Debra Dickerson and Erroll McDonald
Bush's Secret Debate Strategy
By Erroll McDonald
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2000, at 2:57 PM ETIn Gotham today there is mildew aplenty. I've just come back from the Mideast not only to the excellent news that the New York Post has reduced its price by 50 percent (from 50 cents to a quarter)--"It's Here! A quarter buys you the best paper in town"--but to its juicy post-Labor Day front-page: "I'll take Manhattan: Trump scouts 'Indian' partner for NYC casino." Of course, it would be, according to the Donald, "the largest casino in the world." I don't know about you, but it seems to me that the government's policy of legalizing gambling in off-reservation casinos operated by Native Americans constitutes serious and wickedly funny reparations. Some Native Americans have made fortunes by parting white fools with their money. With characteristic insight, Trump allows that "it would not be a very difficult thing to do to get an Indian nation interested in Manhattan. He added that it helps that the Indians used to own Manhattan." But, alas, he appears to be thinking of hooking up with the St. Regis Mohawks, operators of a failing casino near the Canadian border. I note that the stock of Trump Hotels is trading at nearly 40 percent off its 52-week high. Wall Street is not amused by this man.
Perhaps the story today that I obsess most about is the hoopla concerning the presidential debates. On its front page the New York Times announces: "TV Networks Jilted by Bush Won't Take Part in 2 Debates." There are two points I wish to make here. The three broadcast networks still appeal to nearly 50 percent of television viewers and, regarding the presidential debates, they are clearly the venue for reaching most voters. Why have they been lobbying to get in on the act exclusively? Might it have something to do with the fact that this year so far they and the broadcast stations have reaped $600 million from American politics? And the last time I checked, Meet the Press (proposed by Bush as a venue) featured ads. Were he and Gore to appear on the show or on Larry King, for that matter, would the debates be interrupted time and again by "now a word from our commercial sponsor"? There is something rotten in the connection between television and American politics. But why is Dubya making such a fuss? Might he need the constant interjection of a third party giving him time to strategize and compose himself, if not proper English sentences? Might he need the assitance of a third party in the face of Gore's admitted policy-wonk prowess? Only the shadow knows. Mildew, mildew: nothing but mildew!
Bush's Secret Debate Strategy
By Erroll McDonald
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2000, at 2:57 PM ETDebra Dickerson is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a columnist for Beliefnet.com. Her memoir, An American Story
, will be published this month (click here to buy it). Erroll McDonald is an editor at Pantheon Books. Reader Comments from The Fray:
Indian gaming may seem like a form of reparations in our tort-minded culture, but this is a false analogy. Indians are permitted to operate casinos because they have sovereignty over their reservations by treaties signed in the preceding centuries. When the federal courts ruled that states could not bar tribes from running casinos, states negotiated agreements with them regulating their operation (restricting alcohol, for example). Indian gaming, fishing rights, and sales tax exemptions are not gifts of guilty white liberals. They are an acknowledgement of legal obligations from another era.
--Andrew W.Cohen
(To reply, click
here.)
I believe the best reparations would be putting forth the effort to treat Black Americans and Indians with the respect and equality human beings deserve. What good would money and property do, when white folks can still treat Black Americans and Indians as less than human, therefore less than equal? What would I, a Black American, rather have: 40 acres and a mule, or to be treated and given as much respect and equality is my white brother and sisters? Forget the money and the property, give me my equality and my respect. That is the best reparation any oppressed people can ask for.
--philiagoddess
(To reply, click
here.)
The purpose of reparations is justice. The purpose of group reparations (vs. individual) is approximate justice. So it is necessary to decide how approximate we wish our justice to be. I believe that reparations for the dead (eg slaves) paid to their remote descendants is too crude. However, after slavery there was still a long-term injustice towards blacks: Jim Crow. This depressed the wages of Afro-Americans. Some of these victims are still alive. Since they would be mostly retired now, I suggest compensation through the Social Security system. This could be done in many ways, for example by adjusting the probability distribution of wages of blacks to mirror that of whites (on a year-by-year basis, up to some cutoff date), and then using that adjustment to adjust individual wage histories, and so finally increase Social Security payments.
--Bob Cox
(To reply, click
here.)
