In the 1860s we had a little discussion about slavery in America. The discussion was settled after a bit over 600,000 dead. (Ironically, this is pretty close to the deaths to date in the US from Covid-19...)
Slavery was outlawed, with a notable exception, by the Thirteenth Amendment.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
We sure screwed that one up. It gave us the prison industrial complex, which thrives to this day.
In the middle there, we had a lot of sharecropping, company stores and other quasi-slavery. Arguably this only ended with the labor laws - and not incidentally, the Civil Rights movement.
Someone tell me what we're celebrating with Juneteenth. Because I'm not clear on what there is to celebrate quite yet. Feels rather like cake, not bread.
Housing costs are the worst they've ever been. Buying power of wages is falling as the new corporate feudalism gains power and strength. Voter suppression is now a high art form, and imprisoned inmates in key places lend strength to minority (political meaning) white (identity meaning) voting blocs. Only a system of complex price supports keeps food and fuel at affordable levels, partly as give-aways to these industries, partly out of fear of what would happen if they were charged for at the same rates as medicines. All are far above their prices on the _world_ markets, however.
During Covid we set up a patchwork of unemployment compensation, emergency food aid, delays in student loan payments, and an eviction moratorium that pretty much torpedoed small landlords and accelerated the destruction of the middle class. All of this is being dismantled, except that the back rents will probably never be paid.
(Covid is not over, it's still killing. It's just not a society killing threat, so there's room in the ICU for everyone. So to speak.)
The biggest Democrat party priority seems to be to ban private firearms. I wonder why.
So yeah, happy Juneteenth or something.
Where did those 40 acres and a mule go?
That was the promise - compensation for slavery.
As raw a deal as Japanese Americans got, and it was very raw - confiscation of all real and most personal property, and unlawful imprisonment for noncombatants, and drafting into high risk combat for the rest - the 442nd or Pacific theater military intelligence - at least they got paid out. Eventually they were compensated $20K each, and a few of them actually lived to see the money!
Juneteenth is a crappy compensation for slavery and for the century of repression - and I think something is owed for the Rand-designed "Great Society" package deal that deliberately disemboweled the black middle class to stop riots in the 1960s.
Negative income tax and council type housing strike me as bare minimums. Forty acres and a mule with 150 years of back interest would be better yet. Dismantling the prison industrial complex would be even better.
I'm not holding my breath.
