BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise

Subject: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Arkie
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:27 PM

You have probably already assumed this comes from Arkansas. And it gets worse. The author who made this statement represents the legislative district in Jonesboro which is in the northeast region of the state. He also believes that integration resulted in a lowering of white student intelligence. He seems old enough to have been schooled before integration but I do not know his excuse for his level of intelligence. He also predicts a race war sometime in the future for America.

I wish I could say he is the only one of his breed loose in out state, but that would not be true. He did get elected Representative of his district. However, I can say that there are many who would disagree with him.

Jon Hubbard

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:31 PM

(:-( D)=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:40 PM

Sad thing is that there are one shit load (and I mean "shit load") of white people who believe this stuff...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: gnu
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:42 PM

We have laws against that in Canada. Free speech doesn't include that kinda crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: saulgoldie
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:43 PM

Well, the "comfortable" in the US could not be that way without some form of slavery. We *still* enslave people domestically--all of those on the bottom tier of the economy, the "47%" if you will who put much more into the economy than they are paid back so that the rest of us can pay less for goods and services than they "should" cost.

We enslave people in other countries. Most recently and obviously, China. But, many other countries, too. They are paid a pittance of what their time is worth so that we can have plentiful cheap goods.

And we enslave the environment. We take waaay more water than nature can continue to provide us. We take waaay more animal life for food than nature can replace. We take more from the soil than it is really capable of giving through the use of petro-chemicals and genetic engineering. We take coffee, chocolate, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages that make huge demands on the soil and the people who must gather and process the raw ingredients that we don't "pay back."

We also take coal, oil, and gas and send their burnt remains into the air and leave yucky stuff behind that is the result of mining and refinement. These are all examples of how we "enslave" other beings and the environment. We could not live as we do without slavery.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:45 PM

We need more laws here. We don't have enough laws. And that leads to lawlessness.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:56 PM

We make more guitars than there are people to play them, too.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 12:59 PM

Jonesboro is a university town.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Arkie
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 01:08 PM

Yes, Arkansas State University and I believe the second largest university in the state. My son went there for three years and finally transferred. He wished afterward he had done so sooner. I do know several faculty members whom I respect.

In response to Henry's concern about laws - meanness, greed, and the predatory nature of some of our fine citizens develop in complete disregard of laws and in general law provide a minor hindrance. The laws tend to keep the people on the edge in line.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 01:12 PM

You make some very good points there, saulgoldie. Slavery is much more widespread than many people realize...it's just not official anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 01:20 PM

99% are enslaved by the 1%.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 01:25 PM

Although the skin be black or white
Or somewhere in between
Underneath the blood is red
And so its always been
Colour's just within our eye
The way that light is seen
It has no bearing on the soul
Or the worth of any being

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 01:31 PM

Just more neo-confederate racist dogshit - that way too many ignorant fuckwits belive these days- and their numbers are growing exponentially. Arkansas state motto: "Thank God For Mississppi".

God bless Amerika.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 02:29 PM

Influenced by the 1849 essay "Occasional Discourse on the Negro by Thomas Carlyle?


Thomas Carlyle's essay

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: gnu
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 02:56 PM

Slavery of the poor by the rich exists.

Yeah, I thought we all knew that.

Slavery of the enviromnet exists. I disagree with the word.... to me it's exploitation and whether it is done well or poorly is another discussion not germain to the OP.

What I thought the OP was about was questioning if this guy is a hateful fuck making arguements in such a manner as to incite hatred against an identifiable minority. Maybe I missed something. So maybe I should just leave. Probably best on accounta I get pretty worked up about this stuff and my blood pressure is way up lately. I said my piece already, more or less.

Right. Maybe later.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 03:15 PM

"Slavery is a blessing in disguise"

Sounds like a catchy statement for the Republican campaign. It may have legs--hell, it's right up their alley.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 03:41 PM

Those who claim that the United States was founded on "Christian principles" are – up to a point – quite correct, however few of them have even the most vague of notions of what the "Christian principles" that were held by the first colonists actually were.

