Reviewing
Ferdinand Lundberg's "Cracks In The Constitution"
By Stephen Lendman
07 August, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Ferdinand Lundberg (1905 - 1995)
was a 20th century economist, journalist, historian and author of such
books as The Rich and the Super-Rich: A Study in the Power of Money
Today; The Myth of Democracy; Politicians and Other Scoundrels; and
the subject of this review - Cracks in the Constitution.
Lundberg's book was published
twenty-seven years ago, yet remains as powerfully important and relevant
today as then. Simply put, the book is a blockbuster. It's must reading
to learn what schools to the highest levels never teach about the nation's
most important document that lays out the fundamental law of the land
in its Preamble, Seven Articles, Bill of Rights, and 17 other Amendments.
Lundberg deconstructs it in depth, separating myth from reality about
what he called "the great totem pole of American society."
He does it in 10 exquisitely
written chapters with examples and detail galore to drive home his key
message that our most sacred of all documents is flawed. It was crafted
by 55 mostly ordinary but wealthy self-serving "wheeler dealers"
(among whom only 39 signed), and the result we got and now live with
falls far short of the "Rock of Ages" it's cracked up to be.
That notion is pure myth. This review covers in detail how Lundberg
smashed it in each chapter.
The Sacred Constitution
Lundberg quickly transfixes
his readers by disabusing them of notions commonly held. Despite long-held
beliefs, the Constitution is no "masterpiece of political architecture."
It falls far short of "one great apotheosis (bathed) in quasi-religious
light." The finished product was a "closed labyrinthine affair,"
not an "open" constitution like the British model. It was
the product of duplicitous politicians and their close friends scheming
to cut the best deals for themselves by leaving out the great majority
of others who didn't matter.
The myths we learned in school
and through the dominant media are legion, long-standing and widely
held among the educated classes. They and most others believe the framers
crafted a Constitution that "powerfully restrained and fettered"
the federal government and created "a limited government (or a)
government of limited powers." It's simply not so because through
the power of the chief executive it can do "whatever it is from
time to time" it wishes. In that respect, it's no more precise
and binding than The Ten Commandments the Judaic and Christian worlds
violate freely and willfully all the time. Even so-called "born-again"
types, like the current President, do it, along with Popes, past and
present, and the former Israeli Sephardi chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliyahu,
who advocates mass killing by carpet bombing Gaza to save Jewish lives.
The "supreme Law of
the Land" here deters no President or sitting government from doing
as they wish, law or no law. The Constitution is easily ignored with
impunity by popular or unpopular governments doing as they please and
inventing reasons as justification. Lundberg is firm in debunking the
notion that America is a government of laws, not men. It's "palpable
nonsense of the highest order," he said. Governments enacting laws
are composed of men who lie, connive, misinterpret and pretty much operate
ad libitum discharging their duties as they see fit for their own self-interest.
It was no different in 1787
when 55 delegates (privileged all) assembled for four months in the
same Philadelphia State House, where the Declaration of Independence
was signed 11 years earlier, to rework the Articles of Confederation
into a Constitution that would last into "remote futurity,"
as long as possible, or until others later changed it. None of them
were happy with the finished product but felt it was the best one possible
under the circumstances and better than nothing at all.
The document is "crisply
worded" and can easily be read in 20 to 30 minutes and just as
easily be totally misunderstood. The sole myth in it is stated in its
opening Preamble words: "We the people of the United States....do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
In fact, "the people" nowhere entered the process, then or
since.
At its beginning, "the
people" who mattered were established white male property owning
delegates and members of state ratifying conventions who rammed the
ratification process through, by fair or foul means, in the face of
a "largely indifferent and uncomprehending populace" left
out entirely. They were elected to do it by eligible and interested
while males comprising only from 12.5 - 15.5% of the electorate at the
time. Women, blacks, Indians and children couldn't vote and many or
most qualified voters didn't bother to and still don't. The process,
and what it produced, showed "Democracy operatively is little more
than a fantasy."
The American revolution was
nothing more than secession from the British empire changing very little
with one-third of the colonists favoring it (not upper classes), one-third
opposed (mainly upper classes) and another third indifferent to the
whole business. From then to now, the country is no nearer "government
by the people" than under monarchal or autocratic rule. The latter
types rule by application or threat of force whereas sovereign people
are manipulated by other means with naked force held in reserve if needed.
