Got Slavery?

Republican SC governor, Mark Sanford, chief resister to Obama's stimulus said this week he'd reject $700 million of his state's $2.8 billion share of stimulus money unless he can spend it to pay down debt, and compared Obama's fiscal policies to those of Zimbabwe, saying the U.S. economy could collapse if it keeps spending money.

Along comes Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., who said Sanford's remark was "beyond the pale" and could have racial implications. Yesterday he said Sanford's request to use stimulus money to pay down debt "flies in the face" of Obama's intent that it be used to create or save jobs.

Sanford reasons that if "... you're buying into the notion of we just print some more money that we don't have, send it to some states, we'll create jobs. If that's the case, then why isn't Zimbabwe a rich place?" Sanford says elsewhere the stimulus package is "predatory lending" by the feds - true, as eventually we and future generations are gonna pay for being stimulated.

(Zimbabwe has been in economic meltdown ever since the South African nation began a chaotic land reform program. Its official inflation rate topped 11 million percent in 2008, with its treasury printing banknotes in the trillion-dollar range a.k.a. spending money you don't have.)

Clyburn comments that Sanford, "... happens to be a millionaire... he may not need help for the plantation his family owns, but the people whose grandparents and great-grandparents worked those plantations need the help" ... in the form of federal money.

Clyburn further says that Sanford is comparing Obama to Zimbabwe's Mugabee, is insulting Blacks, and the usual "progressive" (white) bloggers have rallied around also claiming the Sanford's remarks are racial.

So, who is Jim Clyburn? He's majority whip in the House, first elected in 1992 after South Carolina's 6th district was redrawn as a black-majority district. I searched high and low for House bills by Clyburn in his 17 year career, and found one bill he sponsored to preserve and interpret the Gullah/Geechee culture ($10 million over 10 years), a worthy cause if the money goes for what it says it will.

I did find Clyburn cosponsored 224 bills - nearly all frivolous (most of congress is), such as AIDS awareness, commemorative postage stamps, recognizing the contributions of Black basketball players, a bill to establish a Caribbean heritage month, and a bill recognizing the 100th anniversary of the founding of LasVegas.

Personally, I find Clyburn's "plantation" analogy more insulting than Sanford's Zimbawe reference. I don't believe Sanford was referring to race, but to out of control economic policies. Clyburn, on the other hand, is blatently race-baiting with the usual "you owe us" plantation mentality.

It's the modern plantation mentality because too many Black Americans choose to stay on the plantation - exchanging the master's chitlins for foodstamps, the slave cabin for section 8/projects, and instead of master choosing which slaves will breed, most of whom would not know their daddy, today's black men/women willingly breed for the master's prison industry, many never knowing their daddy, or momma.

Guys like Clyburn are overseers - patting your nappy heads like a Sunday preacher and whipping you with the chains of your own thinking.