Happy 4th of July (2015)!

34 Responses to Happy 4th of July (2015)!

1. Bruce says:

   July 4, 2015 at 9:30 pm

   The topic of ‘Is Compensation NOW DUE to All Previously Wronged U.S. Inhabitants?’ — TO BE CONTINUED IN FURTHER COMMENTS

   For our readers consideration as a start:

   Triangle Fire

   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/triangle-intro/

   Excerpt:

   It was the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history. On March 25th, 1911, a deadly fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York’s Greenwich Village. The blaze ripped through the congested loft as petrified workers — mostly young immigrant women — desperately tried to make their way downstairs. By the time the fire burned itself out, 146 people were dead. All but 17 of the dead were women and nearly half were teenagers.

   The workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were among the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who toiled in the city’s garment factories at the time. They came from countries such as Italy and Russia in search of a better future, and all around them they saw the riches promised by the American Dream. New York was in its Gilded Age and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was not too far from the limestone mansions of millionaires and the elegant shops of the famed Ladies Mile. Two men who had achieved the dream were the wealthy owners of the thriving Triangle factory. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, immigrants who had arrived from Russia only 20 years earlier, had become known as New York’s “Shirtwaist Kings,” and each owned fully staffed brownstones on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

   The dream seemed a long way off for the young workers at the factory who toiled 13 hours a day for $0.13 an hour. Though the factory was considered modern with its high ceilings and large windows, the working conditions were difficult. Only a year before the deadly fire, New York’s garment workers had begun agitating for shorter hours, better pay, safer shops and unions. To the horror of Harris and Blanck, the young women of the Triangle factory joined the crusade and called for a strike, becoming leaders in what became the largest women’s strike in American history. Within 48 hours, more than 50 of the smallest factories gave in to their workers’ demands, but the Triangle bosses organized other owners and refused to surrender, paying prostitutes and police to beat the strikers. Their terrible treatment brought the women an unexpected ally. Anne Morgan, the daughter of J.P. Morgan, and many of her powerful suffragist friends — the so-called “mink brigade” — took up their cause, and the press and public began to rally to the plight of the brave young seamstresses.

   After the strike had continued for 11 weeks, the Triangle owners finally agreed to higher wages and shorter hours. But they drew the line at a union. Back on the job, the Triangle workers still lacked real power to improve the worst conditions of the factory floor: inadequate ventilation, lack of safety precautions and fire drills — and locked doors.

   When a tossed match or lit cigarette ignited a fire on the eighth floor of the building, flames spread quickly. Blanck and Harris received warning by phone and escaped, but the 240 workers on the ninth floor continued stitching, oblivious to the flames gathering force on the floor below. When they finally did see the smoke, the women panicked. Some rushed toward the open stairwell, but columns of flames already blocked their path.
   ………………………………….

   View video at:

   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/triangle/player/
2. me says:

   July 5, 2015 at 5:57 am

   Soon you will realize…

   you give new meaning to the term; dumb fuck.
3. CARL TAPP says:

   July 5, 2015 at 10:13 am

   @ Bruce:
   HELLO BRUCE , THERE IS GOOD NEWS REGARDING OUR NATIVE AMERICAN RED BROTHERS . MANY TRIBES NOW HAVE CASINOS ON THEIR RESERVATION AND THEY ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO BE COMPENSATED FOR THE EVIL ACTS OF WHITE MEN . AFTER HUNDREDS OF YEARS WITH ” WHITE EYES ” STEALING LAND AND OTHER RIGHTS FROM OUR BROTHERS , THESE CASINOS ARE CREATING GREAT WEALTH FOR THE TRIBES . THE CASINOS IN FLORIDA HAVE HUGE GAINS 24 / 7 / 366 , AND EACH MEMBER OF THE SEMINOLE AND MIKOSUKEE TRIBE RECEIVES ABOUT $ 37,000 ANNUALLY , FROM THE DAY OF THEIR BIRTH .
   I HAVE SEVERAL FRIENDS IN THE TRIBES AND THEY CONFIRM THIS INFO .
   IT MAKES ME VERY PROUD FOR THEM .
   ADDITIONALLY ~ THE SEMINOLE TRIBE OF FLORIDA OWNS ALL THE
   ” HARD ROCK CAFE ” SITES AROUND THE WORLD EXCEPT A FEW .
4. InspectorSmith says:

