Compiled by Ryan Tibbens

On this Juneteenth, 2019, the United States House of Representatives held hearings on reparations for slavery. This is not a new idea, but new voices made themselves heard and breathed life into an otherwise stale debate.  This article serves as a brief, basic introduction to the new debate; it includes two video clips from today's congressional testimonies, an excerpt from a best-selling modern philosophy book, and a video of the book's author teaching class. Additionally, this article includes a new feature: reader surveys.  There is one survey in the beginning; use it to indicate your beliefs now.  The other survey is at the end of the article; use it to indicate your beliefs after considering the compiles sources. 

Before launching into the sources, remember this: you can't reasonably claim pride in your community's past achievements if you won't also accept shame for the past failures. 
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Source #1) An argument in favor of reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates. 

Source #2) An argument against reparations by Coleman Hughes. 

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Source #3a) An excerpt from Michael J. Sandel's Justice, in which he discusses loyalty, community, and individuality. (Full text available here.)

 ​~~ WHAT DO WE OWE ONE ANOTHER? / DILEMMAS OF LOYALTY ~~

It’s never easy to say, “I’m sorry.” But saying so in public, on behalf of one’s nation, can be especially difficult. Recent decades have brought a spate of anguished arguments over public apologies for historic injustices. 

-- Apologies and Reparations --

Much of the fraught politics of apology involves historic wrongs committed during World War II. Germany has paid the equivalent of billions of dollars in reparations for the Holocaust, in the form of payments to individual survivors and to the state of Israel. Over the years, German political leaders have offered statements of apology, accepting responsibility for the Nazi past in varying degrees. In a speech to the Bundestag in 1951 , German chancellor Konrad Adenauer claimed that “the overwhelming majority of the German people abominated the crimes committed against the Jews and did not participate in them.” But he acknowledged that “unspeakable crimes have been committed in the name of the German people, calling for moral and material indemnity.” In 2000, German president Johannes Rau apologized for the Holocaust in a speech to the Israeli Knesset, asking “forgiveness for what Germans have done.”

Japan has been more reluctant to apologize for its wartime atrocities. During the 1930s and ’40s, tens of thousands of Korean and other Asian women and girls were forced into brothels and abused as sex slaves by Japanese soldiers. Since the 1990s, Japan has faced growing international pressure for a formal apology and restitution to the so-called “comfort women.” In the 1990s, a private fund offered payments to the victims, and Japanese leaders made limited apologies. But as recently as 2007, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe insisted that the Japanese military was not responsible for coercing the women into sexual slavery. The U.S. Congress responded by passing a resolution urging the Japanese government to formally acknowledge and apologize for its military’s role in enslaving the comfort women.

Other apology controversies involve historic injustices to indigenous peoples. In Australia, debate has raged in recent years over the government’s obligation to the aboriginal people. From the 1910s to the early 1970s, aboriginal children of mixed race were forcibly separated from their mothers and placed in white foster homes or settlement camps. (In most of these cases, the mothers were aborigines and the fathers white.) The policy sought to assimilate the children to white society and speed the disappearance of aboriginal culture. The government-sanctioned kidnappings are portrayed in Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), a movie that tells the story of three young girls who, in 1931, escape from a settlement camp and set out on a 1 ,200-mile journey to return to their mothers.

In 1997, an Australian human rights commission documented the cruelties inflicted on the “stolen generation” of aborigines, and recommended an annual day of national apology. John Howard, the prime minister at the time, opposed an official apology. The apology question became a contentious issue in Australian politics. In 2008, newly elected prime minister Kevin Rudd issued an official apology to the aboriginal people. Although he did not offer individual compensation, he promised measures to overcome the social and economic disadvantages suffered by Australia’s indigenous population.

In the United States, debates over public apologies and reparations have also gained prominence in recent decades. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law an official apology to Japanese Americans for their confinement in internment camps on the West Coast during World War II. In addition to an apology, the legislation provided compensation of $20,000 to each survivor of the camps, and funds to promote Japanese American culture and history. In 1993, Congress apologized for a more distant historic wrong — the overthrow, a century earlier, of the independent kingdom of Hawaii.

