Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Elite Evolution of American Culture
from a thread on znet:
Comment by bwong posted on Tuesday, October 04 at 02:54 PM
I wrote:
"A future where humans recognize the hardwired, animal-like aspects of their existence.....I also see humans as much less free will creatures than we believe ourselves to be. ..social status, castes, culture, hierarchical tendencies, conformism, etc., are not in the public eye as they should be..."
to which bwong replied:
"If caste and hierarchial tendencies are "hardwired" and animalistic then what is the point of confronting them as you suggested we should in subsequent paragraphs? You can't fight human nature, that is, if all these things you mentioned are really "hardwired"."
I replied:
"They create a culture, over time, that will tend to create ideological cattle."
bwong wrote:
"The "elite" doesn't create "culture". Culture is living and evolving. It interacts with other aspects of society in an organic, complex way tangled with feed back loops."
My reply to bwong:
You CAN fight human nature!
You can recognize our natural tendencies and show how the elite exploit them.
THe elite DO create culture, or rather, evolve it. A culture is like a living animal in an ecosystem. The animal evolved over generations because of the natural forces exerted upon it.
The elite are a very powerful environmental force exerted upon our culture. Over decades they use their power, their money, their social position to evolve our culture to suit them. For example, from 1630 to 1750, the American elite of the mid Atlantic used laws they wrote to seperate blacks and poor whites in order to prevent rebellions. These laws placed blacks on the low end of the social totem pole.
As decades passed, everyone took it for granted that black skin == socially low. THAT is a color caste, a major part of American culture, created and nurtured solely by the elite.
Ordinary humans TAKE THE WORLD AS THEY SEE IT. That includes culture. The elite create a culture to suit them, and everyone falls in place. Well, most everyone...
The Color Caste created in early America was a de novo culture-evolving, culture-creation effort by the elite.
That generated a snowball effect that grew over generations. Cargo Cult Effect, etc.
Same thing happened from 1965 to the present, when the elite funded the nonprofit foundations to create a fauxLeft based on Identity Politics to split the blue collar and white collar whites from each other and drive blue collar whites from economic leftism. This was an evolution of the American culture caused by the long term exertion of collective elite forces over decades. This elite activity was an outgrowth of the same sorts of efforts overseas by the CIA after WW2, wherein the CIA created false leftist organizations and infiltrated others, all in order to squelch populist, economics-oriented, grassroots leftist movements in various smaller countries.
They took those same principles and applied them here in America, but then they transitioned their efforts into the large non-profit foundations, some of which the CIA helped start. That got the fauxLeft snowball rolling. Then decades later, the Cargo Cult Effect took hold, and it is now self-perpetuating. Inertia rules, etc.
Has anyone noticed how much PBS is running old WW2 war documentaries? This is part of a continuing elite campaign to grow an American culture receptive to war.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Homo Sapiens Americanus Part 5: The American Constitution: For the Elite, By The Elite
This is the rough draft for part 5 of the script of my documentary Homo Sapiens Americanus Part 5: The American Constitution: For the Elite, By The Elite
////
When our Constitution was written the everyday lives of most Americans revolved around their communities. They lived in small rural farming communities, farming small farms or in small towns working as tradesmen.
In those days Neighbors looked out for each other. There was a network of mutual concern and dependence. The majority of working Americans had much the sames values as each other.
Their local communities also helped to protect them from exploitation by the rich.
The wealthy upper class--merchants, lawyers, plantation slaveowners, bankers, had a very different way of life: Their way of living was centered around buying and selling. Buying and selling goods, services, even people. THe MARKET was everything to them. Their lives were centered around exploiting people.
By 1770, 44 percent of all wealth in the colonies was owned by these upper class elite.
To common people, freedom meant being from of the power of the rich to exploit them, being free of politicians who worked mainly for the rich and being free of taxes that were spent somewhere else.
The rich of colonial America --the Founding Fathers--had a different idea about freedom. The word freedom to them meant the freedom to use their money to their own best advantage, even if it meant that their money and power caused hardships for others. The FFs wanted wanted to be free of the British and of the colonial rich so they could make more money. Freedom to them meant economic freedom. Freedom to them meant the Golden Rule--he who has the gold, makes the rules.
The time of the American Revolution, the late 1700s, was a time of great change in America. The ordinary working people, mostly freed white slaves and the descendants of freed white slaves, were starting to fight back against the elite in colonial America by rioting and burning the residences of the wealthy whenever the wealthy went too far with exploitations.
All over colonial America the working people were taking it to the streets. In Bacon's Rebellion, Shays Rebellion, Dorr Rebellion and dozens of other riots, conflagrations, the working people were rising up against the power of the rich--both rich in England AND the rich in colonial America. This is a forgetten part of American history.
The governor of Massachusetts said in 1765, “The Mob had set down no less than fifteen Houses...the houses of some of the most respectable persons in the Government. It was now become a War of Plunder, of general levelling and taking away the Distinction of Rich and poor.”
Even Washington DC itself was created as a place away from the working people so that when they revolted, the elite politicians would safe from harm from the citizens of America. In particular, during the continental congress met in Philadelphia Hall of Independence
The soldiers from the revolutionary war had not been paid, and were angry about the harsh treatment that they recieved from their aristocratic generals, such as GW, so the soldiers from the Pennsylvania Line surrounded the Hall of Independence demanding they be paid. The politicians inside, including many of the FOUnding Fathers, such as Madison and Alexander Hamilton, had to push their way through the crowd of soldiers in order to escape.
In france, the working people of france went even further with their grassroots rebellion--with the French revolution, they went ALL THE WAY, storming the palaces of the elite, jailing the elite, and even beheading them, including beheading the King and Queen--Louis the 16th, and his wife, Marie "Let Them Eat Cake" Antoinette.
Head rolled and rolled as the elite paid a price for their subjugation and exploitation of the working people.
But the working people of America never went as far as the working people of France did in their revolution.
THe elite maintained control in America. In many ways the American revolution that was started by the Founding Fathers was a COUNTER revolution. The American revolution was organized by the Founding Fathers to channel the working class rebellion against the rich into a rebellion of colonial America against the British.
But the Founding Fathers knew that they had to get the working people on their side. One way they did that was through propaganda. THe Declaration of Independence was the biggest part of that propaganda.
THE BAIT & SWITCH
declaration of independence->We hold these truths to he self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments arc instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....
but the declaration of independence was just beautiful words to lure and entrap the working people. The Founding Fathers used the Declaration of Independence as propaganda, as the bait. The Founding Fathers needed the working people on their side--the indentured servants, the black slaves. the artisans and mechaniks, and mostly they needed the rural farmers.
From the very start, Americans have been brainwashed/duped by fancy words. In the 1770s, most working-class Americans did not even WANT a revolution to get away from England. THey mistrusted and hated the American elite just as much as the Brits. And rightfully so.
Once enough of the working class was on their side and they had won the war, they set about making America into a country for and by the elite.
tightrope--
But the Founding Fathers were worried that if the oeple were given power, as the Declaration of Independence seemed to say they would be given power, then they would take away much of the wealth of the FFs.
James madison, Alexander hamilton, and JOhn jay were the most influential of the FFs in creating the Consti. And Madison was the most influential, and is now known as the father of teh constitution. America and countries with a government structure like America govt are known as Madisonian Democracies.
Madison said "Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."