A good starting point for anyone who might actually be interested in a reasonably factual history of the early colonials is at http://www.timepage.org/spl/13colony.html

At this site, there are numerous local links, but I would suggest that a good beginning point would be to look at the state constitutions. There should be a group of links at the first page/place for each of the original 13 states that will take you to the state constitution for that state.

As a source for those who really want a quick(?) view of the history, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is particularly instructive since that constitution has been amended only by adding what's new without deletion of the original text. It makes it a little difficult to tell exactly what the current meanings in Massachusetts are, but if read from top to bottom it records all of the changes in more or less chronological order.

It must be kept in mind that the "liberal?" protections for freedom of religion and free speech in the early Massachusetts laws were rather meaningless for them, since IN FACT AND IN PRACTICE there was only ONE PROTESTANT religion permitted to exist in the state at the time of the earliest versions.

Although some of the other state constitutions show changes by added amendments, many (or most?) of the others have been "recompiled" in accessible versions to remove what no longer applies, so the history is less evident, although careful reading can often find good clues about past versions.

It should be self-evident that trying to prove a point by showing actual history to fools¹ can be self-defeating, since many of them will think that the things that were removed to conform to the eventual US Constitution were really good ideas.

¹ Any of a handful of Tea Party Governors or legislators will do, but a good start might be with Governor Brownback from Kansas.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 03:46 PM

If that is true, then I should think that the person saying it would WANT to be a slave.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 03:53 PM

He is -

A slave to religious superstition

A slave to bigotry

A slave to HATE (often redundant with items 1 and/or 2)

(among others)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 04:10 PM

Well, they never had to worry about where their next meal was coming from or where they were sleeping that night.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,Anti-
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 04:51 PM

Hubbard more or less states that African-Americans are ungrateful. They were "rescued" from worse circumstances in Africa than any they faced in America (a statement he makes no attempt to prove because it is unprovable and is only his rather uninformed opinion). In the face of Jim Crow segregation and Southern Lynch Laws and in the face of a deliberately indifferent, if not hostile, justice system that still keeps our prisons stocked with innocent black men, Hubbard's patronizing statement would be laughable were it not so tragic. He is telling African-Americans: "Be grateful we brought you here, otherwise you'd be starving to death or dying of AIDS in some hell-hole like Rwanda where you're all butchering each other like animals." What he seems to forget is that none of these people he is addressing would have been born at all and so there would be no racial strife in America had Africans not been forced to toil as slaves because there never would have been a persecution. By lumping all African-Americans with Africans, an African-American is supposed to regard the conditions of a country he was not born in nor has ever visited as personally as those of the country of which he is a citizen. Hubbard and those who think like him cannot understand that African-Americans were only born because of the slave issue and that the country of their origin is the United States and not Africa anymore than the affairs of Europe should personally concern a white American born in America.

Hubbard then completely misses the point that the African-American is not obliged to place the sufferings of Africans above his own nor to regard those foreign sufferings as his own. The African-American, in Hubbard's universe, should bear his legacy of degradation and neglect with thankfulness that he wasn't born in Africa where it would surely have been worse (and we shall assume that this statement has been proven). Sure, I'm glad I wasn't born a Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe and I'm glad I wasn't locked up in a Serbian prison camp and I'm glad I was born a female living under the Taliban—that doesn't mean I should place the sufferings of these people above my own in a nation where I am facing persecution even though I am a citizen. I cannot react to a persecution I am not being subjected to as though it were my own to bear. I can only react to what persecution I am subjected to. If I am being persecuted, I cannot help but react negatively to it. No human being could respond to institutionalized brutality and oppression with an air of thankfulness that it is not worse as in some far off foreign nation or other.

The very act of owning another person as property is mistreatment in and of itself. All blacks that were held as slaves in America were mistreated simply because they were held as slaves. Whether their treatment was kindly or abominable is beside the point. They were held in bondage and bondage of itself is mistreatment. Moreover, the supposed civilized nature of the white man then falls into question if he institutes a system of slavery that Hubbard says was the very backbone of tribal African society. Slavery was also the very backbone of the antebellum American South. What, then, ultimately is the difference between a plantation owner in Georgia and a tribal chief in Rwanda? None. Both are abusive despots who owned the people under their dominion.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: gnu
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 05:00 PM

I see we are back on track. Well said, Anti.

