > allowed to be institutionalized, and [16,000] of his statements were
    > presented to our campus. He was actively, as well as the Herald, exercising
    > their racism, their power to institutionalize their racism.
    >
    > Cardinal: [What] is your definition of racism?
    >
    > Barrows: Racism is having the power to institutionalize your prejudice.
    >
    > In other words, my offense is publishing my ideas, which Barrows doesn't
    > like. (Her definition of racism, by the way, is a concoction of tenured
    > leftists that accomplishes the feat of defining racism in such a way that
    > "only whites can be racist.")
    >
    > Insinuating racism -- without taking the trouble to establish actual
    > racism -- is the McCarthy method. It was on display in a column Jonathan
    > Alter wrote about me in the April 2 issue of Newsweek. A color photograph
    > illustrating the column was placed in the middle of the page. It showed one
    > of the student protesters at the UC-Berkeley carrying a sign with the words:
    > "PROTEST DAVID HOROWITZ, RACIST IDEOLOGUE." Alter's article made no
    > reference to the photo. Nor did it explain that the protesters were members
    > of the Spartacist Youth League, a Trotskyist splinter group whose members
    > also denounced me as a "capitalist running dog." The image was allowed to
    > just stand there, making me appear to be a theoretician for the Posse
    > Comitatus or some lunatic fringe group. In his column, Alter derisively
    > dismissed my complaint that I was under siege by "left-wing McCarthyism."
    >
    > "Please. Newspapers, exercising their own freedom, routinely reject
    > advertising they believe might offend the sensibilities of their readers."
    >
    > They do. But that's obviously not what happened in this case. Alter
    > attempted to discredit me by describing me as a member of "the extreme
    > right" when, in fact, I am a moderate on abortion, a defender of gays, a
    > strong supporter of civil rights and of large government programs to help
    > inner-city minority kids. What Alter did was use the McCarthy technique of
    > character assassination by exaggeration ("Professor Lattimore is Stalin's
    > chief agent in America"). Alter says that my reasoned ad "reminds [him] of
    > one of those tiresome rants supporting a NAAWP (National Association for the
    > Advancement of White People)" -- which would be classic guilt by
    > association, except that I am not associated with any group or anybody who
    > thinks like this. Finally, Alter imputes to me a mean-spirited agenda that I
    > have never had. "The not-so-subtle subtext [of the ad] was that we've given
    > 'them' enough, and so should give up on addressing the continuing problems
    > of race and poverty in America." Since I am the architect of a congressional
    > bill to provide $100 billion in scholarships to inner-city minority kids,
    > this is hardly a just accusation. Its only purpose is to delegitimize me and
    > stigmatize me as a "racist."
    >
    > A similar innuendo-laced attack was leveled by Washington Post columnist
    > Richard Cohen, who suggested that while I was not an actual racist, and
    > while "word for word, the ad makes sense," the editors were still justified
    > in not running it, and the campus fascists were really legitimately provoked
    > into their attacks on free speech. His reasoning? Apparently he found my
    > tone and address "insulting" and "offensive."
    >
    > I'm not sure I can put my finger on what exactly offended me when I first
    > read the ad. It might have been its statement that blacks, as well as
    > whites, engaged in the slave trade and owned slaves. True enough, but only
    > blacks were slaves. It might have been the what's-the-big-deal tone to the
    > argument that almost all African Americans live so much better than almost
    > all Africans that they ought to be downright grateful that their ancestors
    > were kidnapped and dumped on the beach at Charleston. Or it might have been
    > Horowitz's assertion that welfare payments constitute reparations of a sort.
    > This is a downright insulting statement.
    >
    > This justifies attacks on the editors of newspapers who ran the ad as the
    > managers of a "racist propaganda machine"? What Cohen forgets is that my ad
    > is not an article on reparations, it is a response to the claims of
    > reparations proponents -- a response that students would not be able to hear
    > if I hadn't decided to buy the space to provide them with an opposing point
    > of view.
    >
    > What I find insulting is that the proponents of reparations have addressed
    > Americans as though white America, en masse, is solely responsible for
    > slavery. They also argue that white America is responsible for its real and
    > alleged aftereffects -- as though no apologies have ever been made for
    > slavery and no recognition of its horrors is on record, as though all the
    > deficiencies of black Americans (income gaps, education gaps and criminal
    > incarceration gaps) are attributable solely or even mainly to white racism
    > and as though all Americans who are not black should feel they owe a debt to
    > all Americans who are black. Now that's offensive.
    >
    > But that is exactly the case made by Randall Robinson and every other
    > reparations proponent known to me. Has there been an apology for slavery or
    > a recognition by white America that slavery is evil? Of course there has.
    > Abraham Lincoln called slavery an offense to God. He said that every drop of
    > blood from the lash would be paid by a drop of blood from the sword, and
    > called the destruction of the South a judgment of the Lord. This was not in
    > an obscure speech -- it was in his Second Inaugural Address. What more in
    > the way of recognition could be asked?
    >
    > And what is so insulting about the suggestion that welfare is a form of
    > reparations for injuries done by slavery and discrimination? If the entire
    > income gap between black Americans and other Americans is attributable to
    > slavery and its afterlife -- as Robinson and the reparations advocates
    > maintain -- then of course welfare could be considered an attempt to make up
    > that deficit and repair that injury. Welfare payments to African-Americans
    > represent a net transfer of wealth of more than a trillion dollars from
    > other communities to theirs. Should African-Americans be grateful for
    > slavery because they (incontrovertibly) live better in America than blacks
    > do in Africa today? Nobody in his right mind would say so, and I certainly
    > didn't.
    >
    > What is at issue, really, in this campus tempest is not so much the right of
    > an individal to publish his views as it is the right of an individual to
    > publish reasonable views on race matters without being tarred and feathered
    > or stigmatized for life.
    >
    > - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    > About the writer
    > David Horowitz's odyssey from '60s radical to cultural conservative is
    > described in his autobiography, "Radical Son." He is the president of the
    > conservative Center for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles and the
    > editor of FrontPage Magazine. For more columns by Horowitz, visit his column
    > archive.
    >
    > ------------------------------
    >
    > End of sixties-l-digest V1 #549
    > *******************************
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