Opulent means RICH. And the rich definitely are a minority anywhere you go. Who was the minority of the opulent? Why, madison himself, and his friends, the FFs, the elite of America.
So Madison wanted the government of America to be able to protect the wealth of the rich from the rest of us. Those FFs didn't want us to be able to get our grubby hands on their riches.
James Madison, in the debates on the constitutional convention in 1787-- "in England at this day, if elections were opened to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure, and agrarian law would soon take place."
Agrarian reform means the working people using the power of government to take some of land from the rich people and giving it to some poor people.
Madison saw a future America where the poor people might get tired of being poor, and demand that the wealth be shared. Madison said this: An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former."
So what kind of constitution do madison and the other FOunding Fathers write to put the minority of the opulent?
Welll, madison and the other founding fathers wanted to keep things as they were--with the founding fathers owning most of the wealth in America. As Madison said, the new American government "would have to secure the permanent interests of the country against INNOVATION" to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority"
So they designed a constitution that made the government deliberately inefficient. A government that would in madison's own words prevent the majority from “discovering their own strength” and from "acting in union with each other.”
They wanted a govt that APPEARED democratic but that really stifled democracy. Remember that democracy is a greek word meaning people rule.
demo== people
kratia == rule
Madison and Jefferson and the other founding fathers did not want a democracy, like the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 created. They wanted a republic. What is a republic?
Well, let's let the FFs talk about what a republic is, and let's see what they thought about democracy.
Jefferson, in a December 20, 1787 letter to Madison he writes that “a house chosen by [the people] will be very ill qualified to legislate for the Union…”
Jefferson was speaking of the House of Representatives. He thought that the representives should not be elected directly by the people. Jefferson and most other founding fathers did not want politicians to be elected by the people.
As for what a republic is, Madison --the father of the constitution -said that a republic is "the delegation of the government to a small number of citizens elected by the rest." ...the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves,"
So it looks as if Madison did not trust us. He wanted the top level decisions to be made by other slaveowners and the other rich FFs.
Madison was not in favor of a democracy for America, saying that "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property."
So The founding fathers did not want Democracy for America, but the people wanted it, So the FFs had to let at least some of the people vote, but they had to create a govt that was not easily controlled by voting.
So Madison used the british system of checks and balances to set parts of the govt against each other.
At debates during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Madison said he wanted a system of checks and balances built into the Constitution so as to prevent the majority of the citizenry from "discovering their own strength" and from acting "in union with each other."
so, Madison created checks and balances by creating different branches of government--the President, the Senate, the House and the Judiciary so as to make the government deliberately ineffcient. To quote Madison himself "Society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority."
Now what minority was Madison really interested in protecting? Was he interested in protecting the rights of slaves? The rights of women? The rights of Indians?
No, as Madison clearly said, he was interested in creating a govt that would protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. Opulent meaning rich people, like Madison and the rest of the FFS.
In his essay labeled federalist #10, Madison wrote that he wanted to “Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength and to act in unions with each other.”
So Madison did not want the working people to "discover their own strength and to act in unions with each other.”
In general, Large groups of people are harder to organize. Small groups are easier to organize. That is why Madison designed the constitution with a presidency elected from the nation as a whole. And a Senate elected from each state as a whole. The larger and more diverse the constitutency of a politician, the harder it is for the people of that constituency to organize and vote for a politician who really wants to change things.
In the House of Representatives, the representatives represent a smaller population, and so the area of a state represented by representatives are easier to organize and to elect a politician who represents them. But presidents and senators represent larger groups of people, and so therefore, those political offices are less democratic.
Another way madison and the FFs prevented the people from changing the govt is that they made all the terms of the offices different--president 4 years, Senators, 6 years, Representatives, 2 years. That way the entire govt could not be changed all at once. The Founding Fathers wanted to make it impossible to change the leadership all at once. They knew that the people would fight back when pushed to the brink, but would have to eventually concentrate on making a living and would forget about politics after a while until things got really bad again. So they knew that the fury of the people would be dissapated after getting rid of the politicians for one election cycle, and that their fury would die out.
Madison did not want the working people to get really interesting in voting or in running the country. Here is what Madison wrote : “The danger of disturbing the public tranquility by interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decisions of the whole society.”
So Madison did not want the common people get a chance to vote on important issues. He wanted voter apathy,
THe FFs in general did not think much of the rest of us ordinary people.
Alexander Hamilton, (close friend of George Washington) was perhaps the 2nd most influential of the founding fathers when designing the constitution. Hamilton saw humans as divided into an upper class and a lower class. In his own words:
"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 people, sir, are a great beast, They seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the 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.. .."
So Hamilton and the other elites did not think much of the rest of us. Hamilton wanted the president to be appointed for life.
Madison also did not trust the people. In his writings he said that he designed the constiution so as to create "as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions".
John Jay, one of the founding fathers who was perhaps the 3rd most influential in creating the constitution, said that the rich "were the better kind of people, by which I mean the people who are orderly and industrious, who are content with their situation and not uneasy in their circumstances." "The people who own the country ought to govern it."
THe Constitution, as James Madison, the principal writer of the Constitution wrote, was meant to establish a framework from within which the elite could hardly be reached by the masses. And Madison sure did do a good job of creating a government that was very hard to change. He sure did a good job "protecting the opulent minority from the majority," as he put it himself.
However, The majority of the people in America in the late 1700s were against the Constitution. Even though the constitutional debates in 1787 were held in secret, While the constitution was being debated, the working people heard about the proposed constitution and decided they did not like how it was shaping up. They understood that the constitution was not a democratic constitution.
They thought the president sounded too much like a king,
They wanted EFFICIENT govt that responded to the will of the people.
Suppose you owned a business along with many other people. Would you want the management of the business to be structured along the same lines as a Madisonian Democracy like America--with seperation of powers, checks and balances so that the will of the people would be stymied?
The working people of early America wanted something like the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776.
The Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 was far more democratic than the Constitution that the Founding Fathers put over on America.
Some of the working people of colonial Pennsylvania designed The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 was a working man's constitution. It did not put property at the top of the list of priorities, but it did do away with property qualifications to vote.
The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 also a truly democratic structure of government --no senate, no governor, just a single house of representatives, whose members served one year terms.
Of course the colonial elite hated that Pennsylania constitution of 1776. They call it 'mob government.' THey wanted a governor and a senate between the working class voters and their riches.
So just how did the FOunding Fathers manage to ram rod through the constitution when so many Americans did not like what they heard about it?
Well, 19 Assemblymen who did support the democratic Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 decided to stop the Founding Fathers by refusing to meet for a vote on the constittion, and by doing that they hope to prevent a quorum and forcing an adjournment of proceedings.
This delaying strategy worked for a while, However the hired men of the Founding Fathers found the Assmebly men and kidnapped them, dragging them,kicking and screaming down the streets of Philadelphia and into the Assembly hall. THere they tried to escape, but were detained and the vote was held, thus clearing the path for ratification of a rich's man constitution, the American constitution we have today.
In Rhode Island, small farmers had taken control of the state, and had fought for the right to vote, unlike the other states, where property qualifications meant that many working people could not vote. The Rhode Islanders also got their hands on copies of the proposed constitution, and decided that it was hardly democratic. When Rhode Island voted on ratification of the Constitution, 90% of them voted against it.
Although the constitution was finally ratified, thanks to the dirty tricks of the Founding Fathers, according to historian Charles Beard, only about five percent of American population ever got a chance to vote on it. And those 5 % were the richest of Americans.