Oh yeah... the typo... we all know what you meant. Thought I'd say that before some troll "misquoted" you.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Oct 12 - 05:02 PM

The ancient feudal system did not vanish with the Renaissance. It is alive and well and living in America.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 01:00 AM

Always picking on Georgia. It was worse in South Carolina. Mississippi.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 05:51 AM

'Slavery' is one of those words that have been grossly over-defined figuratively ~~ 'slave to fashion, slave to nicotine, slave to sciatica, slave to bronchitis, slave to pornography, slave to alcohol, the workers slaves of the capitalists' cont p 94. These have been so overused as to be the sort of 'dead metaphor' so familiar that it is hard for some to realise that it is a metaphor.

The OP concerned the LITERAL meaning, as specified in the article it linked to --

i.e. the possession of one human being by another as a piece of actual personal property {'a chattel personal' as old antebellum laws in the Slave States would put it}, generally for purposes of labour or sexual submission

-- but so many posters have hijacked the thread with irrelevant unrecognised metaphors and similes as suggested above that the thread has been in much danger of disappearing up its own.

GUEST·Anti did well to put it back on track.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 10:38 AM

Yeah, and John Hubbard is an asshole in disguise as a sentient being. He's garbage peddling more garbage for political advantage.

A race-baiting candidate in Arkansas? Who would have ever believed it.

The "New South", fer shure.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 02:19 PM

I could use a couple of slaves.

Applicants with satisfactory resumé are welcome to apply.

Children from India, Pakistan, etc., countries with large child labor elements, not acceptable since they are already well-employed in rug, shoe and plastics industries.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 02:33 PM

The ancient feudal system did not vanish with the Renaissance. It is alive and well and living in America.

It's alive & thriving in Britain too, Don.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 03:02 PM

""the supposed civilized nature of the white man"

I wonder who supposes that, considering the many military adventures, recent and in the past. Is neocolonialism not a form of slavery, on a broader perspective?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,mando-player-91
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 06:08 PM

I'm sorry but I thought this was 2012 and people should be passed this kind of thinking but I must have woken up this morning to 1950

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 07:12 PM

1950??? 1850??? 1750???

Doesn't much matter to the folks who think like this... And there3 are plenty of them... If you were to administer truth serum to the entire Tea Party you'd find that 100%, not 99.99%, deep down inside think like this...

People go, "Oh, there goes Bobert again"...

Hey, I've lived around these people all my life... I've heard what they say and think...

"But, Bobert, some of my best friends are black..."

Bullshit!!! That is the BIGGEST LIE ever told...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,mando-player-91
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 07:16 PM

I know the Tea-Party is the most vile thing happening in America today.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 01:50 AM

Well, it's right up there with the beer ads, that's for sure. (joke)

My feeling is that most African tribesmen far preferred their traditional tribal existence on their own land to being forcibly siezed by foreigners, packed in the hold of a ship like sardines, chained, beaten and terrorized, many dying on the way, and then sold at auction into slavery in America. They had pride in their own culture, and they most probably supported it. No one takes pride in being a purchased slave of a foreign culture.

But, hey, I'm just preaching to the choir here to say that! We all know it already. It's dead bloody obvious.

And Mr Hubbard, you see, is preaching to his local choir...in his locality...many other people who think as he does, and want to believe what he believes. He's saying what he thinks is "normal". To him, it is. That doesn't mean it's right, needless to say. But a bunch of outraged puffing and blowing here about how awful it is won't change Mr Hubbard one iota...nor affect those who agree with him. It'll just make us feel good for a little while, cos we're not like them. They don't even hear us, for gosh sakes! Do you think they read Mudcat or listen to a progressive news show?

If you want to change Arkansas politics, I guess you'd better just move there, get on the voting list, and vote. Short of that, it's just a lot of talk about stuff we already knew just like we know that 2 + 2 = 4. Let's all agree that slavery is bad. Yeah! It is! Very bad! Is that news to anyone here?