Perhaps the biggest looming apology question in the United States involves the legacy of slavery. The Civil War promise of “forty acres and a mule” for freed slaves never came to be. In the 1990s, the movement for black reparations gained new attention. Every year since 1989, Congressman John Conyers has proposed legislation to create a commission to study reparations for African Americans. although the reparations idea has won support from many African American organizations and civil rights groups, it has not caught on with the general public.  Polls show that while a majority of African Americans favor reparations, only 4 percent of whites do. 

Although the reparations movement may have stalled, recent years have brought a wave of official apologies. In 2007, Virginia, which had been the largest slaveholding state, became the first to apologize for slavery. A number of other states, including Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Florida, followed. And in 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing to African Americans for slavery and for the Jim Crow era of racial segregation that extended into the mid-twentieth century. 

Should nations apologize for historic wrongs? To answer this question, we need to think through some hard questions about collective responsibility and the claims of community. 

The main justifications for public apologies are to honor the memory of those who have suffered injustice at the hands (or in the name) of the political community, to recognize the persisting effects of injustice on victims and their descendants, and to atone for the wrongs committed by those who inflicted the injustice or failed to prevent it. As public gestures, official apologies can help bind up the wounds of the past and provide a basis for moral and political reconciliation. Reparations and other forms of 
financial restitution can be justified on similar grounds, as tangible expressions of apology and atonement. They can also help alleviate the effects of the injustice on the victims or their heirs. 

Whether these considerations are strong enough to justify an apology depends on the circumstances. In some cases, attempts to bring about public apologies or reparations may do more harm than good by inflaming old animosities, hardening historic enmities, entrenching a sense of victimhood, or generating resentment. Opponents of public apologies often voice worries such as these. Whether, all things considered, an act of apology or restitution is more likely to heal or damage a political community is a complex matter of political judgment. The answer will vary from case to case. 

-- Should We Atone for the Sins of our Predecessors? --

But I would like to focus on another argument often raised by opponents of apologies for historic injustices — a principled argument that does not depend on the contingencies of the situation. This is the argument that people in the present generation should not — in fact, cannot — apologize for wrongs committed by previous generations.  To apologize for an injustice is, after all, to take some responsibility for it. You can’t apologize for something you didn’t do. So, how can you apologize for something that was done before you were born? 

John Howard, the Australian prime minister, gave this reason for rejecting an official apology to the aborigines: “I do not believe that the current generation of Australians should formally apologize and accept responsibility for the deeds of an earlier generation.”

A similar argument was made in the U.S. debate over reparations for slavery. Henry Hyde, a Republican congressman, criticized the idea of reparations on these grounds: “I never owned a slave. I never oppressed anybody. I don’t know that I should have to pay for someone who did [own slaves] generations before I was born.” Walter E. Williams, an African American economist who opposes reparations, voiced a similar view: “If the government got the money from the tooth fairy or Santa Claus, that’d be great. But the government has to take the money from citizens, and there are no citizens alive today who were responsible for slavery.”

Taxing today’s citizens to pay reparations for a past wrong may seem to raise a special problem. But the same issue arises in debates over apologies that involve no financial compensation. 

With apologies, it’s the thought that counts. The thought at stake is the acknowledgment of responsibility. Anyone can deplore an injustice. But only someone who is somehow implicated in the injustice can apologize for it. Critics of apologies correctly grasp the moral stakes. And they reject the 
idea that the current generation can be morally responsible for the sins of their forebears. 

When the New Jersey state legislature debated the apology question in 2008, a Republican assemblyman asked, “Who living today is guilty of slaveholding and thus capable of apologizing for the offense?” The obvious answer, he thought, was no one: “Today’s residents of New Jersey, even those 
who can trace their ancestry back to . . . slaveholders, bear no collective guilt or responsibility for unjust events in which they personally played no role.”