   July 5, 2015 at 11:16 am

   NOTICE: The person above using the screen name “me” is BobJ.
5. Larry Bland says:

   July 5, 2015 at 12:21 pm

   @ InspectorSmith: Obviously BobJ much like Andrew Vrba became weary as a result of the constant beating he took here. The use of sock puppets is a way for obots to continue posting their mindless, childish, inane, moronic comments. Mr. Smith, please continue to expose these cretins at every opportunity.
6. Bruce says:

   July 5, 2015 at 5:33 pm

   Indentured Servitude in the Americas

   Excerpts from Wikipedia. View the complete article at:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_the_Americas

   Most white immigrants arrived in Colonial America as indentured servants, usually as young men and women from Britain or Germany, under the age of 21. Typically, the father of a teenager would sign the legal papers, and work out an arrangement with a ship captain, who would not charge the father any money. The captain would transport the indentured servants to the American colonies, and sell their legal papers to someone who needed workers. At the end of the indenture, the young person was given a new suit of clothes and was free to leave. Many immediately set out to begin their own farms, while others used their newly acquired skills to pursue a trade. A few became sufficiently prosperous that they were eventually able to acquire indentured servants of their own.

   Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the end of their terms. In the 18th and early 19th century, numerous Europeans, mostly from outside the British Isles, traveled to the colonies as redemptioners, a particularly harsh form of indenture.
   …………………………………………….

   The most unenviable situation was that of servants on Southern plantations, living alongside but never with Negro slaves, both groups doing much the same work, often under the supervision of a relentless overseer… Even as late as 1770, William Eddis, the English surveyor of customs at Annapolis, thought that the Maryland Negroes were better off than “the Europeans, over whom the rigid planter exercises an inflexible severity.” The Negroes, Eddis thought, were a lifelong property so were treated with a certain care, but the whites were “strained to the utmost to perform their allotted labour.”
7. Bruce says:

   July 5, 2015 at 5:34 pm

   Redemptioner

   Excerpt from Wikipedia. View the complete article at:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemptioner

   More than half of 18th- and early 19th-century German-speaking immigrants came as redemptioners ….

   To fill empty holds, poor Europeans were recruited onto ships in Rotterdam by “Neulaender” (singular = Neulander) or “new worlders” who had worked out their time as indentured servants in the colonies. Neulaender received a commission for each person they brought to the ship so they were not always a trustworthy source of information about how the program would work for the emigrant. The Neulaender were dressed in fancy clothes to impress the peasants as they wandered about Germanic countries to begin recruiting.

   The vast majority of these poor go-now-pay-later travelers were not redeemed by family members, so the term is misleading in that most paid for their emigration with their own toil, tears, and often blood. In America they were considered property under the law to be bought and sold until their indentures matured and they could be legally punished in the same manner as African slaves. The big differences between redemptioners and African slaves, were redemptioners came of their own accord even if misinformed and that they had an “out of indentures” date to look forward to. An example of how the indentured servant was viewed is the 1662 Virginia law that forced both slave and indentured servant females who bore children by their masters to serve after their indentures for an additional two years for the local churchwardens …. No penalty was specified for their masters.

   Abuse of redemptioners on board ship is well documented. If a person died after half way across the Atlantic, the surviving family members had to pay the deceased’s fare as well as their own. Their baggage was often pilfered by the crew. Many travelers started their journey with sufficient funds to pay their way but were ripped off and overcharged so they arrived with a debt to settle and they also had to be redeemed. If the ship needed to sail before some of the passengers’ indentures had been sold, an agent in the American port kept them confined until a buyer presented himself.

   The redemptioners who became indentured servants ended up working as farm laborers, household help, in workshops, and even as store clerks. They were typically prevented from marrying until after their term of service. Often, the terms of separation after the contract stipulated that the servant receive a suit of clothing and sometimes a shovel and/or an axe. Also, some contracts required the master to teach the servant to read and write from the Bible. Conditions were sometimes harsh as evidenced by the lists and paid announcements for the return of escaped servants in contemporary newspapers.
8. Bruce says:

   July 5, 2015 at 5:57 pm

   Recently Discovered Color WW2 Combat Footage
9. InspectorSmith says:

   July 5, 2015 at 6:09 pm

   @ Bruce:

   Do you think that we Americans don’t know about white indentured servants?

