phyzix525

Has anyone seen this?

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...-regional-wire

I really don't know what to say. I think its so sad I don't really know where to start.

Any thoughts?

Mephisto2

I have mixed feelings about this.

Obviously, a great wrong was done to their ancestors. But this is just silly. I would be much more sympathetic if the filed a suit for a small amount (say a few hundred thousand dollars) with the funds going to a charity.

But this? Just greedy people.


Mr Mephisto

tricks

It's too complicated an issue. Too many middle men. Are you going to sue an ancestor of your ancestor's neighbor in Africa for trading people for guns?

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Mojo_PeiPei

I'm betting that the suit will get shot down, as it rightfully should. You can not put a price tag on something like this, nor should that price tag come from non-slave owning American tax payers.

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skier

I find it laughable when people are held accountable for actions that they did not commit. Ok, maybe 250 years ago the company financed these ships. But now it's been 250 years. This company i'm sure does not hold the same ideals and goals it did so long ago. It's like judging my character based on the life of my father. There is no connection.

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clavus

Cool. I'm going to sue the descendants of the Africans who sold other Africans to whitey. It makes just as much sense.

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Mephisto2

So you find it laughable that many Swiss and German banks and corporations paid damages to survivors of the Holocaust?

I don't support this action, but it's not as simple as it first seems.


Mr Mephisto

Nisses

Mr Mephisto:

to *survivors* of the holocaust, is quite a different thing altogether.
This are people that are suing for something done to their ancestors.

Hell, I'll go sue Italy for invading my hometurf in 100 BC, killing off lots of people and raping our women. Damn those Romans, they destroyed our Celtic heritage.

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Mephisto2

The compensation paid due to the Holocaust was also paid to descendents of those that died, including to those who were not even born until well after the Second World War. So, I'm afraid it is *not* quite a different thing altogether.

It is, in fact and in law, very similar.

Now, it will probably get thrown out, but to simply have a knee-jerk reaction is wrong.

Mr Mephisto

Nisses

No, what I mean to say, is that these people have a direct and complete impact... It's them who suffered, or their parents who suffered and/or died.
It has a very profound impact on their direct daily lives.

Ancestor to me says: at the very least 5 or more generations ago.

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Mephisto2

OK, well then is that written in law somewhere?

That's the whole point. A precedent has been made.


Mr Mephisto

skier

Sir, I find it laughable that people who have not been damaged still get compensated for damages. If my father died before I was born because a mugger shot and killed him, should that mugger's son/daughter have to pay me damages? Utterly rediculous.

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Mephisto2

I don't know why everyone is jumping down MY throat. I have repeatedly said that I think this action is baseless.

HOWEVER, it's not as simple as black and white. Anyone who thinks it is, or that simple statements like "I wasn't born then, so a priori I cannot be liable" are missing the point entirely and are stupid. The action is NOT against people, it is against institutions. Such actions have been permitted before and such actions have been successful before. What is needed is a case law decision, like those passed down in the UK, that limits such actions on a point of law and natural justice.

But don't lecture me with irrelevant rhetoric. Just look at both sides of the argument. It makes convincing others of yours so much easier.

Mr Mephisto

hannukah harry

<b>mr. mephisto</b>
it actually is as simple as black and white. while not morally acceptable, slavery was <b>legal</b> at the time. what they were doing at the time was not illegal, and you can not hold someone accountable for doing something that was not illegal at the time.

the holocaust was immoral and illegal based on international law (war crimes, anyone?), so there's the difference.

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p0thead

this just involves greedy people IMO, if they were to sue, why sue for billions? so these american companies can offshore more jobs so they can cover these damages? i agree w/ Mr. Mephisto, sue for a couple 100k and donate it to charity. hell the companies might acknowledge their ancestors' errors and just donate this money to avoid the expensive court/lawyer fees.

phyzix525

Exactly what I was thinking. I don't know the list of companies that they are trying to sue, but if they were successful, you know what would happen, those companies would have to raise prices. Now I am paying for something of which I had NO responsibility of doing.

But will a billion dollars even help the african american become a success on a whole? Is money really the answer? Is an apology all they want from these companies, or is it just the lawyers we have to blame here. Don't forget they get like some 30% of settlements right?

yatzr

here's my viewpoint on the subject. If it wasn't for slavery there would be an incredibly few number of black people in america. There would be an incredibly few number of black people living better lives here in america than in some crappy underdevoloped third world country. I'm thankful my ancestors went through rough times to get me here....so should they. If they want to sue, ship them back to wherever their ancestors came from and tell them they don't deserve what their ancestors got for them.

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Cynthetiq

lame. I watched a news report the other day of a town that was PCB ridden and they got $600 billion, after various fees, lawyers etc. and the people of the town maybe they'll be getting $7,000 each.