Lundberg explained the minimum
function of government, ours or others, should be to insure the public
welfare is being broadly served. It's stated in the Preamble and Article
I, Section 8 that "The Congress shall have power to....provide
for....(the) general welfare of the United States" - the so-called
welfare clause. Lundberg let scholar Herman Finer (with more detail
on his ideas below) dispel the notion from the constitutional flaws
he found and some of the many "social and political evils"
he recounted as a result through the middle 20th century decades - rampant
crime, unsafe streets, lack of justice, political corruption, dishonest
police, racketeering labor officials, corporate fraud in pursuit of
profits, raging unresolved social problems and lots more. Only government
can address these issues and unless it does successfully it fails. Our
is a long history of failure overall with only feeble attempts to fix
things.
Lundberg reviewed popular
misconceptions about the Constitution saying so many are embedded in
the American psyche it's hard knowing where to begin. He noted the document
is called "The Living Constitution" saying, in fact, it's
"whatever government does or does not do" or uses in whatever
way it wishes. The Constitution defines itself as the "supreme
Law of the Land" in Article VI, Section 2 which it is and includes
all amendments, enacted statutes and treaties made with the concurrence
(not ratification) of the Senate. The people are left out of the process
entirely with Lundberg saying "government of the people, by the
people and for the people" is a "nonexistent entity. The people
don't govern either directly or through 'representatives.' The people
are governed."
In sum, although the Constitution
served many of the purposes its designers and supporters envisioned,
in light of the majority populace's great expectations of it, "it
has been, quite plainly, a huge flop." That's made clear below.
"We the People"
Lundberg destroys the romanticism and enthusiasm felt today about the
Constitution and the revolt against Great Britain preceding it. He began
by reviewing the establishment of state constitutions at the time and
the enactment of the Articles of Confederation adopted by the Second
Continental Congress November 15, 1777 with final ratification March
1, 1781. None of these events had electoral sanction. "They were
strictly coup d'etat affairs, run by small groups of self-styled patriots
many of whom bettered their personal economic positions significantly"
from the revolution and events before and after it took place. Despite
what's commonly taught in schools, most people opposed the Constitution
when it was ratified. So by getting it done anyway, the framers (with
the conservative Federalists spearheading the effort) went against the
will of the people they ignored and disdained.
It wasn't easy, though, as
only by promising amendments did it happen. The anti-Federalist opposition
demanded and got the "oft-hymned" first ten amendments, commonly
known as the Bill of Rights. In fact, they "made no great difference,"
and did little to dilute the 1787 document. More on that below.
Lundberg explained that most anti-Federalists weren't particularly happy
either with the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution. These
men were mostly privileged property owners (all white, of course) squabbling
over the means to get pretty similar ends and having a generally hostile
attitude about the majority population overall. In other words, everyone
was not considered "We the people," which is how radical English
Whigs felt and whose traditions colonists adopted. "The illiterate
and underprivileged (elements) were not much considered" with the
"people" again being the privileged male property owners in
charge of everything and out only for their own self-interest.
Lundberg cited voting patterns
earlier, up to his time, and clearly now as well, to explain how people
are left out of the political process. Whether franchised or not, most
don't vote in presidential elections and even fewer show up for congressional,
state and local ones. It indicates the will of the people needs considerable
qualifying because most of them aren't interested, don't want to bother,
don't think it matters, don't understand the whole process, and decide
to opt out and act like nothing's going on. "Although repugnant
to ideologists of democracy," Lundberg stated, "this conclusion
is quite true."
In sum, the relevance of
this to the Constitution is that its opening words are meaningless window
dressing. They neither add nor detract from the document which served
as a "screen and launching pad for practically autonomous, freely
improvising politicians (like any others in the world)....the gentry....sustained
(in whatever their endeavors were) by the constitutional structure"
they created for their own self-serving purposes.
What the Framers Thought
This section covers who these
men were below as well as more about them in the section to follow.
Here, first off, the record needs to be set straight about what these
very ordinary men (contrary to popularized myth about them) thought
about their creation we extoll today like it came down from Mt. Sinai.