So what kind of Constitution did the FFs give us?
John Quincy Adams 6th president wrote in his diaries that the Constitution was "calculated to increase the power, power and wealth of those who have any already."
Now that the rich man's constitution had been set in place by the founding fathers, now the local communities and states of the citizens were limited in thier ability to protect thier citzens. The states could no longer help out men or women who were in debt
Now the local community had been in part replaced by the cruel and impersonal market-centered, contract-centered world of the elite, of the Founding Fathers.
Power had now been shifted from the local and state level to the national level. Now power was concentrated in the hands of the Founding Fathers.
And with the deliberately inefficient government, with its checks and balances, and its structure that kept the people from INNOVATION, from being able to change the constitution very much, the status quo was maintained by the elite. And to some degree the status quo is still in place. In America today, the elite --a small fraction of Americans--STILL own at least half of all the wealth.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
sources:
http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/archive/origin.htm
Completing the American Revolution By Norman D. Livergood
http://www.hermes-press.com/completing.htm
www.wikipedia.com
zinn
fresia
Kenneth M. Dolbeare. Democracy at Risk, 1986
Madisonian Democracy in the United States: A Critique
The Future of Democracy International Symposium, EPIIC, April 4, 1997
by Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT
http://www.ericfrancis.com/issues/0307/repression.html
Constitutional Repression By Steve Bergstein
"An Authoritarian Constitution
Correcting the Myth of America s Libertarian Frame" By James David Dickson
The Origin of Crime and Violence in America, author unknown from http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/nir.htm
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" by Charles A. Beard (1874 - 1948; first published 1913)
America and The New World Order by Richard K. Moore
Madisonian Democracy in the United States: A Critique The Future of Democracy International Symposium, EPIIC, April 4, 1997
by Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT
////
When our Constitution was written the everyday lives of most Americans revolved around their communities. They lived in small rural farming communities, farming small farms or in small towns working as tradesmen.
In those days Neighbors looked out for each other. There was a network of mutual concern and dependence. The majority of working Americans had much the sames values as each other.
Their local communities also helped to protect them from exploitation by the rich.
The wealthy upper class--merchants, lawyers, plantation slaveowners, bankers, had a very different way of life: Their way of living was centered around buying and selling. Buying and selling goods, services, even people. THe MARKET was everything to them. Their lives were centered around exploiting people.
By 1770, 44 percent of all wealth in the colonies was owned by these upper class elite.
To common people, freedom meant being from of the power of the rich to exploit them, being free of politicians who worked mainly for the rich and being free of taxes that were spent somewhere else.
The rich of colonial America --the Founding Fathers--had a different idea about freedom. The word freedom to them meant the freedom to use their money to their own best advantage, even if it meant that their money and power caused hardships for others. The FFs wanted wanted to be free of the British and of the colonial rich so they could make more money. Freedom to them meant economic freedom. Freedom to them meant the Golden Rule--he who has the gold, makes the rules.
The time of the American Revolution, the late 1700s, was a time of great change in America. The ordinary working people, mostly freed white slaves and the descendants of freed white slaves, were starting to fight back against the elite in colonial America by rioting and burning the residences of the wealthy whenever the wealthy went too far with exploitations.
All over colonial America the working people were taking it to the streets. In Bacon's Rebellion, Shays Rebellion, Dorr Rebellion and dozens of other riots, conflagrations, the working people were rising up against the power of the rich--both rich in England AND the rich in colonial America. This is a forgetten part of American history.
The governor of Massachusetts said in 1765, “The Mob had set down no less than fifteen Houses...the houses of some of the most respectable persons in the Government. It was now become a War of Plunder, of general levelling and taking away the Distinction of Rich and poor.”
Even Washington DC itself was created as a place away from the working people so that when they revolted, the elite politicians would safe from harm from the citizens of America. In particular, during the continental congress met in Philadelphia Hall of Independence
The soldiers from the revolutionary war had not been paid, and were angry about the harsh treatment that they recieved from their aristocratic generals, such as GW, so the soldiers from the Pennsylvania Line surrounded the Hall of Independence demanding they be paid. The politicians inside, including many of the FOUnding Fathers, such as Madison and Alexander Hamilton, had to push their way through the crowd of soldiers in order to escape.
In france, the working people of france went even further with their grassroots rebellion--with the French revolution, they went ALL THE WAY, storming the palaces of the elite, jailing the elite, and even beheading them, including beheading the King and Queen--Louis the 16th, and his wife, Marie "Let Them Eat Cake" Antoinette.
Head rolled and rolled as the elite paid a price for their subjugation and exploitation of the working people.
But the working people of America never went as far as the working people of France did in their revolution.
THe elite maintained control in America. In many ways the American revolution that was started by the Founding Fathers was a COUNTER revolution. The American revolution was organized by the Founding Fathers to channel the working class rebellion against the rich into a rebellion of colonial America against the British.
But the Founding Fathers knew that they had to get the working people on their side. One way they did that was through propaganda. THe Declaration of Independence was the biggest part of that propaganda.
THE BAIT & SWITCH
declaration of independence->We hold these truths to he self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments arc instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....
but the declaration of independence was just beautiful words to lure and entrap the working people. The Founding Fathers used the Declaration of Independence as propaganda, as the bait. The Founding Fathers needed the working people on their side--the indentured servants, the black slaves. the artisans and mechaniks, and mostly they needed the rural farmers.
From the very start, Americans have been brainwashed/duped by fancy words. In the 1770s, most working-class Americans did not even WANT a revolution to get away from England. THey mistrusted and hated the American elite just as much as the Brits. And rightfully so.
Once enough of the working class was on their side and they had won the war, they set about making America into a country for and by the elite.
tightrope--
But the Founding Fathers were worried that if the oeple were given power, as the Declaration of Independence seemed to say they would be given power, then they would take away much of the wealth of the FFs.
James madison, Alexander hamilton, and JOhn jay were the most influential of the FFs in creating the Consti. And Madison was the most influential, and is now known as the father of teh constitution. America and countries with a government structure like America govt are known as Madisonian Democracies.
Madison said "Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."
Opulent means RICH. And the rich definitely are a minority anywhere you go. Who was the minority of the opulent? Why, madison himself, and his friends, the FFs, the elite of America.
So Madison wanted the government of America to be able to protect the wealth of the rich from the rest of us. Those FFs didn't want us to be able to get our grubby hands on their riches.
James Madison, in the debates on the constitutional convention in 1787-- "in England at this day, if elections were opened to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure, and agrarian law would soon take place."
Agrarian reform means the working people using the power of government to take some of land from the rich people and giving it to some poor people.
Madison saw a future America where the poor people might get tired of being poor, and demand that the wealth be shared. Madison said this: An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former."
So what kind of constitution do madison and the other FOunding Fathers write to put the minority of the opulent?
Welll, madison and the other founding fathers wanted to keep things as they were--with the founding fathers owning most of the wealth in America. As Madison said, the new American government "would have to secure the permanent interests of the country against INNOVATION" to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority"
So they designed a constitution that made the government deliberately inefficient. A government that would in madison's own words prevent the majority from “discovering their own strength” and from "acting in union with each other.”
They wanted a govt that APPEARED democratic but that really stifled democracy. Remember that democracy is a greek word meaning people rule.
demo== people
kratia == rule
Madison and Jefferson and the other founding fathers did not want a democracy, like the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 created. They wanted a republic. What is a republic?