Johnny Cochran and the judges went over their fees and the judge found them "reasonable" It's not like the town was some HUGE metropolis. Nope, the lawyers nickled and dimed the poor slobs, because they were poor.

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EbolaVirus

Forget the gay marriage issue. Congress should make a constitutional law banning bullshit lawsuits like this.

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kutulu

We should sue the lawyers for fucking up America!

Next lawsuit - everybody vs everybody

lurkette

Oy. I think the problem with this kind of lawsuit is that it's difficult to argue that the descendants were done lasting harm because of what was committed as part of the slave trade hundreds of years ago. You can't answer all the "what if" questions to see if they would really be better off if the slave trade hadn't existed. It's just like yatzr said - how do they know they wouldn't be on the wrong end of some genocidal massacre going on in Africa now?

I know the argument about hitting people in the pocketbook to make them address wrongs, but it's a different story when it's an ongoing practice (like manufacturing faulty products) than when it's something that happened centuries ago and isn't still happening. It seems to me that this billion dollars could be much better spent teaching tolerance, educating women and children still stuck in post-colonial Africa, and fighting intergenerational poverty in this country, rather than enriching a few lawyers and some whiners who've suffered "lasting emotional harm" because of what their ancestors wen through. It was awful, it was inexcusable, unconscionable, inhuman, but they're doing themselves no favors by not just getting over it and making the best of what they've got now.

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water_boy1999

The defendants "have destroyed our national and ethnic identity," one of the plaintiffs, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, said at a news conference announcing the suit, which seeks $1 billion in punitive damages.

IMHO, the problem with this is Deadria seems to think that her descendants actually have a national and ethnic heritage. Slavery IS their heritage when speaking of historical United States. I am sorry to say this, but there was little to no black population living in the U.S. before slavery was introduced. This is of course not the issue.

The issue is whether companies like the aforementioned should be held accountable for injustices that occurred long before anyone at that company was even born. 100 years down the road, can ethnic groups still argue that their lives are somehow hampered from events that happened several hundred years ago?

I am not proud of certain parts of our rutted history, but it has been long enough that people need to get over it! We all have an equal chance in society to make the best of our situation. It just continues to piss me off to see people taking advantage of our already fucked up legal system because there are always people (companies) that will just pay a settlement keep bitches like this from flapping her gums.

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phyzix525

I can almost see the lawyers that are a part of this sitting at their big meeting room table trying to think how much this should be for. The comedian of the group says in his best Dr. evil voice.....ONE Billion dollars. and they all go whoo whoo haa ha ha.

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kutulu

I like the title of the thread, did you get that from the end of "Chapelle's Show"?

Blackthorn

Reminds me of a lyric from a song that was once popular..."Everbody wants something for nothing". I'm not saying that slavery was "nothing" but I agree with most of the sentiment in this thread in that the lawsuit is frivilous and almost entirely baseless.

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noahfor

I hate the idea of reparations. If blacks wanted to be compensated for their unfair financial standings and living conditions or whatever, I'd be all for that, but wanting to be paid because some people were enslaved a couple hundred years ago is ridiculous. What does being related to the slaves have to do with anything? I mean what exactly do they want to be paid for? They are just more human minds that happen to be born into the bodies of descendants of slaves. Probably everyone on earth is the descendant of a person that was a slave.

hannukah harry

well, i think part of their thinking is (although it may or may not have been stated in the lawsuit) that due to the slave trade and slavery in america, that the black man has had lasting damage done to them as evidenced by the fact that they're still not truely equal to the white man. they're still subordinate when you look at their jobs, housing, and pay. and i agree with them... but...

but... even without slavery and the slave trade, there would still be these problems. maybe not to the current extent, but also, there would a whole lot less black people here.

we have a habit of hating those different than us in lots of ways. whites didn't like blacks, cause they were inferior. we didn't like the irish, the chinese, pretty much anyone that wasn't from england and some other western european countries. and to this day, we have negative stereotypes about these other groups. asian immigrents aren't harmed by it though, for the most part (or, more specifically, the decendents of them), same with the decendents of the irish.

i think what's really going on is that this deadria person sees how shitty life for the black man is compared to the white man, and this is the only way she knows how to stick it to the man. i mean, where does she really think this money is gonna end up? just amongst the eight plaintiffs? hardly.


oh, and to whomever said that they had no identity to be destroyed because there were no blacks here is missing the point. she sees her heriatage as being slavery and oppression, as opposed to her tribal heritage that she would have had if her family had never left africa. kinda funny how she leaves out the africans responsible...

