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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 12, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
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MUMIA FROM DEATH ROW: AN IMPRUDENT DEMOCRACY
["The people, sir, are a great beast."
--Alexander Hamilton, organizer of Constitutional Convention, 1787]
The American propaganda machine alone allows people like George W. Bush
and his minions in government and the punditocracy of the corporate
media to crow to the world about "American democracy."
To hear them tell it, the U.S. intends to wage an illegal and unpopular
war against the Iraqis, to bring them "American democracy."
There's only one problem with that seemingly noble sentiment--there
ain't enough here to spread around.
America, at its very inception and in the uncertain, fearful present,
doesn't care about nor practice democracy. It practices the illusion of
democracy, and has a powerful media and the educational system with
which to project this illusion. But in its earliest days up to this
present hour, the leaders of the U.S. government have striven mightily
to avoid any real democracy, by the process of exclusion of, in truth,
the majority of the people.
Since at least the 1940s, the majority of the American population has
been women. If this truly were a representative democracy, there would
be 51 female senators in the U.S. Senate, not the nine or so that are
there now. Indeed, according to UN reports, the U.S. ranks 50th in the
world when it comes to women's representation in national legislatures.
Sweden, which comes first in the world, with 43 percent, is followed by
Germany, New Zealand, Mozambique and South Africa. The U.S. comes in
some 45 states later.
African Americans, roughly 13 percent of the population, should have 13
senators and 56 members of the House of Representatives. As of this
writing, there are 0 senators (there have only been two in the last half
century!) and 38 members of the House.
The same could be said of Americans in poverty, who constitute some 12.8
percent of the populace. Who represents them?
Nobody.
The House and the Senate represent the rich, who disproportionately
contribute to their campaigns and their war chests for the perpetual
election cycle. The average congressperson spends well over 50 percent
of his or her time in the tedious business of fundraising. Why? To buy
time on the corporate media.
So, who do they represent? Those that can afford them: Enron, GE,
Viacom, the oil companies, the drug companies and Wall Street.
Recently, when over a quarter of a million people--over 250,000 men,
women, students and children--gathered in Washington and San Francisco
[on Oct. 26] to denounce the Bush adventure in Iraq, how many
representatives of Congress did you see? Unless I missed something, only
the noble Cynthia McKinney, the outgoing representative from Georgia,
showed up. One--out of 435 representatives and 100 senators.
What's that tell you about democracy?
The aristocratic, monarchy-admiring James Madison (one of the other guys
considered a "Founding Father" of the "American democracy") had these
ideas about democracy:
"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first
are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice
of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however
generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in
fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or
determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent
share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the Second.
. . . Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the
people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a
permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy. . . . It is
admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic
plan."[Fresia, J., "Toward an American Revolution," Boston: South End
Press, 1988, pp. 16-17]
You think this guy cared about "democracy"? He and his cohorts at the
Convention feared and dreaded "the people," who they considered "the
Mob" or "the great Rabble." As Gouverneur Morris, a co-author of the
Constitution, put it: "The mob begins to think and to reason. ... I see
and see with fear and trembling, that if the disputes with Britain
continue, we shall be under the domination of a riotous mob. It is to
the interest of all men therefore, to seek reunion with the parent
state." [p. 28]
Morris was talking about making up with Britain!
And we wonder where Florida came from? The instinct of politicians is to
limit, not broaden voting. The only reason as many vote as now do (and
that's the minority) is because social movements (of women, of Blacks,
of "Mobs") fought for it. They got votes, but little representation.
The history of the U.S. is the elites fighting against democracy and the
people ("the many") fighting for it.
Shall we export that to Iraq?
- END -
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