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepared to vote an apology for slavery and segregation, a Republican critic of the measure compared it to apologizing for deeds carried out by your “great-great-great-grandfather.” 

-- Moral Individualism --

The principled objection to official apologies is not easy to dismiss. It rests on the notion that we are responsible only for what we ourselves do, not for the actions of other people, or for events beyond our control. We are not answerable for the sins of our parents or our grandparents or, for that matter, our compatriots. 

But this puts the matter negatively. The principled objection to official apologies carries weight because it draws on a powerful and attractive moral idea. We might call it the idea of “moral individualism.” The doctrine of moral individualism does not assume that people are selfish. It is rather a 
claim about what it means to be free. For the moral individualist, to be free is to be subject only to obligations I voluntarily incur; whatever I owe others, I owe by virtue of some act of consent — a choice or a promise or an agreement I have made, be it tacit or explicit. 

The notion that my responsibilities are limited to the ones I take upon myself is a liberating one. It assumes that we are, as moral agents, free and independent selves, unbound by prior moral ties, capable of choosing our ends for ourselves. Not custom or tradition or inherited status, but the free 
choice of each individual is the source of the only moral obligations that constrain us.

You can see how this vision of freedom leaves little room for collective responsibility, or for a duty to bear the moral burden of historic injustices perpetrated by our predecessors. If I promised my grandfather to pay his debts or apologize for his sins, that would be one thing. My duty to carry out the recompense would be an obligation founded on consent, not an obligation arising from a collective identity extending across generations. Absent some such promise, the moral individualist can make no sense of a responsibility to atone for the sins of my predecessors. The sins, after all, were theirs, not mine. 

If the moral individualist vision of freedom is right, then the critics of official apologies have a point; we bear no moral burden for the wrongs of our predecessors. But far more than apologies and collective responsibility are at stake. The individualist view of freedom figures in many of the theories of justice most familiar in contemporary politics. If that conception of freedom is flawed, as I believe it is, then we need to rethink some of the fundamental features of our public life. 

As we have seen, the notions of consent and free choice loom large, not only in contemporary politics, but also in modern theories of justice. Let’s look back and see how various notions of choice and consent have come to inform our present-day assumptions. 

An early version of the choosing self comes to us from John Locke. He argued that legitimate government must be based on consent. Why? Because we are free and independent beings, not subject to paternal authority or the divine right of kings. Since we are “by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.”

[Sandel continues by making connections to the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls.]


Source 3b) A recording of Michael Sandel teaching his "Justice" course at Harvard, this segment addresses many of the topics and texts mentioned above in 'Source 3a.'  This is the most popular course in the history of Harvard University and is fully available online for free at JusticeHarvard.org as well as his Harvard webpage and YouTube. Both the book Justice and the class are strongly recommended.  

"Achieve an Informed and Common Sense Opinion on the United States' Dealings in the Middle East: An Anthology"  -- Compiled by Ryan Tibbens

On this Flag Day, we should all consider what our flag stands for, not just here in the United States, but around the world too.  We should better understand how actions taken under that flag and paid for by American citizens affect peace, prosperity, and geopolitics around the world.  This 'article' is more of an anthology, a compilation of reliable sources and literary connections, designed to inform discussions of American involvement in the Middle East. 

​Before you ever suggest raising taxes for public services or cutting social safety nets to save money, you should better understand how our federal government effectively gives away our prosperity, often to countries that support our enemies.  You should also try to understand why these decisions make sense to those who wield power in our government and major industries.  

Let's start with a trailer for a GREAT documentary. (Go watch the whole movie -- it is currently available on Amazon Prime.)

Why We Fight, a fantastic documentary (2006) by Eugene Jarecki, addresses the threat of the military-industrial-congressional complex using strong research, purposeful rhetoric, and an impressive set of interviews with ranking government and private sector leaders. Jarecki's discussion (argument?) builds on a foundation created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address. 