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Forsaken

I agree with yatzr. They should be happy they are here in America. I am sure that they would not enjoy life back in Africa. I know slavery was horrible but because of slavery they now have a chance at a better life than they would have if their ancestors were not slaves.

I have ancestors that were American Indian, but I am not going to sue anyone for any of the horrible things that were done to my ancestors.

Holo

I think the statute of limitations should apply to any crimes (including murder and conspiracy therof) after 100 years. If you can't bring the perps to justice in 100 years then there is no injustice. As was said before all this was legal, and according to ex post facto we are not held accountable for breaking new laws previously.

This is just a group who wants to be rich for nothing. I'd like to see their intentions for the money should they be awarded it. Maybe build a black history center ala Weisenthal? Perhaps a foundation like UNegro College Fund to put more underpriveleged blacks thru college? I highly doubt either would see the light of day. Due to the size of the damages I don't see this going anywhere but it still saddens me that they aren't being laughed out of court.

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Mephisto2

International slavery was illegal both in the United States and it was also "outlawed" by the United Kingdom (who attempted to police the seas) to quite some time before the Emancipation Declaration.

And even that didn't remove slavery entirely from US statute books.

Mr Mephisto

hannukah harry

the slave trade was outlawed and made illegal about 30 years before the emancipation proclimation, if i remember my history correctly. that doesn't change the fact that before then, it was legal to ship them over, and was still legal to own current and future-born generations of slaves until the emancipation proc.

so as long as it was legal in the states to own, and the shipping did not continue after outlawed (which probably did not happen 100%, but most of the big companies would have stopped), then there is no legal recourse.

as i said before <b>morally wrong, but legal</b>.

-hh

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Cynthetiq

maybe when the we enact fair wages for all that the women and manual laborers of the country will expect back pay

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spook75

What exactly is a "fair"wage? Do you have any idea how the economy works? I would imagine not, because if you did, or if most people did they would entirely discard this notion of a "living wage".

Let me break it down nice and simple, not to make you seem like an idiot, which i am sure you are NOT, but to make sure there is little confusion. The market place depend on two things; supply and demand. Where the two meet is your equilibrium price. This applies to goods and services as well as wages.

When the government creates a minimum wage that is higher than the market will bear (artificially increases wages above equilibrium) it has the effect of reducing demand from the employers, as they are less willing to hire people at a higher wage and an increased supply of people willing to work at that higher wage. This creates a shortage of jobs (unemployment) as the firms will higher less people. But it gets better!

Not only do firms hire less people creating unemployment, but because wages acrossed the board have been increased you and more money is in circulation, which is a rightward shift of the money supply, which not only creates inflation (prices increase due to more money chasing the same amount of goods), but ALSO has the effect of increasing interest rates as prices are the determining factor of interest rates in the long run. But it gets better yet!

Higher interest rates will effect many things to include loans that you want, but will also stunt nationwide investment as interest rates are higher for everyone, but not only that but higher interest rates ALSO depreciate the dollar making it less appealing to foreign investors, reducing foreign influx and possibly causing an increase in the current account deficit,

You see, when you follow the chain of events in economics you find that government meadling is bad for everyone. This concludes todays lesson on why a "minimum wage" is a bad idea.

Sapper

This is so incredibly laughable.

Talk about a pathetic group of individuals.

When do our descendants get to sue for these people wrongfully accusing our current generation of acts which _we_ did not commit?

I don't think I've seen a more flagrant example of passing the buck in ages!

I hope these fools are counter-sued! That would be a riot!

garbage

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Iliftrocks

snore.........

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kutulu

Dude, the guy was being sarcastic, you didn't need to get all over his shit.


If blacks can sue for slavery, can I sue the Spanish for forcing my ancestors to convert to Catholisism? Because of that shit, I was subjected to countless hours of bullshit, I deserve a payday.

These fucking people need to get a life. I hate saying this, but let's just get them a one-way ticket to Rowanda. I'm sure their heritage will take them far there.

Karby

Rowanda is on the other side of the continent of Africa. most of the slaves came to America from the west side of Africa(Sierria Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, etc). that contry had little to nothing do with the American slave trade. South America is a different story...

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Hedgehog

Beg pardon, but the western coast of Africa is where they boarded the slave ships...they were not captured there.

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hannukah harry

yeah... they actually boarded the ships from benin, or pretty much all of them anyways, i've actually been to the beach that they left from...

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Karby

um...west coast is where they were captured. a great majority of the people from the west coast were sent to europe and north amererica. People from the southern and southeastrn side were taken to what is now south america, the carribean islands(bahamas, trinidad and tobago, haiti, etc), cuba, and whatnot...
i still can't help but think what the continent of africa would be like today if the europeans had never "discovered" the place...

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