Well, let's let the FFs talk about what a republic is, and let's see what they thought about democracy.
Jefferson, in a December 20, 1787 letter to Madison he writes that “a house chosen by [the people] will be very ill qualified to legislate for the Union…”
Jefferson was speaking of the House of Representatives. He thought that the representives should not be elected directly by the people. Jefferson and most other founding fathers did not want politicians to be elected by the people.
As for what a republic is, Madison --the father of the constitution -said that a republic is "the delegation of the government to a small number of citizens elected by the rest." ...the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves,"
So it looks as if Madison did not trust us. He wanted the top level decisions to be made by other slaveowners and the other rich FFs.
Madison was not in favor of a democracy for America, saying that "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property."
So The founding fathers did not want Democracy for America, but the people wanted it, So the FFs had to let at least some of the people vote, but they had to create a govt that was not easily controlled by voting.
So Madison used the british system of checks and balances to set parts of the govt against each other.
At debates during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Madison said he wanted a system of checks and balances built into the Constitution so as to prevent the majority of the citizenry from "discovering their own strength" and from acting "in union with each other."
so, Madison created checks and balances by creating different branches of government--the President, the Senate, the House and the Judiciary so as to make the government deliberately ineffcient. To quote Madison himself "Society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority."
Now what minority was Madison really interested in protecting? Was he interested in protecting the rights of slaves? The rights of women? The rights of Indians?
No, as Madison clearly said, he was interested in creating a govt that would protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. Opulent meaning rich people, like Madison and the rest of the FFS.
In his essay labeled federalist #10, Madison wrote that he wanted to “Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength and to act in unions with each other.”
So Madison did not want the working people to "discover their own strength and to act in unions with each other.”
In general, Large groups of people are harder to organize. Small groups are easier to organize. That is why Madison designed the constitution with a presidency elected from the nation as a whole. And a Senate elected from each state as a whole. The larger and more diverse the constitutency of a politician, the harder it is for the people of that constituency to organize and vote for a politician who really wants to change things.
In the House of Representatives, the representatives represent a smaller population, and so the area of a state represented by representatives are easier to organize and to elect a politician who represents them. But presidents and senators represent larger groups of people, and so therefore, those political offices are less democratic.
Another way madison and the FFs prevented the people from changing the govt is that they made all the terms of the offices different--president 4 years, Senators, 6 years, Representatives, 2 years. That way the entire govt could not be changed all at once. The Founding Fathers wanted to make it impossible to change the leadership all at once. They knew that the people would fight back when pushed to the brink, but would have to eventually concentrate on making a living and would forget about politics after a while until things got really bad again. So they knew that the fury of the people would be dissapated after getting rid of the politicians for one election cycle, and that their fury would die out.
Madison did not want the working people to get really interesting in voting or in running the country. Here is what Madison wrote : “The danger of disturbing the public tranquility by interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decisions of the whole society.”
So Madison did not want the common people get a chance to vote on important issues. He wanted voter apathy,
THe FFs in general did not think much of the rest of us ordinary people.
Alexander Hamilton, (close friend of George Washington) was perhaps the 2nd most influential of the founding fathers when designing the constitution. Hamilton saw humans as divided into an upper class and a lower class. In his own words:
"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 people, sir, are a great beast, They seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the 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.. .."
So Hamilton and the other elites did not think much of the rest of us. Hamilton wanted the president to be appointed for life.
Madison also did not trust the people. In his writings he said that he designed the constiution so as to create "as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions".
John Jay, one of the founding fathers who was perhaps the 3rd most influential in creating the constitution, said that the rich "were the better kind of people, by which I mean the people who are orderly and industrious, who are content with their situation and not uneasy in their circumstances." "The people who own the country ought to govern it."
THe Constitution, as James Madison, the principal writer of the Constitution wrote, was meant to establish a framework from within which the elite could hardly be reached by the masses. And Madison sure did do a good job of creating a government that was very hard to change. He sure did a good job "protecting the opulent minority from the majority," as he put it himself.
However, The majority of the people in America in the late 1700s were against the Constitution. Even though the constitutional debates in 1787 were held in secret, While the constitution was being debated, the working people heard about the proposed constitution and decided they did not like how it was shaping up. They understood that the constitution was not a democratic constitution.
They thought the president sounded too much like a king,
They wanted EFFICIENT govt that responded to the will of the people.
Suppose you owned a business along with many other people. Would you want the management of the business to be structured along the same lines as a Madisonian Democracy like America--with seperation of powers, checks and balances so that the will of the people would be stymied?
The working people of early America wanted something like the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776.
The Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 was far more democratic than the Constitution that the Founding Fathers put over on America.
Some of the working people of colonial Pennsylvania designed The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 was a working man's constitution. It did not put property at the top of the list of priorities, but it did do away with property qualifications to vote.
The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 also a truly democratic structure of government --no senate, no governor, just a single house of representatives, whose members served one year terms.
Of course the colonial elite hated that Pennsylania constitution of 1776. They call it 'mob government.' THey wanted a governor and a senate between the working class voters and their riches.
So just how did the FOunding Fathers manage to ram rod through the constitution when so many Americans did not like what they heard about it?
Well, 19 Assemblymen who did support the democratic Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 decided to stop the Founding Fathers by refusing to meet for a vote on the constittion, and by doing that they hope to prevent a quorum and forcing an adjournment of proceedings.
This delaying strategy worked for a while, However the hired men of the Founding Fathers found the Assmebly men and kidnapped them, dragging them,kicking and screaming down the streets of Philadelphia and into the Assembly hall. THere they tried to escape, but were detained and the vote was held, thus clearing the path for ratification of a rich's man constitution, the American constitution we have today.
In Rhode Island, small farmers had taken control of the state, and had fought for the right to vote, unlike the other states, where property qualifications meant that many working people could not vote. The Rhode Islanders also got their hands on copies of the proposed constitution, and decided that it was hardly democratic. When Rhode Island voted on ratification of the Constitution, 90% of them voted against it.
Although the constitution was finally ratified, thanks to the dirty tricks of the Founding Fathers, according to historian Charles Beard, only about five percent of American population ever got a chance to vote on it. And those 5 % were the richest of Americans.
So what kind of Constitution did the FFs give us?
John Quincy Adams 6th president wrote in his diaries that the Constitution was "calculated to increase the power, power and wealth of those who have any already."
Now that the rich man's constitution had been set in place by the founding fathers, now the local communities and states of the citizens were limited in thier ability to protect thier citzens. The states could no longer help out men or women who were in debt
Now the local community had been in part replaced by the cruel and impersonal market-centered, contract-centered world of the elite, of the Founding Fathers.
Power had now been shifted from the local and state level to the national level. Now power was concentrated in the hands of the Founding Fathers.
