MORE VINDICATION for Shirley Sherrod! When I read Dr. Zoom's article, I had to think of her immediately. Then I went to look her up. Sherrod was briefly in the news again not too long ago, and for a good reason.
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ALBANY, Ga. (WALB, Mar. 5, 2024) - “I was surprised that he would recognize me after receiving our 66 recommendations. I think Vilsack has the right attitude for trying to make some of the changes. As he said during his speech, I will be one of those individuals that will hold his feet to the fire to do the best he can,” Shirley Sherrod, president & CEO The Sherrod Institute
In 2010, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fired Shirley Sherrod as Georgia State director of Rural Development for the USDA, after Sherrod said a conservative blogger falsely suggested she discriminated against a white Southwest farmer and refused to help save his farm.
Nearly 14 years later at the USDA’s Equity Commission ceremony in Washington, D.C., Vilsack thanked Sherrod for her input on their systemic racism report, aimed at improving equity in the delivery of the department’s programs and services.
“If there has been any person in my life that has taken the blinders off of my eyes, it’s you, Shirley, and I am forever grateful,” Vilsack said.
I used to not favor reparations. I thought that through a combination of remedial action, affirmative action and acknowledgement of past wrongs, we could finally overcome America's original sin. However, after 4 decades of mediocre white men crapping all over any effort at good will, I now say sue the living shit out of the country. I think that getting reparations for slavery might be a bridge too far--although merited, the mediocre white men would contend that no laws were broken. For everything since the passage of the 14th Amendment, it should be a slam dunk. After all the lynchings and burnings and redzoning...were all in violation of the equal protection clause and countless federal and state laws. So, given that mediocre white men have made it impossible to remedy past wrongs is a spirit of good will, Fuckem. Sue them into fucking oblivion.
Add in the grievances for every tribal treaty ever violated, every citizen of Japanese descent dispossessed in the 1940s and even every Chinese railroad worker who got screwed over. This country will never live out the true meaning of its creed, but it can be made to pay for past wrongs,.
Seems like a perfect time to engage in some coordinated student led fuckery. Like all black clothing except for 1 white sock. Or a dark blue wristband. Or a rainbow hair scrunchy.
He's hanging on till he can cash out his tooth soshul stock. The giggle sez late september. Any predictions on what he does with the bux? On how long the company lasts? Can you say "Caymans Vacatinz?"
Watching the Wisconsin rally right now, with Gov. Evers speaking. It feels so weird seeing the old white people behind him, not wearing MAGA hats and cheering on Kamala. <3 I can get behind this, though.
Edit: They just zoomed out the camera, and holy hell, that's a crowd.
Without moral intervention, geography is destiny. Color-coded maps of the confederacy in 1864 and a host of social ills (high poverty, high rates of bad health outcomes) in the United States in 2024 are exactly the same.
Since 1492, the control of land has formed the basis of wealth, which is itself an historic basis of power.
All the reform movements in this country since 1865 have been aimed at redressing civil injustices created by disproportionate economic, social and political power that control of land provides.
The signal example is American slavery, sharecropping and debt peonage, which were the unjust and exploitative use of people in the economic exploitation of land - agriculture. (It was fear of the expansion of slavery into the economic exploitation of labor and capital to create finished goods - industrialism - that in part drove anti-slavery free-soilers, such as Abraham Lincoln.)
Aggregate wealth, literacy, educational attainment, social safety and security have all moved positively coincidentally with moves by the federal government since 1933 to make land affordable for the not-already-wealthy. Groups discriminated against by those programs (GI Bill, home loan guarantee, federally-chartered private lending, USDA, etc. etc.) fared worse during the same period.
I'm not making an anodyne Bush-era argument that we should be a "nation of owners." I'm arguing the two obvious truths -- just as granting land to a family provides the strong possibility of generational wealth, its also true that if by action or inaction you take a family's land, in our society, especially before the New Deal and the Great Society, you doom that family to several generations of poverty. And I'm arguing that one of the shafts of light in the arc of justice is the decoupling of relationship between land ownership/control and political power
Let's make the discriminated farmers whole. And lets break the cycle of super-wealth based on land. Fund the just retribution with a restored, modern federal estate tax.
One of the unsaid reasons that people aren't having kids is that the reality of our current oligarchical construct is that lower and middle class families see that the main driver of generational wealth is now out of reach. No one can afford to spend half of their pay on rents and expect to be able to save enough to make a down payment on a home, so basically having kids just puts them on a track for a lifetime of work with zero expectation of even a comfortable retirement.
Add to that sad reality the fact that as we get better at keeping old people alive the financial windfall that used to occur when parents died is becoming less and less a boon, as the costs of that healthcare is draining estates to the point of financial irrelevance.