In fact, it was the result of wheeling and dealing in likely smoke-filled
rooms the way deals are cut today with lots of real and figurative smoke
to go along with the usual mirrors. When they finished in September,
1787, there was no joy in Philadelphia. The framers disliked their creation,
some could barely tolerate it, yet most signed it.
They understood its defects,
that it was full of holes, thought it was the best they could do under
the circumstances, felt it was a mess, but, nonetheless, believed they
could live with it for the time being, hoping it wouldn't come back
to bite them. Lundberg said they likely "kept their fingers crossed."
One other thing was clear, though, despite "crowd-titillating campaign
oratory" about their creation ever since. Not a single framer suggested
"a sheltered haven was being prepared for the innumerable heavily
laden, bedraggled, scrofulous and oppressed of the earth." On the
contrary, they intended to keep them that way showing not a lot is fundamentally
different then than now, and the so-called founders were a pretty devious
bunch, not the noble characters we've been taught to believe.
As already explained, the
deal got done with the usual kinds of wheeling and dealing, and, in
the end, a lot of opponents being won over by agreeing to tack on the
so-called Bill of Rights that was deliberately left out at first. The
dominant elements behind the convention were what today are called nationalists.
More precisely, they were "centralizers who were continental and
global in their thinking." The opposition consisted of "localists,"
later called "states-righters," who preferred a decentralized
government. The "centralizers" wanted a single or central
national capital run by superior people by their definition - the rich
and better-connected regardless of ability. Men like John Adams and
John Jay (the first High Court chief justice) felt government should
be run, in Adams' words, by "the rich, the well born, and the able."
There was no disagreement on that notion.
There were no populists in
the bunch, no anti-property party, and even the most vocal civil libertarians,
like Jefferson and George Mason, were slave-owners. Washington, for
his part, contributed no pet constitutional ideas other than wanting
to protect the new nation from drifting toward disunion which, in fact,
happened with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Lundberg described
him as "the very top dog of the Philadelphia accouchement (the
constitutional birthing process)." He understood the key reason
for adopting a flawed document, no matter how bad it was or how the
framers felt about it. Accepting it was the way to prevent disunion
and resulting confusion that might have prevailed if public consideration
entered the equation to become accepted policy and law.
Conflicting ideas of concern
at the time visualized three central governments consisting of the New
England states, middle Atlantic ones, and those in the South with likely
new entries to follow in the West. The framers worried this arrangement
might cause endless bickering and wars as well as rivalrous agreements
and arrangements with other countries. In one stroke, the Constitution
produced a united front against an ever-encroaching Europe and internal
struggles.
Lundberg spent much time
on who the founders were this review can only touch on. It's enough
just to put a few faces on a group of crass opportunists who today are
practically ranked along side the Apostles. But who's to say those few
were any better than others of their day the way myths are constructed
and passed on through the ages unchallenged in mainstream thinking.
And don't forget that, in his first term, George Bush might have been
aiming for sainthood by claiming he got his orders directly from God
who told him to "strike at Al-Queda....and then.... to strike at
Saddam." Even the framers didn't claim that type heavenly connection.
They did have Lundberg's
focus beginning with Alexander Hamilton, Washington's wartime aide-de-camp,
first Secretary of the Treasury and acknowledged leader of the Federalists.
Here's what this noted man thought of the Constitution in 1802. In a
letter, he called it "a shilly shally thing of mere milk and water
(and) a frail and worthless document." This is from the man, more
than any other in Philadelphia, who was its most articulate and passionate
champion. Franklin, too, had doubts as the grand old man, but mere enfeebled
figurehead at the convention, who also signed the final document. He
was against two separate chambers, disapproved of some of the articles
and wanted others that weren't included.
Then there's James Madison
miscalled "The Father of the Constitution," which he expressly
repudiated and a year later wrote "I am not of the number if there
be any such, who think the Constitution lately adopted a faultless work.....(It's)
the best that could be obtained from the jarring interests of the states....Something,
anything, was better than nothing." Madison's disaffection went
even further, in fact. At the convention, he was an ardent "centralizer,"
but 10 years later he reversed himself by aligning with those wanting
to recapture more state power. He also spent most of his life disagreeing
with the way the document he helped write was used.