Next, let's take a look at geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East, with extra attention paid to the two biggest players -- Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

Vox has several well-researched introductory videos on YouTube that create solid foundations for further study or (the beginnings of) informed discourse.  They have also compiled a few maps (some animated) to further clarify the historical and cultural complexities of Middle Eastern politics, for example: 

​Perhaps the most urgent item in this brief compilation is the video of Senator Rand Paul speaking before the Senate on June 13, 2019 (yesterday) about the government's plans to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. With a determination and repetition that are both rhetorically effective and somewhat annoying by the end, Paul points out the complete lack of common sense in our approach to Middle Eastern foreign policy and arms sales.  Our president and legislators seem to believe that the best path to peace in the Middle East is sending in more armaments, weapons that often end up in our enemies' hands to be used against our own young soldiers. Using the context from the previous two videos, think carefully about Senator Rand Paul's words. 

​Remember, we are talking about millions, billions, sometimes trillions of dollars -- and that is a lot more money than most of us can even imagine. As President Eisenhower pointed out, we could build scores of schools, hospitals, and highways with that money; we could uplift the American people. President George Washington gave similar warnings in his farewell address -- that a standing army will lead to wars and that foreign entanglements will ruin our republic.   We continue to ignore good advice from two strong presidents, two of our nation's great military leaders, instead wasting tax-payers' dollars on misguided military interventions and arms sales. 

How can we make sense of all this nonsense? George Orwell explained these processes clearly in his book within a book, "THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM by Emmanuel Goldstein," contained in Part 2, Chapter 9 of 1984.  In this section of the book, Winston, the protagonist and active opposition to the Party and Big Brother, finally gets to read from "the book." In this block of text, Orwell demonstrates his social and political clairvoyance by describing the world in which we live today. 

In this writer's opinion, this is the most important source in this anthology; unfortunately, it also requires the most reading.  However, if you've made it this far, it is my sincere hope that you will finish the job and read a few extra pages -- your outlook on American politics and "defense" spending will never be the same.   The link above contains the full text (as well as the entire novel); you can also read here on Read.Think.Write.Speak. by clicking on the "Read More" link just below the Amazon ads. 

​The next time a politician claims that "we can't afford" domestic programs or that "we need to raise taxes to fund public services" or that "cutting defense spending endangers all Americans as well as democracy around the world" or any such nonsense, remember what George Orwell, Rand Paul, George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, and objective history have to say about those lies. 

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A Short Documentary by Mekhali Peyyalamitta & Tim Muliari

By Ryan Tibbens

Not a single word of the following article is intended to be critical of nor offensive to veterans, past or present, living or dead.  This article is for civilian citizens who, particularly recently, have engaged in debates about war memorials, about Confederate allegiances, and about respecting our troops.  I will play Devil's Advocate several times; I do not agree with every word I've written, but I strongly believe in asking the question. 

It's the unofficial first day of summer, the first big barbecue of the year, when pools open and lawn furniture shakes off cobwebs. The only things more common than swarms of motorcycles are American flags and semi-heartfelt social media posts about remembering our fallen troops. 

Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces, has been celebrated, officially and otherwise, on the last Monday of May (or May 30th) since around 1868, originally commemorating those who died in the Civil War.  Decoration Day was a common southern Appalachian tradition that spread across the United States after our nation's darkest years.  Many Americans already observed some form of remembrance ceremony for soldiers killed in the Revolutionary War, but the Civil War truly consolidated the holiday and cemented its place in American culture. And it is worth noting that many of the biggest and most serious early celebrations took place in southern states. 

Have you ever argued against statues of Confederate soldiers?  I have (though usually just for the fun of participating in the debate).  Given the history and purpose of the holiday, I am left with a question -- if you oppose memorials for Confederate soldiers, do you also oppose Memorial Day overall?  Do you at least oppose the inclusion of men killed in the Mexican-American War or World War I or Vietnam or other wars of US aggression?  What is the difference?  