And with the deliberately inefficient government, with its checks and balances, and its structure that kept the people from INNOVATION, from being able to change the constitution very much, the status quo was maintained by the elite. And to some degree the status quo is still in place. In America today, the elite --a small fraction of Americans--STILL own at least half of all the wealth.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
sources:
http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/archive/origin.htm
Completing the American Revolution By Norman D. Livergood
http://www.hermes-press.com/completing.htm
www.wikipedia.com
zinn
fresia
Kenneth M. Dolbeare. Democracy at Risk, 1986
Madisonian Democracy in the United States: A Critique
The Future of Democracy International Symposium, EPIIC, April 4, 1997
by Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT
http://www.ericfrancis.com/issues/0307/repression.html
Constitutional Repression By Steve Bergstein
"An Authoritarian Constitution
Correcting the Myth of America s Libertarian Frame" By James David Dickson
The Origin of Crime and Violence in America, author unknown from http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/nir.htm
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" by Charles A. Beard (1874 - 1948; first published 1913)
America and The New World Order by Richard K. Moore
Madisonian Democracy in the United States: A Critique The Future of Democracy International Symposium, EPIIC, April 4, 1997
by Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT
Homo Sapiens Americanus Part 4: Black Slavery & The Founding Fathers
This is the script for part 4 of my documentary Homo Sapiens Americanus. This is a draft of part 4.
Part 4 is named: Black Slavery and the Founding Fathers. Please see posts below for the scripts for parts 2 and 3.
//////
Later into the 1700s the slaveowners began to import black slaves in greater numbers. They needed more black slaves because white slaves were not as available because the poor people of England and Scotland were now aware of the abuses waiting for so-called indentured servants in the colonies of America.
So by 1800, most slaves in America were black, and not white. As with white slaves, black slaves were found all over early America, from Massachusetts all the way down through the South. The Northern States did however outlaw black slavery well before the time of the Civil War.
The white slaves were probably treated worse than black slaves because the white slaves could usually obtain their freedom at the end of their indenture contracts, even through owners were usually able to extend the indentureships of the white slaves.
Also, many white slaves were able to escape from their masters and settle in the Applachian mountains.
Black slaves had a much harder time of escaping because of their skin color. Also, the blacks were often abused as wickedly as the white slaves. Whippings and beating were not spared them.
JUst as the white slaves were flogged, beaten, punished most cruelly by the plantation owners, so too were the black slaves flogged and beaten with mercy.
ANd the plantation lords were quick to use beatings, floggings, whippings, torture and other means to keep the black slaves subordinate. Many were murdered by their owners.
[pics of beatings]
THe whip was the law in America. IT was wielded by the overseer, the representative of the upper class.
Not everyone owned slaves in early America. The percentage of white Americans who owned black or white slaves was typically about 2-20% of all white heads of households, which varied from state to state. Thus, it was generally only the upper class who owned slaves. The typical white working man, the vast majority of white men, NEVER owned a slave.
But young black male slaves might cost anywhere from 300 to over 1000 dollars to purchase. White slaves cost less depending on the state. A free working man, white or black, might earn 50 cents or perhaps a dollar a day in those days. So a working man might earn 150 dollars a years. So it could take 10 years or more to save up just to buy one black slave. As a consquence slave ownership was restricted to the upper class.
In some states, free blacks could own slaves. Records show that in such states, up to 4 percent of the slaveowners were blacks. And free blacks did own white slaves, although rarely.
The most expensive slaves were the young female mulattoes. The mulattoes were the mixed race offspring of black and white parents. After the elites created the wedge between poor whites and blacks with the miscegnation laws. These laws made it illegal for white women to have children with black men. So after 1720 or so, most mulatto children were the offspring of black female slaves and the rich white men who owned them. And the rich white elite took much pleasure in having sexual relations with their black female slaves. Their favorite slaves to have sex with were the light skinned mulatto slaves, which they typically made as house servants, while the dark skinned black slaves were sent to work in the fields.
The light skinned mulatto slaves were known as "fancy Kates". At auction a "fancy Kate" might fetch as much as 2500 dollars, after which they were usaully sent to new Orleans to work as prostitures.
But some of the richest planters often kept them for sex slaves on the plantation. However, it was not uncommon for the rich slaveowners to bred successive generationsof ever whiter mulatto slaves, and making good money by selling off their own mixed race offspring to New Orleans prostitution, at over 2000 dollars for each young female, it was good money. Sometimes better money than cotton or tobacco.
Many of America's so-called founding Fathers, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Framers of Constitution, also owned Slaves. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, John Jay, Ben Franklin, these were all slave owners.
Yet the most powerful institutions and people in America today treat these Founding Fathers almost as if they were saints.
How did these Founding Fathers affect the American culture? How did what they do and say affect what America is today?
Let's take a look at the personal and political lives of some of the Founding Fathers.
In the 1700s, the most powerful of the American colonies --virginia, maryland, NY, pennsylvania were dominated by the elite, the top 5 percent. These men numbered only about 200 or so, but they ruled America through the power of their wealth, much of it in trading and slave labor. They owned most of the best land and most of the wealth in the American colonies.
Our first president, George Washington may have been the richest of them all. He ruled much of America from his palatial MT Vernon mansion.
He owned hundreds of slaves and tens of thousands of acres of the best land. He owned large shares of the most powerful American banks.
Although Washington guarded his reputation carefuly..???????????
As he ascended to the presidency, he wanted to be called "His Mightiness, the President".
He had a fondness for the good life. He sipped fancy wines in his Mt Vernon mansion while his slaves toiled in the fields.
As a general in the War for Independence, he punished his men harshly, sometimes ordering floggings of up to 500 lashes for minor offenses, such as insubordination. He lynched his men on the spot if they tried to save their own lives by leaving combat zones.
Washington's was famous for his false teeth, some of whichwere taken from his slaves. Luckily, He did pay them a few shillings for them. Nice for them to be able to get some money.
In his writings, GW wrote that wanted his slaves to "be at their work, as soon as it was light, [and] work till it was dark."
He encouraged the whipping of his slaves.
One of his slaves, Oney Judge, ran away, and he paid for newspaper ads offering a reward for anyone who would catch her and bring her back to him.
The wife of the British ambassador, Henrietta Liston. said that "in private and particularly with his Servants, ....violence sometimes broke out."
Washington once wrote that "if the Negros will not do their duty by fair means, they must be compelled to do it."
One of his slaves once would not do as told and GW told the overseer to "give him a good whippin".
A Polish visitor to Mount Vernon described the homes of Washington's slaves as nothing more than "huts," and saying that "for one can not call them by the name of houses. They are more miserable than the most miserable of the cottages of our peasants. The husband and wife sleep on a mean pallet, the children on the ground; a very bad fireplace, some utensils for cooking."
A french visits said that Washington's slave quarters "swarm with pickaninnies in rags that our beggars would scorn to wear."
He had sex with his female slaves. He had children by them. He wrote coded notations in his record books beside the names of certain female slaves. No one knows what the codes mean, but they may describe his sexual relations with those particular slaves.
One of his sex slaves was named Venus. He also apparently had a child by her. He also favored the lightskinned mulatto slaves, in particular, one name "Sweet Kate" a lightskinned washer-woman's daughter.
JEFFERSON
Thomas Jefferson
owned over 10,000 acres and at one point owned 185 human beings.
Lived the high life in his mansion at his mansion called Monticello while his slaves sweated to make the money for Jefferson to sit around and drink fancy wines.
He helped paint blacks as an inferior breed of human with his propaganda that blacks were inferior to whites. For example, In Notes From Virginia, Jefferson wrote: “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.
Thus, Jefferson helped to justify chattel slavery and keep the black slaves in chains long after the white slaves had been freed.
He also used his slaves for sex. His slave Sally Hemings, the mother of five children believed to be Jefferson's,
A cartoon from around 1800 entitled a 'A Philosophic Cock,' showed Jefferson as a rooster strutting about with his hen Sally.
