Comments by "Buz Off" (@buzoff4642) on "GBH News" channel.

  1.  @drwalka10  Suggested reading: Slavery By Another Name. If one author can trace excessive wealth originating from slavery, and others traced it to ancestors of individuals, alive now, then reparations certainly is doable. And along both threads, the entities who still exist (Wacovia Bank, George Mason University, etc.) along with the nation that benefited. France owes Haiti $150M they were charged to buy themselves out of slavery, for instance. England owes Honduras, India, etc. incalculable sums for their offshored slavery. Etc. Etc. Etc.
    11
  2. Both sides of the aisle using Ethic Factionizing.
    11
  3.  @fitawrarifitness6842  You're ignoring keywords "this situation", which is reparations for slavery in the US. Unless you know something we don't know, regarding Latino and Asian sold to US citizens as slaves, wholesale at that.
    8
  4.  @fitawrarifitness6842  It has nothing to do with first amendment. Anyone can opine on just about anything, legally. You're still sidestepping "... in this situation..." Internment, and compensation for being stripped of property is not a reasonable comparison to being owned, for life, with no legal rights whatsoever for the duration of life.
    8
  5. They are at rest. It's their reputation and labor in need of being vindicated and their heirs due compensation.
    6
  6. Yes, abhorrent, but not illegal. Yes, it is a really bad precedence.
    6
  7. Was this conversation not evident that media fuels elitism, and credentialism, and not just in education? Those not going to Ivy League are "mediocre"?
    6
  8.  @crubie3  Well, by the few examples showing up, Wachovia, George Mason University, etc., it's been a free college education. But that is far to little, especially considering Global Commerce has put US (an EU) job market up for sale to the lowest bidders: south of the borders and Asia. Now we can all have college educated un/under employed. It also has a distortion effect: "... minorities disproportionately ..." Gauging how minorities are doing is distorted when/while importing poor minorities. And, doing damage to minorities here, via importing a labor glut. Something the politicians will never acknowledge: importing of minorities is to douse the US/EU labor market wages.
    6
  9.  @everydayischingusday  "I practically feel them" Exactly, the one not "at rest" is you. And money changing hands isn't going to solve that. Reparations doesn't undead Emmit Til, nor erase his history. Reparations solely addresses money issue: uncompensated labor, and possibly assist in lost opportunity. It's not going to change history.
    5
  10. If you're confused, they've DNA tests for that these days.
    5
  11. Just how many laws are going to be bent to accommodate illegal presence? It makes law illegitimate. Yes, it is their fault they're not on the path to citizenship, Jim. "Unaccompanied minor" in particular. "Sanctuary" is sanctuary for illegal employers, and complicit illegal labor, here to sell labor on just about any illegal terms.
    4
  12. "Boomers are going to retire" is the same tired excuse used since the early 1990s. Boston/Rt 128 has been supplanting citizen workers for foreign hires for 20 years now. "The suburbs need to ...zoning", or maybe Boston needs to stop commercial construction permits until residential catches up. Day care/preschool, oh please, not the problem. Living wage.
    4
  13. She never said why fiber is imperative. "People who have the 'franchises'", aka monopolies. At this point, internet access should be public infrastructure.
    4
  14.  @mchapelle19  Yes, it is what is owed. My argument is the money is debt. Atonement is at least an honest reckoning of US' history. Justice is not just about money. Both: GFloyd, civil trial, suing the city, and criminal trial, for honest reckoning of accountability.
    3
  15.  @mchapelle19  To move the needle on reparations, the public needs to understand that that wealth is still present, and traceable. Else no traction on the issue continuously facing fundamental question: how do actions by long dead translate to current debt. No one pays bills they don't understand the origin of.
    3
  16. Hard as this author tries to promote neoliberalism, redistributing poverty isn't solving poverty. Of course Gates endorses this perception. Profits up, from moving production to low wage countries, importing visa indentured labor, and maintaining a lock on high priced Western consumer markets. Bonus: evade taxes offshore on record profits. And, STILL have the nerve to shunt Gates' foreign aid goals to the public wallet.
    3
  17. Is racism the only reason Trump was elected, as conjectured? Trade, unbounded immigration and income inequality. Same issues in UK, France, Germany, now rising in Japan. When did the Left turn Libertarian?
    3
  18. It might seem that way, if you're not versed in the topic. I presume you learned of slavery in school. Slavery By Another Name takes up history through the Jim Crow era, and then The New Jim Crow picks up history from Civil Rights passing to now.
    3
  19.  @joew5792  No, people don't know the history of slavery. For instance, do tell, -where'd Wachovia bank's wealth originated. What coal mine, or what state. - what's Jim Crow and how did that make life for freed blacks all the worse. Anything, do you have anything beyond the usual one incident "Lincoln freed the slaves"?
    3
  20. Far Left used to be CA, but now emanating out of Cambridge.
    3
  21. "...an old order of removal from her family's asylum case...", ignored. Brought here as a child to an unknown country, not a problem? But bringing their children to an unknown country, is a problem?
    2
  22.  @kimjones8824  Sounds more like hell than heaven. But then, my perception of hell is living the pain one caused others during their life.
    2
  23. Industries entitlement to cheap/free/desperate labor, root cause. Just a few years back, Rs approached CA's major donors with an immigration bill that equated to unbelievably low wage visa indenture. The donors kicked it to the curb. Clearly CA Ag owns this issue, labor w/absolutely no legal floor under the workers. Enforce labor law.
    2
  24. It gains momentum and traction from correcting our highly selective history books. Did you know early America was where England sent their orphaned and indigent as indentured? And that that indenture could be passed down to children and grandchildren? Suggested reading: White Trash. I think the topic of reparations is squelched because it opens a can of worms: US wealth comes from wage theft ... and still does.