And now what?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 02:00 AM

Most none of them were seized by foreigners. They were sold to foreigners by other tribes of African aboriginals.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 02:28 AM

And what is this about keeping prisons stocked with innocent black men? Ask their victims how innocent they are. We've allowed millions of illegal immigrants to come in and take jobs. Fewer jobs means angrier people. And blacks are angry as hell about it. Anger leads to violence. I personall saw how much your average black person cares about being educated. They'd much rather disrupt the class and get a little attention that way. So many of them are thugs. They don't know anything else.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 06:24 AM

"I personall saw how much your average black person cares about being educated."

Would you be kind enough to educate me about this?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 06:38 AM

I was going to high school during integration. They redistricted the neighborhood I lived in. Changed my high school. Brought in all these inner city blacks. They didn't give a damn about school. They liked to disrupt the class with one moronic question after another. When they weren't picking fights. I was attacked by a black girl in class. Can't hit a girl back. You just have to suck it up. The teacher's not about to make any waves. If it happened these days you'd see a black girl with a broken jaw and smashed face.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 07:16 AM

Funny you write that HK. I had a similar experience in school with a group of white kids from another community, when I was a youngster. A number of schools were merged into one bigger one. The kids from one of the communities were a similar "bad bunch" of bullies not much interested in school at all. I strongly expect that there are "those types' in all colour groups. <<:(((=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 07:18 AM

Yeah. About 40% of my family are Native North American. We hear the same stuff said about us.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,mando-player-91
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 07:31 AM

Today prisons in the United States are 21st century slavery

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 07:33 AM

If the shoe fits.........there's good and bad that comes in all colours. Ages. Sexes. Most of the people in prison put themselves there. Some are innocent. Most aren't.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 08:15 AM

Well, that's the point, isn't it. 'For instance' is not proof.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,redhorse at work
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 08:22 AM

I recently read the diary of Ralph Semmes, captain of the Alabama.
At one point he was expressing his displeasure that his personal slave had been persuaded to desert while on shore leave in Havana.
The main gist of his comments was "he'll be really sorry when he realises all he's given up by trading slavery for freedom".

Some things in the South don't seem to have changed in 150 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 09:05 AM

Here were are 150 years removed from slavery yet we have never, as a nation, come to grips with it's effects... We have failed to repair the damage inflicted to black people and allowed white people a "wink-wink-pass" to blame black people for that failure...

As recent as 1979 white America gave that "wink-wink-pass" as the KKK opened fire on a non-violent protest march in Greensboro, N.C. killing many of the protesters... No arrests were ever made...

As recent as 4 years ago a white vice-presidential candidate said nothing as white people yelled "Hang him" in reference to Obama at her rallies...

As recent as the 1960's black people were still being lynched for perceived behaviors that white people didn't like...

Our nation is like a broken car that we continue to drive knowing it is broken... Rather than fix it correctly we patch it up a little here and a little there...

We now have re-segregated schools through out the South... We have an expensive and winless war against black people with stupid drug laws where penalties for crack cocaine (the choice of black people) are 30 times greater than those for the powder form (the choice of white people)...

I'm sorry, but the major problem in the country ain't black folks but white folks who have shirked their responsibilities for shit that white people have done... I don't give a flying fuck if you, as a white person, didn't enslave black people... You are enjoying the wealth and infrastructure that was built on the backs of black people so quit with all this self-righteous bullshit... Man up and quit with the washrag, crybaby mythology...

Yeah...

Man the fuck up!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 09:11 AM

"Today prisons in the United States are 21st century slavery"
.,,.
Oh? Where did the owners of the prison buy the slaves? What did they pay for them? What is their legal title to ownership of them?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 09:15 AM

The blacks need to Man Up. Quit wallowing in self pity. It's disgusting.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 09:38 AM

As per usual, Krinkx, you bring the KKK/Jim Crow perspective...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 09:50 AM

I've spent my life around working class blacks. Not the college educated middle class blacks you rub elbows with. Ex cons, drug addicts, thieves, rapists, murderers.
You feel so sorry for them. And they laugh behind your back. And smash out your car windows.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 09:57 AM

Sorry, Henry, but you just entered my 'no-fly zone'. I hope things work out for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery is a blessing in disguise
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 08 Oct 12 - 10:05 AM

Good and bad in all folks.
Some are worse than others.
Lots of working class whites are no better.
I'm not a racist.
I'm more a misanthrope.
(:-( ))=