Who Will Be The First Cabinet Member To Resign?

[Burning Petard]

I believe the NAACP should present Secretary Carson with a blu-Ray edition of "12 Years a Slave"

snailgate

[rubato]

... Trying to do so is an attempt to re-write history, and to minimize the fact that (principally) white men did one of the most horrific things you can do to another human, by enslaving them. ... " .

More accurately all civilisations on all continents before the latter 1800s were founded on slavery of one form or another.

The most remarkable thing is the least mentiioned; in the span of a century or slightly more an institution that was accepted and taken for granted as inevitable across the globe is now taken for granted as evil and unacceptable nearly as universally. (but if you read the news about fishermen in SE asia, garment workers in many countries, child labor in Pakistan and India, young girls being sold in many countries, you will see that the impulse to enslave others is not gone.)

yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

Absolutely; and I would bet precious few had hope for their children. Not that they didn't have them or care for them, but most had very little say in the matter. they were bred like livestock and the offspring were taken away from them and sold. do you honestly think many of them were happy or hopeful for their kids born into the same brutal system?

[BoSoxGal]

I am reminded of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, and a women's history course I took in college wherein my professor informed us that infanticide was more common among slaves than average - no doubt due to the wish of some slave mothers to save their children from the cruelties of a slave's existence and/or being sold away.

I can't really excuse Carson's blunder. I honestly think the man is entirely without social graces, very possibly on the spectrum - brilliant at the one thing he does brilliantly, but incapable of sensitivity to commonly understood social mores? I don't think he meant it with any intent to hurt, but OF COURSE it's a completely unacceptable comparison! It isn't even fair to compare slaves to indentured servants, who more often than not entered into indenture voluntarily, with the opportunity to earn their way out of indebtedness. Slaves just ARE NOT immigrants, and their experience of America is NOT the immigrant experience that characterizes most other Americans' family history - except the Native peoples, whose treatment is the other original sin of this country.

Meade I love ya, but you just aren't right on this point.

[Econoline]

[MajGenl.Meade]

Meade it's not just the immigrant thing it is the very concept that they were working "in hopes of a better life". That equation simply didn't exist and it is moronic to pretend otherwise. Hopes for a better life were escape or managing to sufficiently suck up to master and outlive them and be bequeathed freedom. Hard work is just a means to avoid punishment.

To pretend otherwise is unconscionable.

I shall deny that slaves during their days of slavery did not dream of better lives, either for themselves or for their children. I deny that none worked in the hopes of a better life. That's why so many purchased their freedom - because it had immense value. (Of course, the majority by far never had that opportunity - purchase in the deep south was rare, and yet...New Orleans has an interesting history).

But consider Billy Colton, born in 1801 as a slave. He worked to purchase his own freedom in Virginia from his "master" Colton and promptly chose his "own" name - William Taylor. Then he worked to free his wife and daughter - he did that by purchasing them as slaves in 1859. He paid tax on them as slaves. He could not free them under VA laws that had been amended since he "bought himself free" until 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. His daughter, Mary Anne went on to become the leader of the Virginia Ladies' Soldiers Aid Society in Norfolk and a noted teacher of free black children in Maryland and VA, at considerable risk to her life. His wife, Harriet, founded the United Order of Tents, the first fraternal order for black women in the USA. I have visited the graves of these people in Hampton VA, heroes each. And you think that as slaves they did not have "hope of a better life" and do their best to achieve it, despite opposition that would have caved me in on day one?

For Guin - I've visited the 54th Mass memorial and (I dare suggest) a considerably larger number of others in more obscure locations than have you, perhaps. And yes, I put "immigrants" in inverted commas - was I not permitted to do so? And why pick on white men? Those slaves were gathered in Africa by blacks; sold to Arabs; and then purchased by whites - though most were purchased by Hispanics. Which seems to be a different category on some government paperwork so I get confused about that. There's enough guilty to go around. But this pillorying of the ineffectual Ben is a firm part of an agenda to read the worst into whatever any part of Trump's administration says or does - as if there are not far more significant and genuine horrors to criticize there.

As for your point, Big RR - somebody said they were "happy"? I missed that. "Hopeful"... yes they were. Despairing too, I have no doubt. Far be it from me to defend chattel slavery of the Triangle Trade kind. But I think BSG is close to the truth about Ben - he's graceless and hopelessly tone deaf to the effect of words and language; he means no offense and yet offends. But there are those who are only too happy and hopeful that they will be able to take offense, even at nothing much at all.

