I’m putting my waders on and offering a counter-point. This is not, to me, a slam dunk issue. It could in fact backfire on us if we do not have our ducks in a row.
[Just so you know, I’m not a lawyer.]
A civil rights suit is what the Civil Rights Act is all about. I agree, the constitutionality of that act probably should have required an amendment rather than legiislation. But here we are.
Farms are expensive things to run efficiently with the latest equipment. Reporting over the years has laid the groundwork for this settlement. This 1.5 billion is the kind of thing a REAL stimulus bill should
I’m not certain that this is truly “reparations”. As I understand it, this is a result of the Civil Rights Act.
Here:
Article: Black farms endangered despite suit’s settlement ...Philadelphia Tribune, The 01-08-1999 Black farms endangered despite suit’s ... Department of Agriculture has paid black farmers more than $575 million since ...
www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-22425571.html - Cached
Nation’s Farms Decrease; Black Farms Nearly Gone - Google Books ResultJet - Apr 7, 1986 - 64 pages - Magazine
... Black Farms Nearly Gone While the farm crisis has a stranglehold on the ... warned that unless the policies of the US Department of Agriculture were ...
books.google.com/books?id=DLEDAAAAMBAJ... - More book results »
Black farms continue struggle for land, justice, rightsMar 30, 2005 ... Black farms continue struggle for land, justice, rights ... racist discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). ...
afgen.com/black_farmers11.html - Cached
[PDF] HOMECOMING...SOMETIMES I AM HAUNTED BY RED DIRT AND CLAY BLACK ...File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
A 1964 study exposed how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) actively worked ... North Carolina, the number of black farms had fallen to 2498, ...
www.pbs.org/itvs/homecoming/pdfs/homecoming_history.pdf - Similar
Note, a 1964 study and a 1986 book. [But I admit they are just quick googles.]
Also, 1.5 billion is the least of our problems. If that was the worst BO did to the budget, that would be nothing. I don’t want to see redistribution, but a court settlement like this will hopefully settle this lawsuit for good. And I can’t think of a better time economically to settle such a suit.
So Obama, Pelosi and her ilk aides owe the central valley farmers reparations for destroying their generations old farms?
Salazar better saddle up those reparations because farmers have lost everything and farmworkers and families are starving.
If indeed black farmers were not given loans,(which is appalling to me unless they could not afford them) then let’s give them loans now and fix their farms. We need farmers and race should not have anything to do with it.