A popular song from around called Monticellian Sally, sung to the tune of yankee doodle dandy:
Of all the damsels on the green
On mountain, or in valley,
A lass so luscious ne'er was seen
As Monticellian Sally.
Yankee Doodle, who's the noodle?
What wife were half so handy?
To breed a flock of slaves for stock,
A blackamoor's the dandy.
Search every town and city through,
Search market street and alley;
No dance at dusk shall meet your view,
So yielding as my Sally.
When pressed by loads of state affairs,
I seek to sport and dally,
The sweetest solace of my cares
Is in the lap of Sally.
Let Yankee parsons preach the worst—
Let Tory Wittlings rally!
You men of morals! and be curst,
You would snap like sharks for Sally."
Although she bore him several children, but Jefferson made her live in a small cabin with dirt floors.
The working people of early America knew Jefferson was a hypocrite and a slavemaster. But we seem to have forgotten that.
MADISON
James Madison was an aristocrat from birth, who inherited great wealth. He enslaved well over 100 human beings.
James Madison, once bragged to a visitor to his plantation that he could make $257 on every slave each year, and spend only $12 to $13 each year the food, shelter and other needs of each slave.
He lived in a splendid mansion and estate he had inherited. It was known as Montpelier.
He loved living the high life and he was quite a heavy drinker at times.
Some said he was "living on laudanum" --which was opium in a bottle.
He is sometimes called the “Father” of the Constitution." because he was the main architect of our Constitution.
Many detractors have described these Founding Fathers as similar to parasites, sucking the blood of the humans they enslaved.
SOURCES:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wbova/fn/history/florida.htm
Jerry Fresia "Toward An American Revolution"
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/46montpelier/46facts1.htm
http://www.westfordlegacy.com/mvmtg/qa.html
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/henriques/hist615/gwslav.htm
http://www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20021003.html
Part 4 is named: Black Slavery and the Founding Fathers. Please see posts below for the scripts for parts 2 and 3.
//////
Later into the 1700s the slaveowners began to import black slaves in greater numbers. They needed more black slaves because white slaves were not as available because the poor people of England and Scotland were now aware of the abuses waiting for so-called indentured servants in the colonies of America.
So by 1800, most slaves in America were black, and not white. As with white slaves, black slaves were found all over early America, from Massachusetts all the way down through the South. The Northern States did however outlaw black slavery well before the time of the Civil War.
The white slaves were probably treated worse than black slaves because the white slaves could usually obtain their freedom at the end of their indenture contracts, even through owners were usually able to extend the indentureships of the white slaves.
Also, many white slaves were able to escape from their masters and settle in the Applachian mountains.
Black slaves had a much harder time of escaping because of their skin color. Also, the blacks were often abused as wickedly as the white slaves. Whippings and beating were not spared them.
JUst as the white slaves were flogged, beaten, punished most cruelly by the plantation owners, so too were the black slaves flogged and beaten with mercy.
ANd the plantation lords were quick to use beatings, floggings, whippings, torture and other means to keep the black slaves subordinate. Many were murdered by their owners.
[pics of beatings]
THe whip was the law in America. IT was wielded by the overseer, the representative of the upper class.
Not everyone owned slaves in early America. The percentage of white Americans who owned black or white slaves was typically about 2-20% of all white heads of households, which varied from state to state. Thus, it was generally only the upper class who owned slaves. The typical white working man, the vast majority of white men, NEVER owned a slave.
But young black male slaves might cost anywhere from 300 to over 1000 dollars to purchase. White slaves cost less depending on the state. A free working man, white or black, might earn 50 cents or perhaps a dollar a day in those days. So a working man might earn 150 dollars a years. So it could take 10 years or more to save up just to buy one black slave. As a consquence slave ownership was restricted to the upper class.
In some states, free blacks could own slaves. Records show that in such states, up to 4 percent of the slaveowners were blacks. And free blacks did own white slaves, although rarely.
The most expensive slaves were the young female mulattoes. The mulattoes were the mixed race offspring of black and white parents. After the elites created the wedge between poor whites and blacks with the miscegnation laws. These laws made it illegal for white women to have children with black men. So after 1720 or so, most mulatto children were the offspring of black female slaves and the rich white men who owned them. And the rich white elite took much pleasure in having sexual relations with their black female slaves. Their favorite slaves to have sex with were the light skinned mulatto slaves, which they typically made as house servants, while the dark skinned black slaves were sent to work in the fields.
The light skinned mulatto slaves were known as "fancy Kates". At auction a "fancy Kate" might fetch as much as 2500 dollars, after which they were usaully sent to new Orleans to work as prostitures.
But some of the richest planters often kept them for sex slaves on the plantation. However, it was not uncommon for the rich slaveowners to bred successive generationsof ever whiter mulatto slaves, and making good money by selling off their own mixed race offspring to New Orleans prostitution, at over 2000 dollars for each young female, it was good money. Sometimes better money than cotton or tobacco.
Many of America's so-called founding Fathers, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Framers of Constitution, also owned Slaves. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, John Jay, Ben Franklin, these were all slave owners.
Yet the most powerful institutions and people in America today treat these Founding Fathers almost as if they were saints.
How did these Founding Fathers affect the American culture? How did what they do and say affect what America is today?
Let's take a look at the personal and political lives of some of the Founding Fathers.
In the 1700s, the most powerful of the American colonies --virginia, maryland, NY, pennsylvania were dominated by the elite, the top 5 percent. These men numbered only about 200 or so, but they ruled America through the power of their wealth, much of it in trading and slave labor. They owned most of the best land and most of the wealth in the American colonies.
Our first president, George Washington may have been the richest of them all. He ruled much of America from his palatial MT Vernon mansion.
He owned hundreds of slaves and tens of thousands of acres of the best land. He owned large shares of the most powerful American banks.
Although Washington guarded his reputation carefuly..???????????
As he ascended to the presidency, he wanted to be called "His Mightiness, the President".
He had a fondness for the good life. He sipped fancy wines in his Mt Vernon mansion while his slaves toiled in the fields.
As a general in the War for Independence, he punished his men harshly, sometimes ordering floggings of up to 500 lashes for minor offenses, such as insubordination. He lynched his men on the spot if they tried to save their own lives by leaving combat zones.
Washington's was famous for his false teeth, some of whichwere taken from his slaves. Luckily, He did pay them a few shillings for them. Nice for them to be able to get some money.
In his writings, GW wrote that wanted his slaves to "be at their work, as soon as it was light, [and] work till it was dark."
He encouraged the whipping of his slaves.
One of his slaves, Oney Judge, ran away, and he paid for newspaper ads offering a reward for anyone who would catch her and bring her back to him.
The wife of the British ambassador, Henrietta Liston. said that "in private and particularly with his Servants, ....violence sometimes broke out."
Washington once wrote that "if the Negros will not do their duty by fair means, they must be compelled to do it."
One of his slaves once would not do as told and GW told the overseer to "give him a good whippin".
A Polish visitor to Mount Vernon described the homes of Washington's slaves as nothing more than "huts," and saying that "for one can not call them by the name of houses. They are more miserable than the most miserable of the cottages of our peasants. The husband and wife sleep on a mean pallet, the children on the ground; a very bad fireplace, some utensils for cooking."
A french visits said that Washington's slave quarters "swarm with pickaninnies in rags that our beggars would scorn to wear."