In my conversations on the subject, friends and students cite a few common reasons to remove Confederate statues: they represent racism and slavery, they represent unprovoked violence, they represent a losing effort, and they represent treason.  In their own way, each of these reasons is fair and functional.  However, if a person truly opposes celebrations based on those factors, then many wars -- and many, many soldiers -- should be excluded from Memorial Day. 

Unless you are a pure statist whose political feelings are dominated by blind patriotism, you can surely identify problems with at least some US military conflicts.  The Gulf of Tonkin. The USS Maine. The Wounded Knee Massacre.  The Bush family's business dealings with the Bin Ladens around the time of 9/11. The Sedition Act of 1918.  War crimes and pardons. Weapons of mass destruction. We could do this for a while, but you get the point.  Problems exist; mistakes were made.  And if you acknowledge that mistakes have been made, repeatedly, then surely you will see that many other American soldiers are guilty of sins similar to those of the Confederates. Let's look at each of the reasons. 

Racism and slavery.  The United States of America is a country with a long history of racism and support for slavery.  The Revolutionary War yielded a racist, slave-tolerating nation.  The War of 1812 did the same.  The Mexican-American War attacked Hispanic Mexicans as "others" while attempting to align with and spare many White Mexicans; it also yielded new slave-holding states and territories. The Civil War was fought over slavery, but slavery was still legal in several northern states, and the Emancipation Proclamation only freed southern slaves.  The Spanish-American War was supported by often-racist propaganda. The Indian wars and battles were racist to their cores. Racism has continued its influence in American geopolitics all the way through WWII in the Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. If a soldier is unworthy of honor because some part of the cause is racist, then few soldiers remain to memorialize.  And what of slavery? In the South just prior to the Civil War, less than 1/3 of the white population owned slaves, and of all who did, most families owned just one slave (no less terrible, though perhaps not the image most people have thanks to Roots and 12 Years a Slave and others).  Most of the wealthiest and most powerful slave owners avoided battle through military surrogates and direct legislation. Furthermore, nearly 1/3 of the Confederate army was conscripted -- drafted -- and forced to fight.  Slavery was terrible, and its modern repercussions are still awful, but if 1/3 of Confederate soldiers were conscripted and 2/3 owned no slaves, then is that the best reason to avoid memorializing the dead?

Unprovoked Violence.  See the Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, WWI, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Iraq War.  See many, many other smaller fights along the way as well (and nearly all of US military involvement in Central and South America).  If you only celebrate and remember soldiers who died in direct defense of the country, your holiday will be a short one. 

Losing Effort.  For the pure fun of arguing, this is my favorite reason people use when protesting Confederate statues.  I'm not sure I've ever encountered a Confederate-supporter who also supports 'participation trophies.'  When these statues are referred to as participation trophies, reactions range from quiet scorn to full rage.  Then again, the South lost, so aren't Confederate monuments really just tributes and reminders about losing?  That sounds like a participation trophy.  Still, as much fun as this argument is, it is flawed.  How many people who oppose Confederate memorials on the grounds of 'participation trophies' would make the same argument for removing the Vietnam War Memorial or Korean War Memorial?  Not many (hopefully none)...

Treason.  This may be the most logical reason to oppose Confederate memorials: they commemorate people who fought against the United States of America.  Since the Union won, why should it tolerate celebration of those who fought against it? I don't hear much criticism of the Crazy Horse Memorial or other memorials to American Indian leaders.  But that might not be entirely fair either.  Is Edward Snowden and hero or traitor?  Was John Brown a civil rights champion or anti-American terrorist?  Was Muhammad Ali's refusal before the draft board an act of American freedom and independence or willful defiance and treason? (False dichotomies abound.) Many edgy young Americans who oppose Confederate statues claim that those men are heroes.  They might also regularly speak out against the President of the United States, the legislature, the Department of Defense, and more.  That kind of anti-American speech has actually been prosecutable in the past (Sedition Act of 1918 and others).  Is it more important to stand with your government or with your personal obligations?  If you said "personal obligations," then consider that treason is never far away.  Plus, as historians so often point out, prior to the Civil War, people referred to the United States as "they" rather than "it," meaning that most citizens really saw our nation as a collection of semi-independent states, similar to the modern European Union.  As such, most citizens felt a stronger allegiance to their states than their federal government, so most confederate soldiers didn't even consider their behavior truly treasonous.  To be clear -- they committed treason.  But so did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Snowden and Brown, and a few dozen more Americans who at least might be heroes despite their questionable loyalties.  