    2
  25.  @WG55  "Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops"
    2
  26.  @WG55  You're right. Amended publication, "The headline — which was written by The Times, not Senator Cotton — was incendiary and should not have been used.?
    2
  27. What's with the Far Left buzzwords, "migrants", "families" in the title? When did individuals not matter?
    2
  28. They're entirely too fast and loose, with their identity politicing. And Boston, Far Left Central, is not going to recognize that.
    2
  29. Where is the link Adam mentioned, to equipment going to the states?
    2
  30.  @sabrinablack2155  I guess you're unfamiliar with the basis of why reparations are necessary, if your foundation starts with the Civil Rights Act.
    2
  31. Being a bitch is now grounds for prosecution and conviction? MA is so FUp.
    2
  32. - No time for basic Credible Fear asylum evaluation, but time for "temporary" work authorization. - Gifting industry. Rent-free is cheapest of workers.
    2
  33. Depends on what they know about a) slavery and that the wealth from that still existing and b) the enslaving that continued, in morphed form, to this day.
    2
  34. I do get and support the need for equal opportunity. But, as first female engineer in my group decades back, I never expected the men to vaporize upon my arrival, let alone demand it. And quite specifically, I mind the "We"ing presumption that (any) Loud Mouth Of Grievance is speaking for me. As for raw numbers eval, Henry Louis Gates' airtime means black demographic is "disproportionately" over represented in the realm of airtime stats.
    2
  35. "white rescue", but "we need allies", get off the fence. Like "white flight" and "gentrification", damned if you do, damned if you don't.
    2
  36.  @forsale313  If Douglas Blackmon can trace slave-based wealth, in Slavery By Another Name, then so can others. And, I include today's US slaves, the imprisoned, in Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.
    2
  37. Only one Clang! , in this excellent conversation: "Monopoly" capitalism. We either have capitalism, or we have monopolies. Capitalism's essential justification is competition, and if there is no competition, there is no capitalism. What we have is oligarchy, who extract market ownership via bought legislation from the politicians. There is nothing Capitalism about that, it's corruption, for creation/benefit of oligarchy. And it sucked with it, from the political atmosphere, democracy. Raise your hand if you voted to: - give big (or little) business exemption to skate on the nation's billing of expenses, aka pay taxes - give industry control over labor/labor market by simultaneously suppressing min wage and importing a labor glut to immobilize workers - go global, offshoring production of almost all of our consumables, to the least green choice, the other side of the planet
    2
  38. This conversation has more than a few issues to chew on. - If high income inequality is criteria for claiming refugee status, then much of the US qualifies to claim this to relocate elsewhere. - If violence is criteria for claiming refugee status, then much of Chicago, Baltimore, etc. qualifies to claim this to relocate elsewhere. - "focus on local", true, zero conversation on impact to "local". It seems #1 priority in governance is foreign issues. And then there is bigger general problem, no definition of "temporary". Likely this needs to be defined, because there's nothing "temporary" about 20 years. Honestly, if country is not able to accept citizenry back, then there needs to be a time limit when a TPS person is transitioned to a citizen. And then there's the upper level issues: countries who have NO plan to accommodate those they invite AND escaping violence versus cherry pick relocation: US, England, etc. (Mexico? Belize? etc.) Lastly, "they have houses, cars, [etc.]", irrelevant.
    2
  39. I have to wonder just how many European investors American workers are supporting.
    2
  40.  @Auriam  Not hearing why the politicians have sold off their publics' best interests.
    2
  41. "It's factual, but not necessarily true." We've a whole lot of "factual" but not necessarily true blasted at us these days. Entire context is needed to understand the "fact"s, and both sides of the aisle are guilty of cherry picking, when Whole Truth Matters
    2
  42.  @brindanlasten7073  "never going to happen" And yet, the numbers of those who support it are growing. "...are dead...are dead...are dead" If it's discovered my grandparents robbed a bank, do I get to keep that money?
    2
  43.  @mollyprysunka7741  You said dude. You're still a child.
    2
  44.  @daftwod  "You have...", "And you dont..." Ignorant answer for sake of being antagonistic. You don't know Kevin from a hole in the wall.
    2
  45. a) both had mental health issues b) since when is convicting someone for being a bitch okay c) "She’s alive he’s not.", which is basically what she's being convicted for, vindication, and he's still dead, isn't he. There's not an ounce of justice in this.
    2
  46. In a word, theft. It was the theft of the value of labor, and theft of acknowledgement of the economic contribution of that savagely acquired free labor.
    2
  47. Facts are context sensitive.
    1
  48. It is phenomenal just how much Jim doesn't know about why foreign labor is hired. Why are so many Silicon Valley upper management Indian? Because 20 years ago, tech transitioned staff hiring to mainly (in some cases strictly) H1B hires, and stayed that way. Because they're cheap and visa indentured. Within 1 year (1997), my entire department (in Mass.) was wiped out and replaced with H1Bs. Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, Oracle, etc. H1Bs for 2016 alone: FaceBook:3326, Oracle:7751, Cisco:6483, Intel:4508, Microsoft:9589, Google:3256, Apple:5763
    1
  49.  James Hanninen  "thugs" is what the police look like. Long ago, the Mr looked out his company window. Two cruisers, passing a joint between them. He called his coworkers over. They hollered out the window. One of the cops went to his trunk, took out a rifle, and aimed it at them.
    1
  50. Noticeable through the years is change in police physical stance - shooting range. Formerly, if they believed they themselves in potential physical danger, they used to take cover. Now, they jump out and shoot. It belies their mindset, shoot first.
    1