The Smokescreen of Power

The newly founded United States government allegedly set out to give representation to the values of the common people.  Fundamental ideals of the freshly born country took root in the minds of the men that created our most patriotic documents.  But those same men, who we revere and idolize in our schools and lives, actually created the government to favor the wealthy.  However, they carefully phrased documents in such a way as to make lower class communities falsely believe that everyone has an equal say in the government, therefore ensuring that the wealthy landowners would retain authority in the newly founded country. 

It makes sense that the Founding Fathers would want to keep the power for themselves, considering that they had it even when the US was under British rule.  So, by creating the government themselves, these men were able to assure that they would keep that influence.  This isn’t to say that the less wealthy people didn’t inspire the revolution – in fact, they played a big part – but it was the prosperous people who created the laws, documents, and speeches that we remember and live by today.  The fact that they were well-to-do people probably had an effect on whether they were remembered.  Patrick Henry is an example of this.  He gave a speech in which he tried to convince the legislators to go to war against England.  If he hadn’t been an affluent governor, he probably wouldn’t have been able to speak in front of the House of Burgesses and his speech wouldn’t have been as influential as it was. 

Both the plantation owners and the slave traders relied on the black slaves for their livelihood.  If slavery were abolished, like the first version of the declaration tried to do, they would have lost their livelihood.  This is probably the exact reason that Thomas Jefferson, an owner of hundreds of slaves, deleted that passage from the original Constitution  - to protect the wealth, influence, and stature that owning slaves gave men in the revolutionary period. 

Even the system of our government was formulated in a way that favored the prosperous politicians.  In the Federalist Paper no. 10, James Madison talks about how we must get rid of factions, “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community”.  At first glance, this seems like a fair need – to stop the people who get in the way of progress in the community.  But who determines what qualifies as a disruptive faction?  Is it the people who believe in that cause?  Or is it the politicians whose control the disruptors are threatening?  Our government, a republic, was formed exactly for the purpose of stifling factions because, in a republic, “The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other states.”  This prevents any factions, whether they are beneficial or malicious. 

Within this country, even if you did want to run for a governmental position to promote your views, you would need to have enough money.  In the revolutionary period, you needed to have 1,000 pounds to run for State Senator and 5,000 pounds for Governor, which would have allowed only about 10 percent of the population to qualify.  Even today, you need an education, experience, and a campaign to run for an office, all of which costs a great deal of money.  With that strong of a monetary limit, many people would be unable to be a representative of their community, thoroughly defeating the purpose of a fair government. 

This country was not solely founded on iconic principles of a new and liberating kind.  In fact, the elite were crafting the government and legislature to continue letting the wealthy have the majority of the power, while keeping the citizens under a carefully woven smokescreen of laws and nationalism to hide the fact that they had little, if any, voice in the new world.

Crash (The Film)

The movie Crash was a great commentary on racism and life in the United States, specifically Los Angeles.  I think that it really brought light to the fact that racism is not gone, and it may be even more commonplace than we think.  Much of the brutality of racism is gone, but some still remains – as we see with the cops.  But what we still have is the other remnants – the stereotyping, the slurs, and in some of us, the hatred.  In Durango, sometimes we don’t realize that there are still many people out there who still hate other races just because they are from a different country, their have a different skin color, or they dislike that person’s stereotype.  The strangest thing that I saw in this movie was when the two carjackers were talking about racism, and how they feel that whites are racists and are always judging them.  But it made me realize that in judging us to be racists, they are being racist to us.  Then we feel that animosity, and are racist right back, so it’s this never-ending cycle that we can’t seem to get out of.  As for if it could ever end, I think it could, but it is doubtful because of the way that we keep perpetuating the process.  I think that over time, it will slowly eliminate itself, but truly getting rid of it seems highly improbable. 

Situational Influences and Christopher Columbus

Columbus was neither a villain nor a hero, although he committed acts that fell into both categories.  We feel the need to categorize him, but that is due to our own fundamental attribution error – blaming his actions on his disposition, rather than on situational influences.  Christopher Columbus is not a hero or a villain, but merely a man whose situation made for the future colonization and Indian decimation in the Americas. 

One of the major influences on his behavior was a natural lust for power, fame, and riches.  Queen Isabella promised him all of these things with “10% of the profits, governorship over new-found lands, and the fame that would go with a new title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea” (Zinn).  Even today, the lure of these promises would make many people do almost anything. This lure was also the catalyst for the ‘heroic’ things he did, such as beginning colonization and the evolution of America.  But the promises of power only held true if he succeeded in his mission to bring the kingdom gold, slaves, and other riches.  If he didn’t deliver, then he would get nothing.  This may be how the Spaniards’ abuse of power began: “I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.” (Zinn, Columbus) 

His environment had an effect on his decisions as well, because he was in a new land without any kings, laws, or justice.  If he and his men thought that they could get away with anything, there was nothing to stop them from doing what they wanted. 

Most of the upper class during this time period had slaves, which breeds a sort of disregard for those people who were different than them.  Columbus and his men wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing back these people as slaves and treating the roughly.  You can hear this sort of mentality from Columbus: “I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.”(Columbus’ Journal)  This kind of attitude is conducive to abuse of the natives, and resulted in their massacre.

Christopher Columbus had many forces acting on him during 1492, and so he was not a villain nor a hero, but a result of situational influences that were merely a cultural part of the times and within the nature of mankind, but leading him to a secure place in history.