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The electoral college is a tool which maintains political power within a certain circle. It means that the popular vote for president every four years doesn’t legally elect the President of the United States, and it is written into the Constitution of the United States. Keeping citizens divided has been a tool of the powerful since before the nation’s inception, utilized by many different groups in our two-hundred-plus years rather successfully. Whether through:
a class system which kept poor white farmers from voting in the early Republic, or
black codes which ensnared newly freed citizens of African descent while “grandfathering” in those same poor whites, or
Chinese Exclusion laws which prevented only residents of Chinese birth from becoming naturalized citizens, or
the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, or
the Bracero Program which shipped Mexicans in to work and shipped them out when the work was done, or
“separate but equal” Jim Crow laws constitutionally approved by the Supreme Court, or
“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act which still segregates and disenfranchises citizens today,
keeping the poor and uneducated focused on their own privileges while claiming that they are “endangered” by “others” has proven a successful tactic historically.
Today, the Arizona legislature, the Ohio legislature, and the Scott Walkers of the world are pitting the working citizens of the United States against each other using the same tactics. And their misdirection appears to be working. The “Tea Party” movement, engineered by Dick Armey and co-opted for fifteen minutes by Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, is simply the White Citizen’s Council with better makeup. The Wisconsin Republican Party is the new face of the Gilded Age’s robber barons, shamelessly paying placed politicians for the political support to deny rights to the poor and working classes. We’ve even seen Representative Peter King channeling Senator Joe McCarthy, attempting to taint an entire group as subversive and extremist with his Congressional hearings on “Muslim radicalization in America.”
The false equivalencies of deficit v. entitlements, or civil rights v. national security, or citizens v. illegals manage to keep all of the participants, both the have a littles and the have nots, focused on each other instead of the Koch brothers and the Boehners, who are reaping the financial and political windfall while we fight for the scraps.
The power of the United States rests on the just application of the American Ideals of equality, opportunity, liberty, rights and democracy. It rests on the government mandate to “secure the rights”, “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” for all. When any of these are abused, or usurped, as they are in Wisconsin, Arizona, Ohio and on the national stage, they are endangered for all citizens, regardless of race or color.
Powerful, raw, and honest. The historical context is what makes this post. So true.
I was talking about this to some Republican friends and out of the three one agreed with me. Guess who will be receiving an link via email! Great piece.
Ricardo,
Have mercy. Don’t feed his delusion. Don’t you think the time for racist conspiracy theories has long since passed?
Matthew,
On what basis do you call this a “delusion?” Judging by your name, you are one of the people privileged by this system, and are therefore not in a position to comment competently on it. On top of that, the fact that you *immediately* come out with slurs and no real substance is very telling. Are you feeling a bit ….threatened that the system you are propped up by is being exposed? The “have mercy” you left speaks volumes about that!
What Ricardo is describing is criminal, has involved more than one person colluding to make happen, and is most definitely racist. I’d say these “racist conspiracy theories” have been factually proven to be racist conspiracies.
That said, you have a lot to learn about how the world works, and lack the perspective of dealing with racist oppressions that a little education would bring you. Don’t let the discomfort dissuade you, because…
If you think learning about oppression is unpleasant, try living it.
Thanks, all for commenting… Some for teaching, some for learning.
RM
Voz: Yes. I am one of the priveleged. So is the author. We grew up next door to each other, played together almost every day, had the best possible education and a solid family life. I can’t respond to the rest of what you wrote because I am evidently not qualified to speak. Have fun with your ad hominem arguments!
Yes, we did grow up privileged. Your attacks on the validity of the argument, though, seem hinged on a purposeful misreading of my post. It’s not about race. It’s not about Bush v. Gore. It’s about groups of disenfranchised people being set on other groups of disenfranchised people to fight over scraps and avoid those who are empowered and in power from addressing the inequalities those privileges are based upon. Calling it delusional and asking for mercy are ad hominem attacks (I had to look it up to be sure) that fail to address the issue raised. Do you honestly disagree with the premise? Though we often disagree, I’d be surprised that you honestly don’t see how power and oppression affect those who are marginalized and scapegoated as distraction and propaganda.
Who is disenfranchised? The under 18? Is that what this is about? Because I missed that too.
My “misreading” is not purposeful. (Good motives are assumed remember?) I am led to many of the same conclusions as your respondants, I just differ in rejecting those conclusions. I am not mis-reading anything. I can re-characterize it as an “oppression narrative,” rather than a “racist conspiracy theory.” If that terminology is more palatable, I can go with it.
The problems with your oppression narrative are that it only looks backward, and is more divisive than any of the false equivalencies you have identified. Here we are in a country where, if you are lucky enough to be born (and not aborted), you are a citizen, can vote, can be politically active for all manner of views, have access to free education (lunch typically included), can work in just about any trade, are free to marry, move, leave, come back, etc. I don’t see the oppression. If it is so oppressive, why are people begging to come here, skirting the border, etc.? Or, why aren’t people fleeing? Its not heaven on earth, its not cradle to grave socialism, but its hardly a cauldron of oppression.
Of course, you do have to be born first.
That’s all I’m saying.
Maybe my privilege blinds me, but I am hardly sitting pool side with cucumber slices on my eye-lids.