He had sex with his female slaves. He had children by them. He wrote coded notations in his record books beside the names of certain female slaves. No one knows what the codes mean, but they may describe his sexual relations with those particular slaves.
One of his sex slaves was named Venus. He also apparently had a child by her. He also favored the lightskinned mulatto slaves, in particular, one name "Sweet Kate" a lightskinned washer-woman's daughter.
JEFFERSON
Thomas Jefferson
owned over 10,000 acres and at one point owned 185 human beings.
Lived the high life in his mansion at his mansion called Monticello while his slaves sweated to make the money for Jefferson to sit around and drink fancy wines.
He helped paint blacks as an inferior breed of human with his propaganda that blacks were inferior to whites. For example, In Notes From Virginia, Jefferson wrote: “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.
Thus, Jefferson helped to justify chattel slavery and keep the black slaves in chains long after the white slaves had been freed.
He also used his slaves for sex. His slave Sally Hemings, the mother of five children believed to be Jefferson's,
A cartoon from around 1800 entitled a 'A Philosophic Cock,' showed Jefferson as a rooster strutting about with his hen Sally.
A popular song from around called Monticellian Sally, sung to the tune of yankee doodle dandy:
Of all the damsels on the green
On mountain, or in valley,
A lass so luscious ne'er was seen
As Monticellian Sally.
Yankee Doodle, who's the noodle?
What wife were half so handy?
To breed a flock of slaves for stock,
A blackamoor's the dandy.
Search every town and city through,
Search market street and alley;
No dance at dusk shall meet your view,
So yielding as my Sally.
When pressed by loads of state affairs,
I seek to sport and dally,
The sweetest solace of my cares
Is in the lap of Sally.
Let Yankee parsons preach the worst—
Let Tory Wittlings rally!
You men of morals! and be curst,
You would snap like sharks for Sally."
Although she bore him several children, but Jefferson made her live in a small cabin with dirt floors.
The working people of early America knew Jefferson was a hypocrite and a slavemaster. But we seem to have forgotten that.
MADISON
James Madison was an aristocrat from birth, who inherited great wealth. He enslaved well over 100 human beings.
James Madison, once bragged to a visitor to his plantation that he could make $257 on every slave each year, and spend only $12 to $13 each year the food, shelter and other needs of each slave.
He lived in a splendid mansion and estate he had inherited. It was known as Montpelier.
He loved living the high life and he was quite a heavy drinker at times.
Some said he was "living on laudanum" --which was opium in a bottle.
He is sometimes called the “Father” of the Constitution." because he was the main architect of our Constitution.
Many detractors have described these Founding Fathers as similar to parasites, sucking the blood of the humans they enslaved.
SOURCES:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wbova/fn/history/florida.htm
Jerry Fresia "Toward An American Revolution"
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/46montpelier/46facts1.htm
http://www.westfordlegacy.com/mvmtg/qa.html
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/henriques/hist615/gwslav.htm
http://www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20021003.html
Friday, September 16, 2005
Homo Sapiens Americanus Part 3: Division of the Races by the Colonial Elite
part 3 of my documentary Homo Sapiens Americanus: division of the races by the colonial American elite
In 1600 england the poor whites were considered as almost subhuman--almost an inferior species of human being. This idea of the poor being subhuman helped justify and rationalize the brutal treatment of the poor in england. The idea of the poor as subhuman was transferred to the north american colonies in the 1600s when the plantation owners worked with the elites in england to gather white slaves/indentured servants to work to death in the tobacco plantations of the American colonies. Again, the phrase "indentured servant" was really a mask, a rationalization, for the reality of slavery--white slavery.
Of course both in America and in England the exploitation of the poor gave the elite their rich luxurious opulent lifestyle. When you are able to live in the lap of luxury because you have slaves working in your fields, it's very easy for you to convince yourself that what you are doing is good and right. Human beings have always been able to rationalize cruelty and injustice, all in the name of living the good life on the backs of others that were not born rich, others that were not born with connections, others less fortunate than yourself in many ways. We are so good at fooling ourselves.
When the slaveowners began to see the use of black slaves, they used their power and social position to raise up the social status of the poor whites, which were mostly freed indentured servants. And then they transferred the subhuman rationalization/pretext to the blacks in order to justify.rationalize chattel slavery, where the black slave was enslaved for life as were as the children of the black slave. By elevating the poor whites above the blacks, they drove a wedge between the poor whites and the blacks. The blacks were now the new subhuman, and the poor whites were somewhere between the blacks and the rich.
The elite hoped this would drive a wedge between poor whites and the black slaves. This was the beginning of the racial caste system constructed by the American elites. This caste system enabled the American elite to drive a social wedge [[[TEXT==SOCIAL HIERARCHY]]]between poor whites and blacks. THat made it easier for the rich white elite to get poor whites to go along with enslaving the blacks.
They got the idea of how to do this from the sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean, which were essentially a trial run for the plantation systems of the mid Atlantic colonies that became America. In Haiti, the plantations were a brutal death machine for poor whites from the British Isles. And when the Haiti plantations began importing black slaves, they found that the white slaves formented rebellion with them. So the the planters there had to split them up with racism. And the Virginia and Mid Atlantic colonies learned well from what happened in Haiti.
They elevated the poor whites, the indentured whites above the blacks, saying to them in effect, look you are more like us rich whites than you are like those black slaves. The racial caste system tied the poor whites to the rich whites through skin color, and cut off the poor whites from the blacks.
THis was the crucial divide that allowed the rich whites to control the masses. Remember that in those days the black population was a much higher percentage of the population in many states than it is now. THe black population plus the poor whites made up a very substantial majority of the population in the middle and South Atlantic colonies. Without the racial caste system, the rich whites were in danger from rebellion by blacks and whites, especially the poor whites who had worked their way free from indentureship, and who were now free, but very poor.
As historian Edmund S. Morgan wrote in his book "American Slavery, American Freedom" the rich whites were able to use laws to mold the American culture in order to "to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt"
In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion burned Jamestown Virginia to the ground. it was a mixed race rebellion. 80 blacks and 20 poor whites were the last holdouts of Bacon's Rebellion. Bacon Rebellion was a rebellion of the poor against the rich. Both blacks
and poor whites joined forces to fight the rich planters. The commander who fought and finally defeated the insurgents in Bacon's Rebellion: "Most of them I persuaded to goe to their Homes, which accordingly they did, except about eighty Negroes
and twenty English which would not deliver their Armes."
Racism did grow in the American colonies, but it did not come about spontaneously: instead it was nurtured by laws passed by the elite.
Starting about 1700, the indentured whites began get better treatment. Laws were passed to make sure they were treated better. For example, a law was passed in Virginia to make sure that once released from indentureship, enslaved whites were guaranteed to recieve some goods, such as tobacco, corn, a gun or such.
The politicians passing these laws were not voted into office by poor whites or indentured whites. Property qualifications for voting made sure that these poor and enslaved whites could not vote. So, it was the rich whites who were now passing laws to give poor whites higher social status.
These new laws also made it illegal for blacks to strike white people, even in self defense. These laws clearly put the enslaved whites and poor whites on a pedastal above enslaved blacks and even above free blacks.