   I’ve been down that road long, LONG (for me, at least), ago.

   (1) Africans didn’t request to come work as slaves in America.

   (2) When’s the last time you heard about a white indentured servant giving birth to baby that was to also be a white indentured servant and spend it’s entire life as a white indentured servant and then also give birth to child who would be born a white indentured servant and repeat that process for for AT LEAST 248 years?

   (3) After slavery was abolished in the US laws were put in place to keep black’s working for free. One example is vagrancy. Many blacks worked as prisoners after being freed because they were considered to be vagrants because they had no money.

   (4) When’s the last time you heard about lynching a white man for looking at a white woman?

   Bottom line Bruce, we whites are going to pay whether you like it or not.

   I understand that you are an intelligent individual. What’s your trouble with settling things up with black Americans? When people get money they tend to spend it. Wouldn’t black Americans spending money be a good thing for white business owners?
10. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 7:12 pm

    Here’s a sample from my personal book collection regarding indentured servitude and white slaves in America and England:

    
11. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 7:32 pm

    I’ve read other other similar works and other somewhat related books which, while I find the information useful & worth knowing and extremely thought provoking, they also seem to attempt to downplay and often outright cover-up the plight of Africans and black Americans as well as their accomplishments throughout history. Some other titles include, thought are certainly not limited to (pictured below on shelf), “NOT out of Africa” and, to a lesser degree, “The White Man’s Burden”

    
12. Bruce says:

    July 5, 2015 at 7:42 pm

    RHETORICAL SCENARIO AND RELATED FOLLOWUP QUESTION:

    Our hypothetical story starts in Year 1840 in America, in the state of Georgia, about 20 years prior to the start of the Civil War.

    A young, Black female SLAVE ‘Mary’ was seduced (consensual or coerced sex???) by her White SLAVE OWNER ‘John’ on a cotton-growing plantation not far from Atlanta.

    9 months later, Mary gave birth to a girl child, Jasmine’, who by heritage was HALF BLACK and HALF WHITE.

    Mary and Jasmine were both set free from servitude following the civil war and their family line continued into the 21st century.

    Mary and her immediate descendants were quite religious. They developed and maintained strong family values, and family ties based on marriage, that helped sustain them through many hardships. Like many families in that period, both black and white, they would not have been considered ‘prosperous’ but their lives were generally improving year to year, and they were generally relatively ‘happy’.

    However, shameful discrimination against citizens with Black heritage still existed in much of the U.S.A.

    The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended ‘official’ discrimination and segregation in the country.

    Tragically, Democrat politicians seized upon the opportunity and started enacting laws which, through financial welfare tools, encouraged the breakup of intact Black families.

    To make matters worse, Republican politicians with the financial backing of Big Business, started enacting laws which, often through treaties such as NAFTA and corporate taxes, began to encourage the exporting of lower tier AMERICAN JOBS for both Blacks and Whites to low-wage foreign countries.

    Largely as the result of the above, and despite ‘affirmative action’ legislation, the last 3 generations of Mary’s lineage now have been PRIMARILY ON WELFARE. The sons of the mostly single Black mothers in Mary’s lineage have sought out Black gangs for their support. Many have ended up committing serious crimes, against both Blacks and Whites. Many are now in prison.

    ONE OF MANY QUESTIONS THAT MIGHT NOW BE ASKED:

    For example: Should the innocent, largely lower-to middle class, WHITE Massachusetts descendents of a UNION SOLDIER who fought, in part, to free the slaves during the Civil War be now forced to PAY TAXES to help cover financial compensation to the TOTALLY NON-INVOLVED DESCENDENTS of the SLAVE: Mary, and SLAVE OWNER: John, who TOGETHER begat a child back in 1840? I EMPHATICALLY THINK NOT.

    THE MATTER IS EXTREMELY COMPLEX . THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO FAIR WAY TO MAKE FINANCIAL RESTITUTION FOR THE SHAMEFUL TRAGEDY OF SLAVERY THAT OCCURRED IN THE COUNTRY OVER 150 YEARS AGO.

    LOTS OF FOLKS, OF ALL RACES AND BACKGROUNDS, HAVE HELPED MAKE THIS COUNTRY WHAT IT IS TODAY. Many folks, most certainly including many Blacks, have benefited.