We do owe the black people. The whole country does, because we took their share of work for building this country up, for free, and on top we dragged them through the hell of slavery, and broken families, and constant humiliation. And even now 140 years after the Civil War, the prejudice continues. If we inherited all the good stuff from our predecessors in this country, we also inherited their debts. And the debt to the black people still needs to be paid.
--Amyntas
(To reply, click
here.)
Several questions:
1)If we're starting with home-grown folks, should we be planning to collect reparations from black slave owners' descendants?
2) Would you prefer African-Americans have quasi-sovereign nations to live on like Native Americans tribes, and thus be immune (to a large extent) from the state and federal government?
3) Did Bill Clinton oppose the war before or after he signed up for ROTC, and then dropped out once he realized he might get drafted?
4) Was Gore struggling along as a pauper while Bush was living high with his family's money?
--MRB
(To reply, click
here.)
Notes from the Fray Editor: Debra Dickerson does a splendid job of explaining The Fray. (In fact, our job--thanks Debra.) This is the post she mentions about the National Review. Views on reparations can be found all over The Fray, and we picked out some of what we hope she will think the more intelligent and thoughtful ones, above. And WillV liked Ms Dickerson's description of the shooting--Tuesday-- so much he thought she should be be hired by Slate to write a cops and crime column.
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
Indian gaming may seem like a form of reparations in our tort-minded culture, but this is a false analogy. Indians are permitted to operate casinos because they have sovereignty over their reservations by treaties signed in the preceding centuries. When the federal courts ruled that states could not bar tribes from running casinos, states negotiated agreements with them regulating their operation (restricting alcohol, for example). Indian gaming, fishing rights, and sales tax exemptions are not gifts of guilty white liberals. They are an acknowledgement of legal obligations from another era.
--Andrew W.Cohen
(To reply, click here.)
I believe the best reparations would be putting forth the effort to treat Black Americans and Indians with the respect and equality human beings deserve. What good would money and property do, when white folks can still treat Black Americans and Indians as less than human, therefore less than equal? What would I, a Black American, rather have: 40 acres and a mule, or to be treated and given as much respect and equality is my white brother and sisters? Forget the money and the property, give me my equality and my respect. That is the best reparation any oppressed people can ask for.
--philiagoddess
(To reply, click here.)
The purpose of reparations is justice. The purpose of group reparations (vs. individual) is approximate justice. So it is necessary to decide how approximate we wish our justice to be. I believe that reparations for the dead (eg slaves) paid to their remote descendants is too crude. However, after slavery there was still a long-term injustice towards blacks: Jim Crow. This depressed the wages of Afro-Americans. Some of these victims are still alive. Since they would be mostly retired now, I suggest compensation through the Social Security system. This could be done in many ways, for example by adjusting the probability distribution of wages of blacks to mirror that of whites (on a year-by-year basis, up to some cutoff date), and then using that adjustment to adjust individual wage histories, and so finally increase Social Security payments.
--Bob Cox
(To reply, click here.)
We do owe the black people. The whole country does, because we took their share of work for building this country up, for free, and on top we dragged them through the hell of slavery, and broken families, and constant humiliation. And even now 140 years after the Civil War, the prejudice continues. If we inherited all the good stuff from our predecessors in this country, we also inherited their debts. And the debt to the black people still needs to be paid.
--Amyntas
(To reply, click here.)
Several questions:
1)If we're starting with home-grown folks, should we be planning to collect reparations from black slave owners' descendants?
2) Would you prefer African-Americans have quasi-sovereign nations to live on like Native Americans tribes, and thus be immune (to a large extent) from the state and federal government?
3) Did Bill Clinton oppose the war before or after he signed up for ROTC, and then dropped out once he realized he might get drafted?
4) Was Gore struggling along as a pauper while Bush was living high with his family's money?
--MRB
(To reply, click here.)
Notes from the Fray Editor: Debra Dickerson does a splendid job of explaining The Fray. (In fact, our job--thanks Debra.) This is the post she mentions about the National Review. Views on reparations can be found all over The Fray, and we picked out some of what we hope she will think the more intelligent and thoughtful ones, above. And WillV liked Ms Dickerson's description of the shooting--Tuesday-- so much he thought she should be be hired by Slate to write a cops and crime column.