Totally agreed. If the costs of getting an education, having a baby and securing decent shelter were made reasonable (ie, less usurious) we'd unleash a tsunami of both human productivity and human happiness.
It wouldn't cost that much, really. Certainly not nearly as much as 20-year expeditionary wars of choice in Asia.
The US govt also dispossessed Black folks through "redlining." When developers wanted to create giant tracts of family dwellings (suburbs), banks were too nervous to loan them the money, so the FHA came through, but on the condition that the homes not be sold to Black folks and the deeds contain a proscription against reselling, renting, or subletting to them.
Jefferson created the estate tax for just this reason. He experienced the misery of Europe first hand, and did not want that for the new republic he represented there.
Agreed. But please know that while Thomas Jefferson certainly had a lot to say about banks, debts and land (he was a perennial bankrupt) he did not create the first federal estate tax.
The modern federal estate tax, the one we debate today, was born in the mind of President Theodore Roosevelt. On August 31, 1910, in Osawatomie, Kansas, ex-President Roosevelt laid out his vision for a "new nationalism." He said, in part: "I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective-a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."
OT Starliner updates. If they decide to have the crew return on a SpaceX Dragon (which is seeming more and more likely) they will launch Crew 9 with only two astronauts to leave the other seats open.
The U.S. government also did a great job stealing all the land belonging to Japanese-Americans during WWII. Ripping off Americans who aren't white enough to be real is part of our rich American heritage.
In that case, I might not be totally boned. The people we bought this property were from one of the local tribes, and this was in the past 20 years, so hopefully I can keep my land.
I am just SO angry and ashamed that the US remained so steadfastly a century behind the times in this context. Their disregard for making an effort to make things right for so many Black farm families is shameful and thoroughly unforgiveable.
As grateful as I am some of this $$$ is at LONG last being paid forward it has taken far too gawd damned long.
Speaking as a New Yorker, things here were racist but more egalitarian when the Dutch held this territory. Then the British kicked out the Dutch and imported their class system.
Ta, Dok. It's about fucking time.
You just know PAB will demand this money BACK...
He already tried to claw it back once
So since he's not going to be POTUS after November we can all tell him
"SHADDAP"
MORE VINDICATION for Shirley Sherrod! When I read Dr. Zoom's article, I had to think of her immediately. Then I went to look her up. Sherrod was briefly in the news again not too long ago, and for a good reason.
*** *** ***
ALBANY, Ga. (WALB, Mar. 5, 2024) - “I was surprised that he would recognize me after receiving our 66 recommendations. I think Vilsack has the right attitude for trying to make some of the changes. As he said during his speech, I will be one of those individuals that will hold his feet to the fire to do the best he can,” Shirley Sherrod, president & CEO The Sherrod Institute
In 2010, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fired Shirley Sherrod as Georgia State director of Rural Development for the USDA, after Sherrod said a conservative blogger falsely suggested she discriminated against a white Southwest farmer and refused to help save his farm.
Nearly 14 years later at the USDA’s Equity Commission ceremony in Washington, D.C., Vilsack thanked Sherrod for her input on their systemic racism report, aimed at improving equity in the delivery of the department’s programs and services.
“If there has been any person in my life that has taken the blinders off of my eyes, it’s you, Shirley, and I am forever grateful,” Vilsack said.
*** *** ***
https://www.walb.com/2024/03/06/us-agriculture-secretary-thanks-shirley-sherrod-her-advocacy-equality-farming/
"We bet Sen. Booker would be happy to share some thoughts with Harris-Walz staffers, just saying"
Here's hoping he does so in the Cabinet somewhere!
I used to not favor reparations. I thought that through a combination of remedial action, affirmative action and acknowledgement of past wrongs, we could finally overcome America's original sin. However, after 4 decades of mediocre white men crapping all over any effort at good will, I now say sue the living shit out of the country. I think that getting reparations for slavery might be a bridge too far--although merited, the mediocre white men would contend that no laws were broken. For everything since the passage of the 14th Amendment, it should be a slam dunk. After all the lynchings and burnings and redzoning...were all in violation of the equal protection clause and countless federal and state laws. So, given that mediocre white men have made it impossible to remedy past wrongs is a spirit of good will, Fuckem. Sue them into fucking oblivion.
Add in the grievances for every tribal treaty ever violated, every citizen of Japanese descent dispossessed in the 1940s and even every Chinese railroad worker who got screwed over. This country will never live out the true meaning of its creed, but it can be made to pay for past wrongs,.
OT: A middle school in El Paso has banned wearing all-black clothing.
So, what if somebody likes Bauhaus or The Cure?
Or New Zealand rugby?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce38w9e41vwo
I am in trouble now.