Lundberg covered a few other
framers most people know little or nothing about but played their part
along with the better known ones. They included men like Nicholas Gilman
from New Hampshire, William Pierce and William Few from Georgia, Pierce
Butler and Charles Pinckney from South Carolina, Robert Morris, Gouverneur
Morris (no relation) and James Wilson from Pennsylvania, Jonathan Dayton
from New Jersey, and James McHenry from Maryland.
Of the total 55 delegates
attending, 39 signed and 16 didn't, but doing it or not was just a pro
forma exercise as only the states had power to accept or reject it.
None of the framers believed the Constitution was the glorious achievement
people ever since were led to believe - quite the opposite, in fact,
but most still went along with it as better than nothing. The nation's
second and third Presidents, Adams and Jefferson, were abroad and didn't
attend the convention although Adams was considered the leading constitutional
theorist at the time. His views had weight and were strong ones. Lundberg
noted for the rest of his life until 1826 he consistently criticized
the document in private correspondence.
Jefferson overall was just
as unhappy. Until it was added, he objected to the omission of a Bill
of Rights. He also disliked the lack of any requirements for rotation
in office, especially the office of the presidency he wished to be ineligible
for a succeeding term. In 1801, he was involved with others proposing
a menu of changes to strengthen a document he believed was flawed. He
also didn't think any constitution could survive the test of time, unchanged
forever, able to meet all legitimate needs, and as a consequence wanted
a new convention every 20 years to update things and fix obvious problems.
Lundberg felt Jefferson and
Adams' main objection was they had no part in writing it or were even
consulted on what should go in it. They had a point. Adams, as noted,
was the leading constitutional theorist of the time and Jefferson (in
Lundberg's view) was the most consummate politician in the nation's
history, but by no means its best President.
The convention ended September
17, 1787 "in an atmosphere verging on glumness." Delegates
signing it were just witnesses to the actions of state delegations,
not as individual endorsers, and despite their public approval, nearly
all had "inner qualms." James Monroe from Virginia, a future
President, was one of them. He voted nay with 15 others that included
important figures like George Mason, Elbridge Gerry and Edmund Randolp
Southern delegates were won
over for ratification by strengthening chattel slavery. The Constitution
forbade the federal government from emancipating slaves until Lincoln
acted in a meaningless 1862 politically motivated Executive Order. It
wasn't until Congress passed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, and
enough states ratified them, that the law changed freeing the slaves
and giving them nominal rights they never, in fact, had in the South
at least for another 100 years. Lundberg noted the "slavocracy
was not terminated....for moral reasons; it committed suicide for political
and economic reasons, blinded by simple greed and vaingloriousness,
and long after slavery was abolished in most places elsewhere."
Who the Framers Were
Lundberg asked: "Who
were these men about whom so many (unjustifiably) have rhapsodized?
Fifty-five in total showed up in Philadelphia in 1787 out of 74 authorized
by state legislatures. A fourth of them stayed only briefly, another
quarter checked in and out like tourists, and no more than five men
carried most of the discussion with seven others playing "fitful"
supporting roles.
Further, they didn't, in
fact, come to write a new constitution. They were congressionally authorized
only to propose amendments to the prevailing Articles of Confederation.
Little did they all know in May what would emerge in September, or maybe
the ones who counted most did.
Of the 19 non-attending delegates,
11 wanted nothing to do with the affair, were opposed to it, distrusted
it, and thought it rigged from the start. The other eight had various
excuses - illness (political or real), focused at home with other business,
not having their travel expenses covered, and reluctant to make such
a long trip to be away from home and hearth for months.
Of those showing up, 33 were
lawyers, 44 present or past members of Congress, 46 had political positions
at home, including seven as former governors and five high state judges.
These were men of note and economic means who promoted their own financial
interests and parallel activity in government. In a word, they were
movers and shakers or as Lundberg called them - "wheeler dealers."
He described the group as
a "gathering of the rich, the well-born and, here and there, the
able (with that quality being the exception)." Washington and Robert
Morris were reputed to be the richest men in the country with property
holdings in most cases being their main component of wealth at the time
along with slaveholdings on it. Directly or indirectly as lawyers or
principals, these men were an assemblage of "planters, bankers,
merchants, ship-owners, slave-traders, smugglers, privateers, money-lenders,
investors, and speculators in land and securities" - essentially
a group of powerful figures not much different from their counterparts
today. With a few exceptions, Lundberg said they'd now be called a "Wall
Street crowd."
