Black Liberation and Socialism

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Ahmed Shawki. Black Liberation and Socialism

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To Kaya & Smitch

With their disgraceful mishandling of the aftermath of Katrina, George Bush and his administration stood naked in front of the world. This has fuelled a tremendous anger already brewing in the United States against the way this society works—or doesn’t—for the majority of people. As many writers have suggested, it is a grave mistake to think that U.S. society is stable, or that the promise of neoliberalism is the solution for most people. The United States is headed for an inevitable and tumultuous conflict.

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One of Hamilton’s proposals at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was the selection of a president and Senate for life. The Convention didn’t take his suggestions for the creation of a “permanent body” to rule and check the “imprudence of democracy.” But it did severely limit popular participation in elections.26 Senators were to be elected by state legislations, the president was to be elected by electors chosen by the state legislators, and the Supreme Court was to be appointed by the president. Ten of the original thirteen states limited the right to vote for members of the House of Representatives to property owners.27

These limitations on the rights of the “mass of the people” were not simply an expression of the aristocratic beliefs of the Founding Fathers; nor were they primarily concerned with elections in their own right. They were, rather, an expression of the growing conflict between those who were rich and powerful and the vast majority who were neither. By 1787, the elites were acutely aware of the need to establish a strong central government to protect their interests—and to suppress popular rebellions.

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