If it is possible to hate the sin but not the sinner, then perhaps we can hate the war but not the soldier.  If we can agree that enlisted infantrymen are often used as instruments of war, then we should be able to separate degrees of guilt -- the sledge hammer is less guilty of destruction than the man swinging it.  In that light, remembering and memorializing Confederate soldiers is not just acceptable, it is right.  Celebrating Confederate leadership might be a different story. However, if we believe that all individual humans have the capacity to understand their circumstances, question their governments, and make their own decisions about participation in a fight, then we might be able to remove those monuments ------ but we'd need to remove a lot more than just the Confederates'. 

Cognitive dissonance runs deep on Memorial Day because many Americans want to honor our troops, honor those who have sacrificed for us, but we also try not to examine their sacrifices too closely, lest we realize that their sacrifices weren't fully for "us" or that our morals conflict with the causes of some wars.  Any person who can condemn Confederate memorials while defending the Vietnam War Memorial is either drowning in cognitive dissonance or knows a much more detailed, more nuanced history than I've learned. 

Personally, I have no problems with Confederate monuments on battlegrounds, in museums, and at significant historical sites.  Their scattering about southern capital buildings and random parks might be different, and surely the commemoration of Confederate leadership deserves more scrutiny than the simple statues that memorialize everyday Americans, the poor infantrymen that fought for their homes in the same way modern soldiers do today. If we want to have a serious and productive conversation about remembering our fallen soldiers OR about Confederate memorials, we need to more clearly identify the problems and then apply those criteria to all memorials; otherwise, cognitive dissonance wins the day. 

The Confederate flag, on the other hand, well, there's no way to defend that anywhere but a battlefield, and if you find someone who does, that person doesn't understand historical context or is racist or both. 



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Food for thought...

by Christian Solar | An artist and writer out of the DC area

It is disheartening to see so many people look at Joe Biden as America's sweet uncle, when time and time again he has been on the wrong side of history. Let me compare him to Bernie Sanders, his biggest 2020 Democratic rival and the candidate who, I believe, has the most progressive past. Both Biden and Bernie are going to have to fight off being dismissed because they are just ‘old white guys,’ which is the regrettable opinion of some on the left. However, I constantly hear about how Bernie is going to struggle with women and people of color and that Biden can appeal to these people. I do not know how much more wrong you could be.  In 1994, Joe Biden supported the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a bill that hit the black community hard. “It doesn’t matter if they were deprived as a youth, it doesn’t matter if they had no background to [...] become socialized into the fabric of society. It doesn’t matter whether or not they are the victims of society. [...] I don’t want to ask what made them do this. They must be taken off the street,” Biden has stated blatantly multiple times that he does not care what brought people to commit crimes, that he does not care about helping them, about trying to solve any problems.

On the other hand, Bernie Sanders asks, “How do we talk about crime when this congress this year is prepared to spend eleven times more for the military than education? When 21% of our kids dropout of high school. [...] The rate of poverty continues to grow, do you think maybe that has something to do with crime?” Here we can see that Bernie understands that many people have no way to weave themselves into the fabric of society. He understands that they were deprived as youths, and he is actively fighting to stop poverty and oppression. Bernie Sanders understood this back in the 1960s when he was marching with Martin Luther King and leading sit-ins and protests during the civil rights movement.
 
While Joe Biden would rather sweep these problems under the rug, Bernie Sanders is actively lifting the rug to clean. It seems many Democrats think that black people will vote for Joe Biden because he was the Vice-President to Barrack Obama, which is the political version of  “I have a black friend.”
 
