But I think I do understand the history of the case. So allow me to correct YOUR mish mash of incorrect statements, distorted conclusions and general wrongness.
Amusing. I notice you don't "correct" a single fact from my post. You simply try to imply something sinister through a vague, inchoate concept of "da gubmit."
Pigford I was originally filed by not 400, but 3 farmers. Although four hundred eventually did join the suit...
This is just a pathetic attempt to make it appear like you were providing "real" evidence, while I was wrong.
Here's what I wrote, "It was originally a suit filed by Timothy Pigford in 1997. 400 families joined in the class-action suit." You basically reiterate the information I provided, then pretended like you corrected me. Whether intentional or not, it says nothing positive about your argument.
Just so we are clear, the decision to award Sherrod (specifically) was not made by a court of law, but by bureaucrats in the Obama administration.
You're trying to make this seem like a sinister process, it isn't. The reason the case was settled in 1999, a decade before Obama took office, was that the merits were so obvious that it would be a waste of money to try and combat the charges. Notice the Bush administration didn't try and fight the claims either. They actually expanded the payouts.
It's an indication of fraud because there couldn't possibly have been 88,500 legitimate claims (that's 22,500 on-time claims + 66,000 late filing claims received by the late filing deadline) , much less 96,000 claims (if you include the late filing claims that were themselves filed late). As I pointed out in another thread, according to Appendix 3 of
http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/rr194.pdf , the official USDA census said there were
[...]
Sorry, but it looks to me like this has the makings of a huge abuse of the system by blacks and those monitoring it.
This is knee-jerk racism. Abuse by the "blacks?"
The number does seem high, and I would like to see it further explained, but there are plenty of ways to get to higher numbers than just fraud. You have no evidence of fraud, you're just arguing from incredulity and imposing the worst possible motives on everyone involved. Childish.
Then we are in agreement. And perhaps that should include the names and addresses of all those who received payments. Afterall, they received taxpayer money so taxpayers have a right to know who they are.
So angry racists like you can find and harrass them? No. Clearly more evidence needs to be revealed, but having already suffered discrimination at the hands of the government, they don't need bricks thrown through their windows because some right wing radio host decides this was some crime:
You don't find it the least bit odd that she gets a job with the organization and man that she sued for a billion dollars just a few days after she gets awarded a large settlement by them?
I'd particularly like to see more information about the proof the Sherrods offered to support their claim.
Again, you offer nothing substantial, just infantile suggestion.
What was the deal? She settled for less money so she could get the job? Well, that doesn't jive with your description of her winning a bunch of money.
And she didn't sue them for a billion dollars. She took a settlement offer and proved her case.
Really? Then what were the specific merits of the Sherrod case? You can't say because those details have not been released, just like they haven't been released in tens of thousands of other cases. Like I said on the other thread, I'm not saying that there weren't a lot of black farmers who were discriminated against by the USDA during that period and legitimately deserved compensation … probably more than they actually got. I'm saying that the way this was handled opened up the possibility of blacks in large numbers gaming the system and this appears to be what happened.
Again, no facts, just suggestion and racial resentment.
Certainly, but I've read numerous articles quoting black farmers who showed a distinct tendency to want to stick to the old ways. The fact that the Sherrods were trying a communist model for a farm suggests they had a problem with adapting to modern farming practices too.
More racist nonsense. The Sherrods were trying a model based on farming communities in Israel, that's what a Kibbutz is. Is Israel now communist? They are obviously socialist in their formation, but they've adapted quite well to modern capitalism.
But, of course, that style of social farming was especially attractive to African Americans in the South because they were so heavily discriminated against as individuals. They basically had to unionize to protect their interests.
There's also nothing about a Kibbutz that makes in incompatable with modern farming methods. Many contemporary Kibbutz's in Israel are high-tech firms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz
Of course not. But then Pigford wasn't to settle discrimination in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, was it. So that's irrelevant to the question of whether Pigford I and II were filled with fraudulant claims.