Seems like a perfect time to engage in some coordinated student led fuckery. Like all black clothing except for 1 white sock. Or a dark blue wristband. Or a rainbow hair scrunchy.
It's El Paso. What if some kids want to play the Bad Cowboys?
Some kids want to grow up to be Yul Brynner.
Okay, what's going on there that has the administration not wanting to know which kids might be depressed?
"Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on
… I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times"- Johnny Cash
WHAR 40 ACRES AND A MULE?!
Amanda Marcotte
@AmandaMarcotte@mastodon.sdf.org
I was nuts enough to go both to the JD Vance event in South Philly and then to the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz rally later in the day.
It was like leaving a bitter divorced man meet-up and going straight to a Taylor Swift concert.
My favorite part of her coverage was the positive she managed to find. That at least there wasn’t a line for the ladies room.
At least she went to sleep happy!
Speaking of CASH, the Harris campaign raised $36MM in 24hrs since the the Dad Walz announcement.
Meanwhile, the Trump camp is finding the hard way there is no Thielbux between JD's couch cushions.
Even if there were, no one is going to stick their hand down there to find it. 🤢🤮
I imagine rather than hard that it is velvety-smooth between JD's couch cushions.
EEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.....
At least I decided to drop "and sticky" from that description.
You’re nice that way
But, "Minnesota nice"?
But Trump's a billionaire -- he'll just self-fund the campaign. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
He's hanging on till he can cash out his tooth soshul stock. The giggle sez late september. Any predictions on what he does with the bux? On how long the company lasts? Can you say "Caymans Vacatinz?"
September, you say?
Before or after his sentencing on 34 felony counts.
Just "Late..." Most likely just after sentencing.
Nope, the couch references are not yet getting old. :D
They won't get old until couch-fucker leaves office and hides in disgrace.
They won't get old until the couch is sitting forlornly by the curb with a "free" poster on it
Just a used rubber
*glove
put a helmet on that soldier!
Watching the Wisconsin rally right now, with Gov. Evers speaking. It feels so weird seeing the old white people behind him, not wearing MAGA hats and cheering on Kamala. <3 I can get behind this, though.
Edit: They just zoomed out the camera, and holy hell, that's a crowd.
https://www.rawstory.com/massive-crowds-line-up-for-miles-to-see-kamala-harris-and-tim-walz-in-wisconsin/
Compare the picture of Fashy Captain Pugwash's event to Harris's.
The catsup is hitting the wall today.
Catsup? Isn't that a bit woke for the likes of the former president?
Fine, ketchup. Or, as he would call it, covfefe.
"Mr. Vance?"
"Yes, fellow at the back there."
"I was told there would be punch and pie?"
"GODDAMNIT THERE'S NO PUNCH AND PIE!"
I was trying to find a good link of a tweet I saw, of the line of cars and crowds to get into Harris's event!
What link? Everything I see is not up yet...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH-QFhxkM6Y
Here's the Washington Post link!
Thank you! good sound too!
Without moral intervention, geography is destiny. Color-coded maps of the confederacy in 1864 and a host of social ills (high poverty, high rates of bad health outcomes) in the United States in 2024 are exactly the same.
Since 1492, the control of land has formed the basis of wealth, which is itself an historic basis of power.
All the reform movements in this country since 1865 have been aimed at redressing civil injustices created by disproportionate economic, social and political power that control of land provides.
The signal example is American slavery, sharecropping and debt peonage, which were the unjust and exploitative use of people in the economic exploitation of land - agriculture. (It was fear of the expansion of slavery into the economic exploitation of labor and capital to create finished goods - industrialism - that in part drove anti-slavery free-soilers, such as Abraham Lincoln.)
Aggregate wealth, literacy, educational attainment, social safety and security have all moved positively coincidentally with moves by the federal government since 1933 to make land affordable for the not-already-wealthy. Groups discriminated against by those programs (GI Bill, home loan guarantee, federally-chartered private lending, USDA, etc. etc.) fared worse during the same period.
I'm not making an anodyne Bush-era argument that we should be a "nation of owners." I'm arguing the two obvious truths -- just as granting land to a family provides the strong possibility of generational wealth, its also true that if by action or inaction you take a family's land, in our society, especially before the New Deal and the Great Society, you doom that family to several generations of poverty. And I'm arguing that one of the shafts of light in the arc of justice is the decoupling of relationship between land ownership/control and political power
Let's make the discriminated farmers whole. And lets break the cycle of super-wealth based on land. Fund the just retribution with a restored, modern federal estate tax.
One of the unsaid reasons that people aren't having kids is that the reality of our current oligarchical construct is that lower and middle class families see that the main driver of generational wealth is now out of reach. No one can afford to spend half of their pay on rents and expect to be able to save enough to make a down payment on a home, so basically having kids just puts them on a track for a lifetime of work with zero expectation of even a comfortable retirement.