While both men eventually went on to vote for the crime bill, they did so for two very different reasons: Biden to lock up people in need of support, and Bernie to help abused women. Bernie clarified, “I have a number of serious problems with the crime bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the violence against women act. We urgently need the 1.8 billion dollars in this bill to combat the epidemic of violence against women on the streets and in the homes of America.” Joe Biden seems to have been aloof to issues regarding women in the 1990s: “Can you tell the committee what was the most embarrassing of all of the incidents you have alleged.”
 
Not traumatizing, not fear-provoking, not even uncomfortable. Joe Biden used the word “embarrassing” when questioning Anita Hill. Joe Biden insinuated that she was just embarrassed by the (alleged) sexual harassment she suffered at the hands Clarence Thomas. Biden clearly underestimated the severity of sexual harassment. This dismissive language is consistent throughout the hearings and the rest of his questions. Whether to cover his tail or out of sheer ignorance, he says, “I do apologize to the women of America if they got the wrong impression about how seriously I take the issue of sexual harassment. I must tell you, I must tell everyone else, I take sexual harassment seriously.”
 
 Flash forward to the beginnings of the 2020 presidential race. What do we see? Bernie is appointing many women to powerful campaign positions to help fight and counteract sexual harassment and assault; this comes in response to cases of sexual harassment coming from his 2016 presidential campaign.  Bernie says, “It appears that as part of our campaign, there were some women who were harassed and mistreated — I thank them from the bottom of my heart for speaking out. [...] When we talk about — and I do all the time — ending sexism and all forms of discrimination, those beliefs cannot just be words. They must be based in day-to-day reality and the work we do, and that was clearly not the case in the 2016 campaign.” These are two things that we rarely see from politicians: admitting mistakes and taking substantive action.
 
When we look to Biden, we see allegations of sexual harassment and generally creepy behavior and not understanding boundaries. While Bernie sounded sincere and heart broken by what happen during his campaign, Biden seemed annoyed to be asked about his own allegations: “The fact of the matter is I made it clear that if I made anyone feel uncomfortable I feel badly about that, it was never my intention.” When directly asked if he was sorry for how he acted, Biden responded, “I’m sorry that I didn’t understand more; I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I am not sorry for anything I have ever done.” His tone and attitude have not changed much from the early 90s, and it certainly does not feel like he is taking people’s concerns seriously.

Outside of Joe Biden’s lack of real support of people of color and women, we can see that Joe Biden did not support LGBT people either. Only recently in 2012 did he announce his support of gay marriage, while in 1996 he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. This is blatant discrimination against gay people, no way around it. This act prevented gay couples from receiving benefits such as favorable protection, estate tax and gift treatment, as well as other protections and services. DOMA was a huge setback in the gay rights movement, preventing gay couples from being seen as couples at all. For example, if a gay man was sick in the hospital, his partner would not be allowed to visit. This is just one example of how this bill continued the pain that was felt by the LGBT community through their fight for equal rights. In 2009, Biden said to the community at an LGBT fundraiser, "I don't blame you for your impatience." The next year, the Obama administration worked to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, but Joe Biden’s direct involvement is unclear. Plus, it still took two more years for him to come out in support of gay marriage.
 
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has supported gay rights since as far back as the early 1970s: “Let’s abolish all laws which attempt to impose a particular brand of morality or ‘right’ on people. Let’s abolish all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior (adultery, homosexuality, etc.).” Back in 1983, while Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie backed a Gay Pride parade and approved a resolution to make a Gay Pride Day. In 1995, when Rep. Duke Cunningham ranted about a cut of defense spending, he referenced putting “homos in the military.” Bernie proceeded to call him out despite his objection being risky, perhaps even unpopular, at the time. “You have used the word, homos in the military,’ you have insulted thousands,” he said. While he officially stated his support for gay marriage in 2009, Bernie’s status as an Ally was never in doubt.
 
While I understand that people change and so do their opinions, I take issue with gaslighting, and that is exactly what Joe Biden is doing. “The most progressive record of anybody running” – That title clearly goes to Bernie Sanders.