    It would be profoundly unfair to single out just the Black Race and say that the rest of the country hasn’t contributed sufficiently to our progress, and needs yet again, to apologize and pay up! I can’t think of a better way than ‘forced restitution’ to set race relations in the country back another 50 years!
13. Bruce says:

    July 5, 2015 at 8:04 pm

    I think our BEST SOLUTION as a country, going forward, is to remember and learn from our past, but to do everything NOW we possibly can so the CHILDREN and GRANDCHILDREN of ALL OUR CITIZEN, regardless of race, can prosper to the best of their abilities in a FREE , NON-DESCRIMITORY, LAW-RESPECTING, CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.
14. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 8:23 pm

    Bruce wrote:

    For example: Should the innocent, largely lower-to middle class, WHITE Massachusetts descendents of a UNION SOLDIER who fought, in part, to free the slaves during the Civil War be now forced to PAY TAXES to help cover financial compensation to the totally non-involved descendents of the SLAVE…

    @ Bruce: The answer is YES.

    Even a white trog like myself should pay. All presently living whites in this country have directly benefited from slavery.

    When you say “non-involved descendents”of slaves, what do you mean? Are you suggesting that black Americans living today are non-involved descendants of slaves? If you are, how did you come to that conclusion?

    Here’s a hypothetical story that I have:

    In 1619 a white colonist in Jamestown, Virginia named Lucas Smith took a piece of land for himself and called it his and worked that land with fifteen (15) African slaves.

    Lucas Smith got old one day and died and passed on his land, his acquired wealth and his black slaves to his sons.

    The same things happened to his sons, they got old and died and passed on their acquired wealth to their sons.

    Almost 400 has passed now the great (x 13 generations or so) sons of colonist Lucas Smith are middle to upper class whites who still enjoy that acquired wealth and their system looks out for other less fortunate whites.

    The slaves that started working (for free) for colonist Lucas Smith in 1619 didn’t acquire anything and weren’t able to pass anything to children. Moreover, they often never even knew their children as their children were sold at young ages to other slave masters. The father’s and mothers were often separated as well.

    Some of the slaves sort of got freed in 1863 (after working for free for 244 years) although some slaves masters didn’t tell their slaves that they were free and they worked on (for free) for years to come.

    At any rate, slavery ends at some point and now free black Americans don’t have money, can’t get jobs and essentially go back to being slaves again in a system designed (with laws to put free blacks in jail and such) from making progress and forcing them to work again as, essentially, slaves.

    After 2 1/2 centuries of black families being torn apart by slaves sales and working for free the whites now pretend (or maybe they really believe it) to be better than blacks and tout a superior and traditional family structure while they destroyed the black family for the last 2 1/2 centuries.

    13 or so generations later a large percentage of black Americans don’t have the same acquired wealth that white Americans do. They are directly involved descendants.
15. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 8:31 pm

    Bruce wrote:

    For example: Should the innocent, largely lower-to middle class, WHITE Massachusetts descendents of a UNION SOLDIER who fought, in part, to free the slaves during the Civil War be now forced to PAY TAXES to help cover financial compensation to the totally non-involved descendents of the SLAVE…

    @ Bruce:

    Please also note, as I’m sure that you are already aware of, those who fought on the Union side also owned slaves. Union General (and later US President) Ulysses S. Grant owned slaves until AT LEAST the year 1859.
16. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 8:46 pm

    Suggested reading:

    15 Major Corporations You Never Knew Profited from Slavery

    Atlanta Blackstar
    August 26, 2013
    Posted by ABS Staff

    (1) Lehman Brothers, whose business empire started in the slave trade, recently admitted their part in the business of slavery.

    According to the Sun Times, the financial services firm acknowledged recently that its founding partners owned not one, but several enslaved Africans during the Civil War era and that, “in all likelihood,” it “profited significantly” from slavery.

    “This is a sad part of our heritage …We’re deeply apologetic … It was a terrible thing … There’s no one sitting in the United States in the year 2005, hopefully, who would ever, in a million years, defend the practice,” said Joe Polizzotto, general counsel of Lehman Brothers.

    ….

    (2)Aetna, Inc., the United States’ largest health insurer, apologized for selling policies in the 1850s that reimbursed slave owners for financial losses when the enslaved Africans they owned died.

