> >FROM MUMIA ABU-JAMAL >DEMOCRATIC TYRANNY >#482 Column Written 11/13/2000 >Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A. >All Rights Reserved > A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the >world > -- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France > > In the ensuing controversy over the 2000 presidential election, the >average American has had to give some thought to a mysterious institution >that usually goes ignored: the Electoral College. > Well, it should be somewhat mysterious, for it's not a college. It >doesn't meet in one place. It has no professors, nor faculty. Yet it >played and continues to play a pivotal role in the U.S. presidential >politics. > In fact, contrary to what most folks believe, Americans don't vote >for their presidents. They vote for electors who in turn vote for the U.S. >president and vice-president. > Who are these unknown, unnamed electors? They are people chosen at >a political party's nominating convention, and they are numbered according >to the number of senators and U.S. representatives in each state (and >Washington, D.C.). Every state has 2 senators, so that's 100 electors. >There's 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, so that's 535 >electors. Since 1964 Washington, D.C. acquired 3 electors. The majority of >those 538 people, or 270 of them, to be exact, chooses who will be the >president of the United States. > Remember the constitutional discussion that refers to "three-fifths >of a man?" That provision refers to the Electoral College, and gave the >slaveowning plantocracy in the south the right to count the slave population >in order to determine the number of representatives in the U.S. House, and >also the number of electors selected to choose a president in the Electoral >College. Even after slavery and the Civil War, the Electoral College was >used to suppress Black freedom. If the 2000 presidential election goes as >it did in 1824, 1876, and 1888, that is, where one person gets the popular >vote, and another gets the electoral college votes, the latter wins. Black >historians Robin R.G.Kelley and Earl Lewis, in their recent work, To Make >Our World Anew: A History of African-Americans (2000) shows us how this >process worked shortly after the civil War: > > In 1876, the federal government withdrew even its marginal support >for Reconstruction. In the Presidential election of that year, the >Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, won the popular vote over the >Republican nominee, Rutherford B. Hayes. Because in some states, >particularly in the South, the votes were contested with both parties >declaring victory, Tilden did not gain the needed Electoral College votes. >In 1877 Congress worked out a compromise through a special election >commission that decided in favor of Hayes by one vote. Meanwhile, >Republican and Democratic leaders informally decided that if Southern >congressmen would accept Hayes, he would withdraw federal troops from the >South. Such a policy, which Hayes had favored even before the election, >would allow white southerners to disenfranchise Southern black men without >federal interference. [pp. 253-254] > > The Electoral College was thus a tool of white supremacy and black >oppression, under the rubric of what came to be called bi-partisanship. It >was and remains, profoundly undemocratic. It is a tool by which the rulers >rule, and an illusion by which the ruled are led. It is a tool of democracy >in name only, and a tyranny of repression. > That is American history, which shows us a lot about our present. > >©MAJ 2000 > > > >-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> >eLerts >It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! >http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/1/_/22961/_/975202805/ >---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> > >Knowledge is Power! >Elimination of the exploitation of man by man >http://www.egroups.com/group/pttp/ >POWER TO THE PEOPLE! > >Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Change Delivery Options: >http://www.egroups.com/mygroups > > _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________________________ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for anti-imperialist news. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________________