In their mind, "The
clear aim of the Constitution was to launch a system that would protect,
and enable to flourish, the general interests there represented."
With Great Britain removed, a vacuum was created. The Constitution,
with a new government, was created to fill it restoring the same essential
British commercial and financial system under new management, or as
the French would say, everything changed yet everything stayed the same.
Republican government simply removed British monarchal wrappings to
operate pretty much the same way. Lundberg quoted Daniel Leonard saying
"Never in history had there been so much rebellion with so little
real cause" and so little change following it. As for the ingredients
of the Constitution, Lundberg explained nearly all of them could have
been "stamped with the benchmark 'Originated in England.' Only
the mixture was different."
Further, 27 delegates were
future members of Congress, two were future Presidents, one a future
Vice-President, one a Speaker of the House, and five future High Court
justices. They produced a Constitution generated along predetermined
lines by the government itself by "a small self-selected elite
at the center of government affairs." They did it in deliberately
general, vague, ambiguous language, the product of consummate self-serving
insiders. The "people" were nowhere in sight then or for the
later future amendment ratifications, all of which were done solely
by similar-minded self-serving later officials for their own political
purposes. It's always been that way from the beginning, of course, and
is strikingly so today.
Lundberg then reviewed the
political background and record of the delegates starting off with the
elder statesman in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, the wisest of the
bunch. In 1787, he was an octogenarian, attended as a mere figurehead,
signed the final document, but was too enfeebled to address the convention
at its end, so he enlisted a friend to read his rather notable and prescient
remarks to the others saying:
"I agree to this Constitution
with all its faults....I think a General Government (is) necessary for
us (and) may be a blessing....if well-administered; (I "farther"
believe that's likely) for a Course of Years (but) can only end in Despotism
as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall have become
so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any
other." Imagine such a dark prophecy at the nation's birth by a
man who never met George Bush but was wise enough to know he'd arrive
sooner or later. Franklin today would surely say "I warned you,
didn't I."
Other notable signers were
less insightful, or if they were, didn't let on. Two of them, John Dickinson
and William Johnson were members of the 1765 Stamp Act Congress. Six
others were members of the mainly conservative First Continental Congress
of 1774 - Thomas Mifflin, Edmund Randolph, George Read, John Rutledge,
Roger Sherman, and George Washington.
Other important attendees
were Elbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, George Mason, John Langdon, Robert
Morris, Gouverneur Morris (no relation) and William Livingston. Lundberg
called Langdon, Livingston, Randolph, Rutledge and R. Morris political
power bosses or power-brokers of their day, and Robert Morris was known
to his friends and enemies as the "Great Man." He was the
unmatched financial giant of the era with Lundberg saying "his
brain would have made two of Hamilton" and that his economic and
political power at the time were unrivaled matching that of the House
of Morgan in the early 20th century combined with New York's Tammany
Hall.
According to Lundberg, however,
this was no "all-star political team" compared to other more
distinguished figures not there - Jefferson, John and Sam Adams, John
Jay, John Hancock, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, Paul Revere, John Paul
Jones, Patrick Henry and many others. Apart from two notables, Washington
and Franklin, as well as Robert Morris, few later became prominent nationally.
In 1787, Madison and Hamilton (Washington proteges) were virtual unknowns.
Lundberg noted nothing on
record shows this assemblage to have been extraordinarily learned, profound
in their thinking or even unusually capable. Only 25 attended college,
and "the one man who held the convention together by the mere force
of his presence"....Washington, never got beyond the fifth grade.
Franklin was mostly self-taught and Hamilton was a college dropout his
first year. Robert Morris, the JP Morgan of his day, and George Mason
also never attended college. Of the 25 college attendees, only Madison,
Wilson and G. Morris were contributors of note.
In point of fact, colleges
in those days were quite rudimentary and graduated students at a much
earlier age, often as young as 16, and a bright student could master
the law for a degree in a matter of weeks the way Hamilton did. The
same was true in England at the time with Oxford and Cambridge not then
considered distinguished educational centers as they are now.
Most of the attending delegates
also had military backgrounds, but writing about them kept that information
secret. Lundberg stressed it saying "the gathering took on the
complexion of the general staff of the war of the revolution."