    “Aetna has long acknowledged that for several years shortly after its founding in 1853 that the company may have insured the lives of slaves,” said Aetna spokesman Fred Laberge in 2002. “We express our deep regret over any participation at all in this deplorable practice.”

    …

    (3) JPMorgan Chase recently admitted their company’s links to slavery.
    “Today, we are reporting that this research found that, between 1831 and 1865, two of our predecessor banks—Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana—accepted approximately 13,000 enslaved individuals as collateral on loans and took ownership of approximately 1,250 of them when the plantation owners defaulted on the loans,” the company wrote in a statement.

    …

    (4) New York Life Insurance Company is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States. They also took part in slavery by selling insurance policies on enslaved Africans.

    According to USA Today, evidence of 10 more New York Life slave policies comes from an 1847 account book kept by the company’s Natchez, Miss. agent, W.A. Britton. The book, part of a collection at Louisiana State University, contains Britton’s notes on slave policies he wrote for amounts ranging from $375 to $600. A 1906 history of New York Life says 339 of the company’s first 1,000 policies were written on the lives of slaves.

    ….

    (5) Wachovia Corporation (now owned by Wells Fargo) has apologized for its ties to slavery after disclosing that two of its historical predecessors owned enslaved Africans and accepted them as payment.

    “On behalf of Wachovia Corporation, I apologize to all Americans, and especially to African-Americans and people of African descent,” said Ken Thompson, Wachovia chairman and chief executive officer, in the statement released late Wednesday. “We are deeply saddened by these findings.”

    …

    (6) N M Rothschild & Sons Bank in London was linked to slavery. The company that was one of the biggest names in the City of London had previously undisclosed links to slavery in the British colonies. Documents seen by the Financial Times have revealed that Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the banking family’s 19th-century patriarch, made his first personal gains by using enslaved Africans as collateral in dealings with a slave owner.

    …

    (7) Norfolk Southern also has a history in the slave trade. The Mobile & Girard company, which is now part of Norfolk Southern, offered slaveholders $180 ($3,379 today) apiece for enslaved Africans they would rent to the railroad for one year, according to the records. The Central of Georgia, another company aligned with Norfolk Southern Line today, valued its slaves at $31,303 ($663,033 today) on record.

    …

    (8)USA Today has found that their own parent company, E.W. Scripps and Gannett, has had links to the slave trade.

    …

    (9)FleetBoston evolved from an earlier financial institution, Providence Bank, founded by John Brown who was a slave trader and owned ships used to transport enslaved Africans.

    The bank financed Brown’s slave voyages and profited from them. Brown even reportedly helped charter what became Brown University.

    …

    (10) CSX used slave labor to construct portions of some U.S. rail lines under the political and legal system that was in place more than a century ago.
    Two enslaved Africans who the company rented were identified as John Henry and Reuben. The record states, “they were to be returned clothed when they arrived to work for the company.”

    Individual enslaved Africans cost up to $200 – the equivalent of $3,800 today – to rent for a season and CSX took full advantage.

    …

    (11) The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec that serves Canada and the midwestern and southern United States. The company also has a history in which it benefited from slavery. The Mobile & Ohio, now part of Canadian National, valued their slaves lost to the war and emancipation at $199,691 on record. That amount is currently worth $2.2 million.

    …

    (12) Brown Brothers Harriman is the oldest and largest private investment bank and securities firm in the United States, founded in 1818. USA Today found that the New York merchant bank of James and William Brown, currently known as Brown Bros. Harriman owned hundreds of enslaved Africans and financed the cotton economy by lending millions to southern planters, merchants and cotton brokers.

    …

    (13) Brooks Brothers, the high end suit retailer got their start selling slave clothing to various slave traders back in the 1800s. What a way to get rich in the immoral slave industry!

    …

    (14) Barclays, the British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom has now conceded that companies it bought over the years may have been involved in the slave trade.

    ….

    (15)New York-based AIG completed the purchase of American General Financial Group, a Houston-based insurer that owns U.S. Life Insurance Company. A U.S. Life policy on an enslaved African living in Kentucky was reprinted in a 1935 article about slave insurance in The American Conservationist magazine.
    AIG says it has “found documentation indicating” U.S. Life insured enslaved Africans.
17. Bruce says:

    July 5, 2015 at 9:32 pm

    WONDERFUL!