Also laws were passed to make it illegal for enslaved whites and blacks to meet together in large groups. Such illegal meetings would get the indentured whites a fine of fifteen shillings, or to "receive, on his, her, or their bare backs, for every such offense, twenty lashes well laid on."
the elite created laws against white women having children to black fathers. These were called the miscegnation laws. In 1670, the Virginia assembly, comprising some of the colony's most successful and powerful men. Forbade free Negroes and
Indians to own Christian (that is to say, white) servants.
From 1680 on, white Christians were free to give "any negroe or other slave" who dare to lift his hand in opposition to a Christian 30 lashes on the bare back.
In 1705, masters were forbidden to 'whip a Christian white servant naked." Nakedness was for brutes, the uncivil, the non-Christian.
As time passed, the memories of how poor whites and blacks worked and lived together faded away. The elite were successful in seperating the two segments.
///////
sources:
Slavery and the origins of racism
by Lance Selfa
http://www.isreview.org/issues/26/roots_of_racism.shtml
///
"American Slavery, American Freedom"
by Edmund S. Morgan:
Revealing Male Bodies
EDITED BY
NANCY TUANA
WILLIAM COWLING
MAURICE HAMINGTON
GREG JOHNSON
TERRANCE MACMULLAN
in particular Chapter 2 by RICHARD SCHMITT
Summary of the Argument of
The Invention of the White Race
via
http://eserver.org/clogic/
by its author, Theodore W. Allen
The Whiting of Euro-Americans: A Divide and Conquer Strategy
By Thandeka
A People's History of the USA by Howard Zinn
http://www.hoffman-info.com
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html
www.victorianlondon.org
http://www.kellscraft.com
The above is the rough draft script from my in-progress documentary
called Homo Sapiens Americanus.
In 1600 england the poor whites were considered as almost subhuman--almost an inferior species of human being. This idea of the poor being subhuman helped justify and rationalize the brutal treatment of the poor in england. The idea of the poor as subhuman was transferred to the north american colonies in the 1600s when the plantation owners worked with the elites in england to gather white slaves/indentured servants to work to death in the tobacco plantations of the American colonies. Again, the phrase "indentured servant" was really a mask, a rationalization, for the reality of slavery--white slavery.
Of course both in America and in England the exploitation of the poor gave the elite their rich luxurious opulent lifestyle. When you are able to live in the lap of luxury because you have slaves working in your fields, it's very easy for you to convince yourself that what you are doing is good and right. Human beings have always been able to rationalize cruelty and injustice, all in the name of living the good life on the backs of others that were not born rich, others that were not born with connections, others less fortunate than yourself in many ways. We are so good at fooling ourselves.
When the slaveowners began to see the use of black slaves, they used their power and social position to raise up the social status of the poor whites, which were mostly freed indentured servants. And then they transferred the subhuman rationalization/pretext to the blacks in order to justify.rationalize chattel slavery, where the black slave was enslaved for life as were as the children of the black slave. By elevating the poor whites above the blacks, they drove a wedge between the poor whites and the blacks. The blacks were now the new subhuman, and the poor whites were somewhere between the blacks and the rich.
The elite hoped this would drive a wedge between poor whites and the black slaves. This was the beginning of the racial caste system constructed by the American elites. This caste system enabled the American elite to drive a social wedge [[[TEXT==SOCIAL HIERARCHY]]]between poor whites and blacks. THat made it easier for the rich white elite to get poor whites to go along with enslaving the blacks.
They got the idea of how to do this from the sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean, which were essentially a trial run for the plantation systems of the mid Atlantic colonies that became America. In Haiti, the plantations were a brutal death machine for poor whites from the British Isles. And when the Haiti plantations began importing black slaves, they found that the white slaves formented rebellion with them. So the the planters there had to split them up with racism. And the Virginia and Mid Atlantic colonies learned well from what happened in Haiti.
They elevated the poor whites, the indentured whites above the blacks, saying to them in effect, look you are more like us rich whites than you are like those black slaves. The racial caste system tied the poor whites to the rich whites through skin color, and cut off the poor whites from the blacks.
THis was the crucial divide that allowed the rich whites to control the masses. Remember that in those days the black population was a much higher percentage of the population in many states than it is now. THe black population plus the poor whites made up a very substantial majority of the population in the middle and South Atlantic colonies. Without the racial caste system, the rich whites were in danger from rebellion by blacks and whites, especially the poor whites who had worked their way free from indentureship, and who were now free, but very poor.
As historian Edmund S. Morgan wrote in his book "American Slavery, American Freedom" the rich whites were able to use laws to mold the American culture in order to "to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt"
In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion burned Jamestown Virginia to the ground. it was a mixed race rebellion. 80 blacks and 20 poor whites were the last holdouts of Bacon's Rebellion. Bacon Rebellion was a rebellion of the poor against the rich. Both blacks
and poor whites joined forces to fight the rich planters. The commander who fought and finally defeated the insurgents in Bacon's Rebellion: "Most of them I persuaded to goe to their Homes, which accordingly they did, except about eighty Negroes
and twenty English which would not deliver their Armes."
Racism did grow in the American colonies, but it did not come about spontaneously: instead it was nurtured by laws passed by the elite.
Starting about 1700, the indentured whites began get better treatment. Laws were passed to make sure they were treated better. For example, a law was passed in Virginia to make sure that once released from indentureship, enslaved whites were guaranteed to recieve some goods, such as tobacco, corn, a gun or such.
The politicians passing these laws were not voted into office by poor whites or indentured whites. Property qualifications for voting made sure that these poor and enslaved whites could not vote. So, it was the rich whites who were now passing laws to give poor whites higher social status.
These new laws also made it illegal for blacks to strike white people, even in self defense. These laws clearly put the enslaved whites and poor whites on a pedastal above enslaved blacks and even above free blacks.
Also laws were passed to make it illegal for enslaved whites and blacks to meet together in large groups. Such illegal meetings would get the indentured whites a fine of fifteen shillings, or to "receive, on his, her, or their bare backs, for every such offense, twenty lashes well laid on."
the elite created laws against white women having children to black fathers. These were called the miscegnation laws. In 1670, the Virginia assembly, comprising some of the colony's most successful and powerful men. Forbade free Negroes and
Indians to own Christian (that is to say, white) servants.
From 1680 on, white Christians were free to give "any negroe or other slave" who dare to lift his hand in opposition to a Christian 30 lashes on the bare back.
In 1705, masters were forbidden to 'whip a Christian white servant naked." Nakedness was for brutes, the uncivil, the non-Christian.
As time passed, the memories of how poor whites and blacks worked and lived together faded away. The elite were successful in seperating the two segments.
///////
sources:
Slavery and the origins of racism
by Lance Selfa
http://www.isreview.org/issues/26/roots_of_racism.shtml
///
"American Slavery, American Freedom"
by Edmund S. Morgan:
Revealing Male Bodies
EDITED BY
NANCY TUANA
WILLIAM COWLING
MAURICE HAMINGTON
GREG JOHNSON
TERRANCE MACMULLAN
in particular Chapter 2 by RICHARD SCHMITT
Summary of the Argument of
The Invention of the White Race
via
http://eserver.org/clogic/
by its author, Theodore W. Allen
The Whiting of Euro-Americans: A Divide and Conquer Strategy
By Thandeka
A People's History of the USA by Howard Zinn
http://www.hoffman-info.com
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html
www.victorianlondon.org
http://www.kellscraft.com
The above is the rough draft script from my in-progress documentary
called Homo Sapiens Americanus.
