Slavery

Should we be paying our share of the £87ish trillion the Brattle report recommends? Or should we just fuck it right off?

I rather suspect my family would have been living in abject poverty with zero political power, as would have the majority of the population. So no, fuck em off.

Those families who profitted from it, they can pay. Could start with the Royals and just about every named aristocrat of the time.

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I think the point is that the country as a whole has well developed infrastructure and the like, while the countries that the UK exploited do not.

So personally I think that there is a case for reparations, although I don’t think that simply passing cash over makes sense. I much prefer the idea of funding joint projects - establishing that infrastructure. We could even pay for museums, and establish a connection to the British Museum to share artefacts.

I’m all for amends. But it where does it end?. Should the UK demand reparation from the French / Nordic countries / Rome etc? I appreciate the title here is slavery but subjugation amounts to much the same (All of the above took British slaves too) Should there be a time limit? Who judges that?

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Yes to official apologies no to reparations.

Privatise the Royal Family, use the proceeds to pay people off. Otherwise, I agree with @BobC.

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Yep, like I posted yesterday - my family have got fuck all to do with the ruling elite who waged war, plundered and traded slaves (unlike my wife’s family on the other hand… :grimacing:).

The Great East India Company have a lot to answer for so their descendants and the land owners who also traded slaves can go first.

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I think there should be some apologies, but fuck the reparations.
It is quite a while ago now.

As soon as we invent time travel, then we can get meaningful reparations underway to the people who actually suffered. Meanwhile, wallowing in the actions of people dead for centuries makes the wrong people feel bad, reinforces negative stereotypes, and perpetuates divisive ill-feelings.

By all means remove the statues and place-names, return the trinkets whence they came, but be honest - this is pure tokenism, pandering to middle-class white guilt.

The best way to honour those who suffered in the past is to make damn sure we have a completely fair, equitable society today. A society where no-one is left-out or left behind, and where our borders are open to anyone who needs our help.

Look after those alive now, not those dead for hundreds of years.

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Vote Maureen

My Manifesto, in full:

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I’d lean towards taking that money, and using it to help areas populated by descendants of slaves. Poverty tends to repeat through the generations, so using the money to break those cycles would be the best idea.

And yes, tax the fuck out of anyone with inherited wealth that stems from slave ownership.

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Well yes, but Jeff Bezos gets very rich indeed off the work of people who are in often terrible conditions. We just need to tax extreme wealth, and inherited wealth, whether from slavery or not.

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I’d go further and suggest most of Western commerce is based on intensely exploitative employment through to downright slavery (e.g. Uyghur forced labour) happening in China. The likes of Bezos are unapologetic parasites on that whole vile system.

Blind-eyes still being turned en-masse when its one’s own wealth and convenience at stake, eh? Some things truly never change…

Yeah. I kinda think that working with countries to improve their infra, using our services, is a win win, for each country, for the people and for the environment. No chance of that happening then

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China seems to be doing a lot of that. Don’t think it is because they are feeling charitable.