    So now WHITE, lower-to-middle class families, many just barely getting by financially and some perhaps even on Welfare, must start paying compensation to Oprah Winfrey and THOUSANDS OF OTHER TALENTED, HARD-WORKING AND HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL BLACKS.

    Sounds like a FINANCIAL FIELD DAY for the multitude of politicians and lawyer-vultures who will make their fortunes out of the entire complex, tragic social mess of slavery that occurred in our country largely 150 to 250 years ago.

    Oprah Winfrey – Wikipedia (excerpt)

    Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey

    Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the “Queen of All Media”, she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently (2012) North America’s only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard.

    Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, saying she was raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.
18. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 9:36 pm

    The question comes back to what is the trouble with paying monetary compensation to black Americans for the slavery that their families lives and died through?

    As stated previously most of this money (when spent) would circle directly back to whites so why do whites have trouble with it?

    In 2013 the CDC reported that there were approximately 45 million black Americans:

    http://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/populations/REMP/black.html

    According wikipedia white Americans (as of 2014) number approximately 247 million.

    What are some practical options here in terms of numbers? Moreover, would it be single payment made at a particular time, as opposed to a number of somewhat smaller payments or installments made once or twice a year for a number of years?

    Maybe some whites Americans are laughing while they read this. We aren’t going to be laughing when the day comes (and it will – unless compensation is made) when non-whites are removing us, involuntarily, from our property and relieving us of all of our possessions.
19. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 9:47 pm

    Bruce wrote:

    Oprah Winfrey

    @ Bruce:

    I figured that this would likely be one of your next moves.

    It seems that us whites often cherry pick rare exceptional examples of successful black Americans and then use them against all of the other black Americans.

    Some other names that you can use:

    1. Condoleezza Rice (she’s black and she’s woman, double score)

    2. Colin Powell

    3. Ben Carson (he doesn’t advocate welfare except for when it comes to him getting free eyeglasses, through a government program, as a boy)

    4. Ann Fudge (another double score)

    5 (for non-Birthers). Barack Obama.

    The trouble with this is that there are rare (note RARE) and exceptional people of all colors and races.

    We can’t just cherry pick them and then pretend that all blacks had could have become an Oprah Winfrey or a Colin Powell.

    Why weren’t you or I a Bill Gates?
20. InspectorSmith says:

    July 5, 2015 at 10:04 pm

    Speaking of Ben Carson, I’ve got his book in my collection, as well:

    
21. Kim says:

    July 6, 2015 at 6:10 am

    inspector. I love the confused reactions to your new progressive editorial line. I also sense a certain admiration for the current President.
22. bob says:

    July 6, 2015 at 11:46 am

    How was jail, Lucas?
23. Rambo Ike says:

    July 7, 2015 at 5:35 am

    Lucas: “Maybe some whites Americans are laughing while they read this. We aren’t going to be laughing when the day comes (and it will – unless compensation is made) when non-whites are removing us, involuntarily, from our property and relieving us of all of our possessions.”

    I’m not laughing. Lucas, thanks for the heads-up on this. I never realized it was this serious. You sound like the Man in the Know. How much time do we crackas have before the nappyheads start taking all our possessions? What about those threats to kill all our cracka babies? Should I cancel all plans with some long time friends? I had no idea what they were planning.
24. Kim says:

    July 7, 2015 at 6:42 am

    Bruce angry ?
25. InspectorSmith says:

    July 11, 2015 at 1:42 pm

    WOBIK is receiving loads of spam comments from the following IP in the Republic of Korea:

    IP: 58.150.60.91
    Decimal: 982924379
    Hostname: 58.150.60.91
    ASN: 3786
    ISP: LG DACOM Corporation
    Organization: LG DACOM Corporation
    Services: Recently reported forum spam source. (48)
    Type: Broadband
    Assignment: Static IP

    Continent: Asia
    Country: Republic of Korea
    Latitude: 37.57 (37° 34′ 12.00″ N)
    Longitude: 126.98 (126° 58′ 48.00″ E)
26. Larry Bland says:

    July 11, 2015 at 8:00 pm

    @ InspectorSmith: Hmmmmm, could it be the clown prince of this site, none other than Bob Jones, aka BobJ or the sock puppet “me”.
27. bobj says:

    July 25, 2015 at 11:39 am

    @ InspectorSmith:
    I use a completely different IP address.