Add to that sad reality the fact that as we get better at keeping old people alive the financial windfall that used to occur when parents died is becoming less and less a boon, as the costs of that healthcare is draining estates to the point of financial irrelevance.
Totally agreed. If the costs of getting an education, having a baby and securing decent shelter were made reasonable (ie, less usurious) we'd unleash a tsunami of both human productivity and human happiness.
It wouldn't cost that much, really. Certainly not nearly as much as 20-year expeditionary wars of choice in Asia.
Hmm. Let's see which of these endeavors brings renewed wealth into the coffers of the already wealthy and which does not.
Seems reasonable.
The US govt also dispossessed Black folks through "redlining." When developers wanted to create giant tracts of family dwellings (suburbs), banks were too nervous to loan them the money, so the FHA came through, but on the condition that the homes not be sold to Black folks and the deeds contain a proscription against reselling, renting, or subletting to them.
Those nice, new highways through the city helped, too.
Straight through the Black and Latino neighborhoods
Jefferson created the estate tax for just this reason. He experienced the misery of Europe first hand, and did not want that for the new republic he represented there.
Agreed. But please know that while Thomas Jefferson certainly had a lot to say about banks, debts and land (he was a perennial bankrupt) he did not create the first federal estate tax.
Before Jefferson became president, in 1797, the Congress voted and President John Adams signed into law an estate tax to fund the building of a federal navy. (Source: https://origins.osu.edu/history-news/death-taxes-and-american-founders ).
The modern federal estate tax, the one we debate today, was born in the mind of President Theodore Roosevelt. On August 31, 1910, in Osawatomie, Kansas, ex-President Roosevelt laid out his vision for a "new nationalism." He said, in part: "I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective-a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."
(Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/12/06/archives-president-teddy-roosevelts-new-nationalism-speech )
Also mitigating the effects of generational dynasties of wealth.
OT Starliner updates. If they decide to have the crew return on a SpaceX Dragon (which is seeming more and more likely) they will launch Crew 9 with only two astronauts to leave the other seats open.
No Boeing reps on this update. They are hiding...
I want that nationalized
After the second delay, I started saying they'd be idiots to set foot in that thing.
This is exactly the problem with having monopolies in aerospace.
I wonder if the Boeing reps have some terror pee.
They're "studying the problem".
It's also a good argument why we need a functional Starliner.
Dream Chaser up next...
What they need is Gene Kranz kicking shit and demanding answers.
In a vest.
The Boeing MBAs should be shot into space, no return trip planned, because the return trip would cut into profit.
Nope, stick them in the Starliner and let them suffer the consequences.
At the least they will experience the terror that the 346 people that they murdered felt before they died.
No Boeing reps? Not even strapped on the outside, as heat shields?
If it’s Boeing it’s not going (to ever come back from space under its’ own power).
I know ranching families in Whyoming that got rich by stealing other people's shit and not getting caught!
Not just the black people got ripped off!
The U.S. government also did a great job stealing all the land belonging to Japanese-Americans during WWII. Ripping off Americans who aren't white enough to be real is part of our rich American heritage.
America's Native Tribes would like to join the conversation.
In that case, I might not be totally boned. The people we bought this property were from one of the local tribes, and this was in the past 20 years, so hopefully I can keep my land.
Were there any Edward G. Robinson impersonations at the closing?
That's a dead giveaway.
GOD DAMMIT!
And used government land for grazing illegally!
Hello, Bundy bastards, looking at you, moochers.
Ammon and the Office Chair!
More furniture!
GMTA!
Reminds me of the Bundys. Got rich from feeding their cattle on public, protected land, and threw an armed temper tantrum when they got caught.
And the government let them get away with. They yielded to terrorism.
👆👆👆
More GMTA here!
I am just SO angry and ashamed that the US remained so steadfastly a century behind the times in this context. Their disregard for making an effort to make things right for so many Black farm families is shameful and thoroughly unforgiveable.
As grateful as I am some of this $$$ is at LONG last being paid forward it has taken far too gawd damned long.
Speaking as a New Yorker, things here were racist but more egalitarian when the Dutch held this territory. Then the British kicked out the Dutch and imported their class system.
How soon before some dweeb in Texas sues in the 5th Circuit on the basis of reverse discrimination?
Happily the IRA funds are all out the door and paid to the qualifying applicants.
😭😭❤
Don’t know about that particular combination, but it has already been tangled up in courts over that issue.
ETA: the original law, this is apparently a less money more cleaned up version to get around the fact that that is still tied up in courts.
In 3... 2... 1...
The 1619 project podcast episode about this is a great splainer. No wonder they don't want school kids to hear it.
👆👆👆