When you chop up paragraphs sentence by sentence you run the risk of completely missing the point. Such total failure to follow an argument often results in statements like yours from above.
Lot's of folks who grow up on a farm actually know very little about commercial farming and how to be successful at it. Sure, Shirley Sherrod grew up on a farm but instead of learning farming in college decided to major in "community development". And perhaps her dad didn't even now how to run a viable farm so what she did learn, she learned wrong.
This is just pathetic.
Let's not forget the absolutely goofy statement that motivated my first response:
And what background did either Sherrod have to be a farmer? They started the farm after Charles Sherrod left the Civil Rights movement and became a minister. A minister. That's sure going to prepare them for farming.
The background was 1) growing up on a farm and 2) studying farming communities in Israel.
You tried to imply that the Sherrod's started the farming trust a prospos nothing. They were just disgruntled Civil Rights workers who threw in with the agriculture.
I can't imagine what Sherrod could have done to make her more qualified to start a farm trust.
You spoke out of pure ignorance and tried to imply that something was amiss. This falls in line with the entire basis of your argument which is to simply suggest, without any evidence, that something fishy is going on.
And that's fine as long as the government doesn't make it a habit of bailing out such farmers when their farm runs into trouble and go belly up. Which is precisely my point.
Once again, your habit of going sentence by sentence has resulted in a completely incoherent argument. That was not "precisely your point." Your point, as near as I can tell, is that some great suspicious crime occured to let Sherrod win a settlement in a case decided more than a decade ago then get a job she was thoroughly quailified for.
Raised as a farmer? Really? Do you have something to prove that she was raised to take over the family farm? She was 17 when she left the farm. And what does studying "farm organization" really mean? Did it teach her that a communist model was better than a capitalist one?
This is really dumb. Why does she have to be "raised to take over the family farm" to learn about farming from growing up on a farm?
She grew up in a highly racially charged atmosphere. Her father was murdered by a white farmer who was never brought to trial. The statistics I provided show how black farmers were being forced out of agriculture. The discrimination was intense.
She joined the Civil Rights movement and tried to apply the unity element, so successful in ending legalized discrimination, to the area she grew up. She studied community farms in Israel and used that model in the US.
It's just pathetic that you would try to suggest (again, you have nothing mroe that your base suggestion) who is a true American hero was up to something sinister. It's pathetic.
But show it to who? A liberal group of "social justice" types who were eager to hand out money? And exactly what information did she show? I think that's the question that needs to be answered now, given the odd timing of her appointment to the USDA by Vilsack … the organization and man that she sued. How many cases do you know where the person who sues someone then gets a job from that person?
Did typing out this post tire you out? These little blurbs are getting sillier as we go.
She proved her case at a higher burden than those who took Track A. You have nothing to suggest that it was anything but proper, but like all belly-crawling vermin, you thrive in darkness. All you can do is imply from absence of evidence that something's wrong. The lack of information is purely neutral, yet you're trying your best to slander. Provide evidence or drop this slimy tactic.
Oh they won, but they didn't win in a court of law based on the specifics of their specific case, did they? And there still is a pervasive fear of doing anything that might be called racist. Perhaps those who awarded claims feared that? In which case it was easier to hand out money by the buckets than put your own career at risk by challenging what might be seen as abuse of the system by blacks. And besides, it's not like the monitors were giving away their own money.
Again, this is just base, immature suggestion. The reason it didn't get to a court of law was because 3 administrations looked at the evidence and found it in their best interest to settle.
I notice you're also adapting the dispicable Breitbart angle of pretending like the real victims are those accused of being racist, rather than those who suffer from actual racism.
All you given is a lot of "perhaps" and "maybe" and "what's going on behind closed doors." It's a lot of nothing. I agree that more information should be released, but even if every claimant was proven just, you would just slouch off to the next fake scandal.