    Prove it, monkey fucker.
28. bobj says:

    July 25, 2015 at 11:41 am

    @ Larry Bland:
    how could you know socky?
29. bobj says:

    July 25, 2015 at 11:43 am

    @ InspectorSmith:
    Comments are not from address. No spam.

    You fuckin lie.

    Big surprise.

    Really?

    that is your best?

    HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHHAHAAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAAHHAH.

    Lu
30. bobj says:

    July 25, 2015 at 11:44 am

    careful

    how maNY HA’S
31. dve says:

    July 25, 2015 at 11:56 am

    @ InspectorSmith:
    who is to knwo
32. Larry Bland says:

    July 25, 2015 at 2:01 pm

    @ bobj: Your a funny guy Bobby boy. You amuse us, like a comic, a clown. That is why I refer to you as the clown prince of this site. LOL, your a funny guy!
33. AMERICAN ADVOCATE says:

    July 26, 2015 at 12:15 am

    >>> WHY IN HELL ‘ S NAME IS THIS IGNORANT , CHILDISH FOOL ALLOWED TO POST ON THIS BLOG SITE ?????????????????????????????????????????????
    PLEASE DO NOT CALL ” IT ” A SOCK PUPPET OR A CLOWN .
    CLOWNS MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH ~ THIS FOOL MAKES US VOMIT .
    HE JS ACTUALLY A ” SOCK OF HORSE HOCKEY “.
34. Bruce says:

    October 30, 2015 at 7:32 pm

    Phillis Wheatley: “To His Excellency General Washington” (1775)

    The Cambridge Historical Society
    Hooper-Lee-Nichols House
    159 Brattle Street
    Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

    Born in West Africa in 1753 and sold into slavery in Boston at a young age, Phillis Wheatley rose to literary prominence while still a teenager and gained fame as a poet throughout the transatlantic world. Upon her arrival in Boston, she was purchased by the affluent Wheatley family, who named her Phillis after the ship that had transported her to America. Though Phillis unquestionably maintained the status of a slave within the Wheatley family, she did have access to an education, which was highly unusual. The Wheatleys’ eighteen-year-old daughter, Mary, taught Phillis how to read and write English, Latin and Greek, and also introduced her to the teachings of Christianity.

    Wheatley’s prodigious talents first brought her widespread acclaim upon the publication of her poem on the death of the famed reverend George Whitefield, in 1770. Three years later, at the age of 20, Wheatley published Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral​, thus securing her status as North America’s first published African-American poet and second published woman.

    Revolution had been simmering in the American colonies throughout Wheatley’s lifetime, and war officially broke out with the firing of shots in Lexington and Concord in April 1775. By October of that year, Wheatley had written a poem commending General George Washington’s achievements — aptly titled “To His Excellency General Washington” — and sent a copy to his headquarters in Cambridge. Washington was so taken with the poem that he considered publishing it, but was concerned that such an action might appear vain or conceited. Though he chose not to publish the poem, his cordial response to the young poet, some months later, expressed his admiration for Wheatley’s talent, and extended an invitation for a visit: “If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near Head Quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favoured by the Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.”

    Historians have not found any official record of the visit between Washington and Wheatley, but it likely took place at Washington’s headquarters during the spring of 1776.

    “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
    Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.
    A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
    With gold unfading, Washington! Be thine.”

    Read the complete poem here … https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/his-excellency-general-washington

    … and find more of Wheatley’s work here… https://books.google.com/books?id=KLFBAAAAYAAJ&hl=en

    View the complete article at:

    http://cambridgehistory.org/content/pages/wheatley

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    From the book ‘1776’ by David McCullough:

    “The country had no poets as yet, and Washington was not known to be inclined to poetry or poetic musings. Yet he, a soldier and planter — a slave master — despite all that bore heavily on his mind, took time now (during the Continental Army’s siege on Boston) to write to her in his own hand.”

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    Video: “Hymn to the Evening” by Phillis Wheatley:

    http://www.wasobamaborninkenya.com/InspectorSmith/showthread.php/3423-Video-Hymn-to-the-Evening-by-Phillis-Wheatley

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    Phillis Wheatley: “On Being Brought from Africa to America”:

    http://study.com/academy/lesson/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america-by-phyllis-wheatley-summary-analysis-quiz.html