More pawns get sober
on April 21st, 2009 at 4:08 pmThat was then…
As champion of black farmers, Obama could win Southern votes (thehill.com)
9/19/07
“I think this will help Obama with black voters split between Hillary Clinton and Obama,” said Boyd, who said he was happy to see Obama speak out publicly on Pigford because there have been too few champions of black farmers in the Senate.
Davis, who has endorsed Obama, rattles off the Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia primaries as elections where a sizable number of voters will care about a candidate’s stance on Pigford.
[...]
Aside from introducing legislation this year, Obama has publicly criticized USDA employees for lobbying against Pigford language. In a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who has since criticized those employees, Obama described the settlement as “an acknowledgement that black farmers suffered discrimination from the USDA for many years.”
He also called it “unconscionable” that some USDA employees were more concerned about how considering additional claims could affect their workloads than about correcting “a serious injustice.”
And I remember how folks on the web were all too quick to magnify the racial elements of this issue.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a senator, Barack Obama led the charge last year to pass a bill allowing black farmers to seek new discrimination claims against the Agriculture Department. Now he is president, and his administration so far is acting like it wants the potentially budget-busting lawsuits to go away.
The change isn’t sitting well with black farmers who thought they’d get a friendlier reception from Obama after years of resistance from President George W. Bush.
“You can’t blame it on the Bush administration anymore,” said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, which has organized the lawsuits. “I can’t figure out for the life of me why the president wouldn’t want to implement a bill that he fought for as a U.S. senator.”
[...]
Although the case was hardly a hot-button political issue, it had drawn intense interest among African-Americans in the rural South. It was seen as a way for Obama to reach out in those areas, where he was not well-known and where he would need strong support to win the Democratic primary.
The proposal won passage in May as sponsors rounded up enough support to incorporate it into the 2008 farm bill. The potential budget implications were huge: It could easily cost $2 billion or $3 billion given an estimated 65,000 pending claims.
With pressure to hold down costs, lawmakers set an artificially low $100 million budget. They called it a first step and said more money could be approved later.
But with 25,000 new claims and counting, the Obama administration is now arguing that the $100 million budget should be considered a cap to be split among the successful cases.
The position — spelled out in a legal motion filed in February and reiterated in recent settlement talks — would leave payments as low as $2,000 or $3,000 per farmer. Boyd called that “insulting.”
Money=Politics
Politics=Money
The O’Jays tried to school y’all on this back in the day.
Money money money money, money (x6)
Some people got to have it
Some people really need it
Listen to me y’all, do things, do things, do bad things with it
You wanna do things, do things, do things, good things with it
Talk about cash money, money
Talk about cash money- dollar bills, yall
For the love of money
People will steal from their mother
For the love of money
People will rob their own brother
For the love of money
People can’t even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they’re gonna beat
For that lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, money
For the love of money
People will lie, Lord, they will cheat
For the love of money
People don’t care who they hurt or beat
For the love of money
A woman will sell her precious body
For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight
Call it lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar
I know money is the root of all evil
Do funny things to some people
Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime
Money can drive some people out of their minds
Got to have it, I really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Some people really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Got to have it, I really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Lay down, lay down, a woman will lay down
For the love of money
All for the love of money
Don’t let, don’t let, don’t let money rule you
For the love of money
Money can change people sometimes
Don’t let, don’t let, don’t let money fool you
Money can fool people sometimes
People! Don’t let money, don’t let money change you,
it will keep on changing, changing up your mind