Enough. I have my opinion. Y'all have yours. What we agree on (the evil of the African slave trade) is more important than minor issues like this.

[wesw]

if we want to talk about slavery perhaps there would be more profit in discussing all of the poor yazidi girls still enslaved in Syria....

...or the black Africans enslaved in sudan.....

or maybe the harems in Saudi Arabia....

or the Christian girls taken by book haram...

most slaves today are held by muslims.

we could punish the descendants of the greeks or the romans or the Persians or the Vikings or any of the past holders of slaves....

...even the native americans..., north and south....

or the Spanish......

stop living in the past..., that would be my humble advice.

[BoSoxGal]

When, exactly, will you be taking a leave of absence from this toxic place?

[Joe Guy]

I agree that Ben Carson made a mistake in his speech. I believe that Ben Carson being in politics is a bigger mistake. I also believe that people will always be looking for Carson to makes mistakes so they can be offended and let everyone know it.

He is not stupid. He is just boring and says stupid things sometimes.

[Scooter]

Sometimes?

[Joe Guy]

He is not stupid. He is just boring and says stupid things sometimes.

[rubato]

" ...

I shall deny that slaves during their days of slavery did not dream of better lives, either for themselves or for their children. I deny that none worked in the hopes of a better life. ... "

Just as the Soviet prisoners of the Germans in WWII dreamed of freedom, and the German prisoners of the Soviets; with almost zero chance of survival.

"... Those slaves were gathered in Africa by blacks; sold to Arabs; and then purchased by whites - ... " .

You are conflating the slave trade in East and West Africa. In East Africa they were captured by either Arabs or Blacks in central Africa, the Blacks then sold them to Arabs who then took them to the coast to the coast* or Zanzibar where they were sold across the Red Sea to arabic peoples. The East aAfricana slave trade only contributed to the trans Atlantic trade to a small degree in the latter years.

In West Africa they were mostly captured by Africans and sold directly to European traders on the coast.

I would guess that only a tiny minority held out any hope of a better life, only a better death.




yrs,
rubato

* by some reports half died enroute to the coast, not likely to inculcate hope.

[Burning Petard]

Back to the thread topic. Right now I'm thinking the first to resign will be the Sec of State, ol Whats-His-Name. His budget is cut, no press conference since he took the job, no press contingent allowed to follow him around. He will just fade into the woodwork, forgotten and his resignation a short paragraph on page three. I thought that Energy would be the first cabinet department reduced until it could be drowned in a bathtub, but now it looks like State will do it.

snailgate.

[Econoline]

Did you see the video I posted here (in the "Muscovite Candidate" thread)? As I said in that same thread, a couple of posts later (here), I'm starting to think that if Jim's prediction of Tillerson's early departure doesn't come true, that might be a very bad sign.

(To quote myself: “The appointment of a man who had the Russian Order of Friendship medal pinned to his chest by Putin himself to head the State Department (and who, as Maddow points out, Trump had never met before announcing that he was the top candidate for SoS) , and then the subsequent departure of so many experienced foreign service personnel and the cuts in funding, are certainly some big, bright dots that need connecting. I'm a big supporter of diplomacy over military action, so I see raising the DoD budget while cutting the DoS budget as a very troubling signal.”)

[Scooter]

And now you have a Secretary of Homeland Security telling flat out baldfaced lies about threats to blow up planes of specific airlines.

It's almost as if he is purposely trying to tank their business, in favour of whom, I wonder.

[BoSoxGal]

Who even talks like that?!

Not to mention, it's an outrageous violation of protocol.

This is so fucking fascistic, stir up fear so you can stir up hatred. I hate these fucking cunts!

[RayThom]

Trump Air rides again.

[Burning Petard]

Is if a requirement that President Trump's cabinet members be unable to think or speak reasonably? The sec of homeland security says in the clip from Scooter above:

" I can’t count the number of airplanes that have not been blown up in flight, whether they’re United (Airlines) or Air Canada.”

I can count them rather easily. The total is ALL OF THEM-- for at least this century.

snailgate

[Econoline]

Perhaps he meant to end that sentence with the word "count"?

[Guinevere]

For Guin - I've visited the 54th Mass memorial and (I dare suggest) a considerably larger number of others in more obscure locations than have you, perhaps.

Meade, I mentioned it simply as a place where we might meet, should you ever visit Massachusetts (which is why I said "Come to Boston and we will meet . . . "). Not to compete with you over Civil War memorials visited.

As for the rest, we agree to disagree on most of it.