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​The Rational National’s video “Biden Vs. Bernie: Who’s On The Correct Side Of History?” was a major inspiration for this article.  Consider it required viewing. My thanks to them.
 
 
Sources
 
T. (2019, March 18). Biden Vs. Bernie: Who's On The Correct Side Of History? Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeXbIt1x5KU
 
Bowden, J. (2019, March 16). Biden: 'I have the most progressive record of anybody running ... anybody who would run'. The Hill. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/434416-biden-on-potential-candidacy-i-have-the-most-progressive-record
 
Ember, S., & Martin, J. (2019, January 10). Bernie Sanders Apologizes Again to Women Who Were Mistreated in 2016 Campaign. The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/us/politics/sanders-sexism-apology.html
 
T. (2019, April 05). Biden Says He's Sorry, and Not Sorry. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000006447596/biden-apology-controversy.html Published by The New York Times
 
V. (2018, September 21). Watch The Most Outrageous Questions Senators Asked Anita Hill In 1991. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPnd911FcM
 
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By Ryan Tibbens

~~ If you do nothing else with this article, watch the Andrew Yang/Joe Rogan video clip linked below. Automation is going to change the world.  ~~

I'll begin by saying that I support the minimum wage as an imperfect though well-intended and mostly functional concept.  Some even suggest a currency-adjusted, global minimum wage, which has become a point of contention between some economists.  (Now that the less-open-minded libertarians among us have bailed, we can proceed thoughtfully.)

More and more large corporations are announcing their support for a $12 or even $15 minimum wage, and it should come as no surprise. These businesses include Amazon, Disney, Target, Walmart, and now McDonald's. We shouldn't be surprised because big businesses will always do what is best for themselves and their shareholders: crush competition and generate profits. A corporation's sole purpose is to generate profits through channels that mitigate the financial loss and personal liability of shareholders.  As such, these modern giants see the benefit of increasing the minimum wage -- they can afford it, and much of their remaining competition can't.  Even if a wage hike doesn't make sense in the short term, allowing government to legislate their competition out of business is a winning strategy in the long term.  And since each of these companies is intensifying dependence on automation, they will have fewer human employees to pay soon anyway.          [Article continues below.]

A Friend recently shared this article about McDonald's abrupt shift to supporting a minimum wage increase. ​"By sticking together and taking action on the job, courageous workers in the Fight for $15 and a union have forced McDonald's – the second-biggest employer in the world – to drop its relentless opposition to higher pay," SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement. "Now, McDonald's needs to use its profits and power to give thousands of cooks and cashiers across the country a real shot at the middle class by raising pay to $15 an hour and respecting its workers' right to a union." My friend went on to point out that McDonald's has cut its workforce by nearly 50%, nearly 210,000 jobs, in the last four years. 

Of course, we've all heard horror stories about fast food automation, from robot grill masters that work slower than the stoned 17 year olds they replaced to the poop-smeared touchscreen kiosks (or maybe not).  But this is a primary reason McDonald's and other large companies are actually reducing employment. Will increasing the minimum wage really intensify automation? Many people certainly think so, particularly those who oppose the minimum wage in the first place. 

So what is going to happen when McDonald's and Amazon and the rest strong-arm the federal government into increasing the minimum wage on their own terms? 

1) Big companies can afford the increased wages, at least in the short term, so they gladly pay.
2) Smaller competition goes out of business trying to pay those wages.
3) Big companies receive the surplus business because they've outlasted competition. 
4) They use the increased revenue to further invest in automation.
5) Nearly no one is left making $15/hour due to massive layoffs (thanks to automation), so the minimum wage doesn't really matter anymore.
6) We move to some form of universal basic income because, without it, no one will be able to buy food from McDonald's or random crap from Walmart and Amazon.
7) We all admire President Yang's forward thinking -- Andrew Yang for President 2020. 
8) Karl Marx replaces Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. (Okay, maybe not this part...) 

Seriously, watch the video.

​