“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America.”
No greater farce has ever been pulled in the history of Democracy (a history which by far predates this document) or in the history of human affairs in general. The constitutional convention was a collaboration of a handful of rich white male protestants gathering together in one place at one time to decide amongst themselves what kind of constitution would best preserve the interests of rich white male protestants. Even the most noble among them -- Thomas Jefferson and James Madison for example -- were driven, despite it all, by this same enlightened self-interest. "We the people" was never meant to include blacks, Indians, non-Christians, poor whites or women. From the outset, every aspect of American heritage has been arranged around a closed circle of wealthy elites; in what few occasions power was grabbed from outside of that circle (as with Andrew Jackson and FDR) the entire system reorganized itself as if to prevent such an atrocity from ever happening again.
In that regard, little has changed since those immortal words were published. Pressure from the People has forced this Federal Government to recognize the rights—and also, humanity—of blacks, women, the poor and disadvantaged of all races and backgrounds. It has been forced to make concessions under pressure from groups outside of their private little clique, and forced to enact legislation against its own best interests just to pacify the rancor of the masses. These measures, progress to be sure, were made possible through the machinery of the System; in spite of itself, American democracy has given at least a partial voice to those who were originally disenfranchised at the Constitutional Convention.
You’ve probably read all about the Founding Fathers in your history books. In High School they fed us all the same pre-chewed “Great Man” nonsense about how a handful of post-enlightenment intellectuals got together and hammered out the blueprints for the Greatest Country Ever Made. You probably didn’t read about a guy named Daniel Shay, a pissed-off farmer who came back from the Revolutionary war to find his property and livelihood threatened by profiteering banks and landowners. You probably didn’t read that Shay wasn’t alone in his despair, that poor farmers all across western Massachusetts were loosing their land and their rights to a band of wealthy oligarchs who controlled both the banks and the government. In short, a strong centralized government in Massachusetts, designed to protect the interests of the wealthiest and most powerful businessmen in the state at the expense of blue collar, hard-working citizens.
Sound familiar?
To put it bluntly, Shays’ Rebellion scared the hell out of the young American government. And right they were to be afraid; Shays’ uprising generated popular support faster than Rudy Giuliani generates ex-wives. Despite its now-infamous name, Shays’ Rebellion was hardly Shays’ to control; his "followers" operated independently and collectively, organizing separate units with their own chain of command. The so-called "Regulators" saw themselves as guardians of a revolution betrayed by the greed and avarice of a wealthy elite. Down to the core, their political motivations -- if they had any -- were just a means to an end; all any of them wanted was to keep their property.
Shay’s Rebellion was eventually put down, but not before it put the fear of God into the Constitutional Convention and prompted them to scrap the Articles of Confederation and build a new government with far greater power and greater centralized authority. Alexander Hamilton famously remarked:
"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 and permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. 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..."
Hamilton is effectively prescribing the creation of a permanent ruling class, a defacto oligarchy under the guise of democracy where the interests of the "mass of the people" are preserved only insofar as they interests of the "Rich and well-born" are also preserved. To what extent Jefferson or Madison or the other founding fathers agreed may be debatable, but their actions certainly weren't, and two hundred years later, Hamilton's dream of a permanent ruling class is as real now as it always has been.
But if you're reading this blog on a computer that costs less than my car, chances are you're not part of that ruling elite. You're probably sitting in a living room somewhere on a laptop, or in a computer room in an apartment or a house you earned with your own hard work. You probably don't have stock options in a Fortune 500 company (unlike Dick Cheney), and you've probably never owned your own oil company. Like 99% of Americans you will never be a candidate for President of the United States or the U.S. Senate, lacking as you do the business or political connections to raise the million dollars necessary to finance a campaign. Probably, you're one of the three hundred million or so people in this country who would have agreed with the Regulators' beliefs, as explained less than accurately by Henry Knox:
"That the property of the United States has been protected from he confiscation of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. And he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice and ought to be swept off the face of the Earth."Do you suppose there's any real difference between the Republican or Democratic parties? Whatever they stand for, in whatever ways they're different, the things they have in common mean their decisions will be always be based on the needs of a very small number of people with a very large amount of money.
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