Why not, the boss himself was there, Washington, along with his leading
officers. In all, 27 delegates served under him in the war. He knew
them, most of the others, and all of them stood in awe of him as a larger
than life figure. He was "always the nonpareil," assured he'd
be the new nation's uncontested first president. He had no party affiliation,
ran unopposed twice and got all the votes for two terms in a process
more like coronations than elections.
He and the other delegates
came to Philadelphia, assembled, did their work and went home in many
cases to pursue "their eclipse." Lundberg explained "As
a collection of supposedly highly sagacious men, the post-convention
careers of the framers raise a big question mark." Ten went bankrupt
or became broke, several were involved in financial scandals, two died
in duels, one became a shattered drunkard, two "flittered"
with treason, one was expelled from the Senate, one went mad, others
quarreled bitterly among themselves about politics and interpreting
the document they created, and most switched political sides for convenience
in their subsequent quests for office. Washington himself, likely died
from medical malpractice, the victim of a bloodletting procedure, after
he took ill, when he needed all he had.
Other framers began dying
off as well, a number of them right after the convention and at ages
considered very young today for some. Robert (JP Morgan) Morris went
bankrupt speculating in public lands and securities, owed millions as
a result, served three and a half ignominious years in debtors' prison,
and died broke in 1806. Other framers also speculated and lost heavily
in their financial dealings.
Hamilton was one of the few
Philadelphia delegates to achieve a notable post-convention record as
Washington's Secretary of the Treasury and Federalist Party leader.
Noteworthy as well was Gouverneur Morris, no relation to Robert. Finally,
there was James Madison who was neither the Constitution's father or
its indispensable or principle source. He, in fact, had no original
or unique ideas to bring to the convention. In this respect, he was
like all the others.
Madison did perform a hugely
important function as an "amanuensis," dutifully and painstakingly
recording the convention proceedings in what historians today call an
accurate and complete stenographic record, the best available. It was
not until 1840 that it became public after Congress bought it from his
estate. He documented what Lundberg called "startling" - that
the convention delegates were "a group of men intent upon securing
various special economic interests" and weren't the "philosophically
detached cogitators they had been held up in propaganda to be."
Madison's report shattered
the view that these men came together to devise the best possible government.
From the start, they knew what they wanted (at least the key ones there)
and set about getting it. Madison was also a powerful advocate on the
convention floor of widely discussed views. Unlike the others, he had
no considerable property or means, but he lived to age 85, outlasted
all the other framers, and served as the nation's fourth President.
In total, eight delegates at most can be considered weighty. The rest
were "routine or parochial or both," and that conclusion is
astounding for a group of 55 leading men of the day who "participated
in the formulation of a reputed deathless document" and are revered
in classrooms and society as larger-than-life icons.
The Gorgeous Convention
Lundberg stared off saying
"The constitutional convention of 1787, an historical event of
first-class importance, was itself an entirely routine, utterly uninspiring
political caucus....it produced absolutely no prodigies of statecraft,
no wonders of political (judgment), no vaulting philosophies, no Promethean
vistas." In point of fact, as already stressed and repeated, what
happened contradicts all we've been "indoctrinated from ears to
toes" to believe that's pure nonsense. Lundberg called the main
fantasy the popular conception that the Constitution is "a document
of salvation....a magic talisman." The central achievement of the
convention, and a big one, (at least until 1861) was the cobbling together
of disparate and squabbling states into a union that held together tenuously
for over seven decades but not actually until Appomattox "at bayonet
point."
As mentioned above, the delegates
came to Philadelphia merely to amend the unwieldy Articles of Confederation
so what it did was, "strictly viewed, illegal." The finished
product emerged as an amalgam of the existing Maryland, New York and
Massachusetts constitutions dating respectively from 1776, 1777 and
1790, the latter one written almost entirely by John Adams in a few
days. Even though he was abroad in London at the time, the finished
Constitution was largely the product of his earlier work. Of those attending,
no individual theorist dominated proceedings, but two dominant personalities
held things together as its "living core." Without the force
of their presence, Lundberg explained, the whole process "would
almost surely have foundered."
Those men were George Washington,
the larger-than- life victorious general of the revolution, and "Great
Man" Robert Morris, the JP Morgan-type figure who later went bust
because even financial whizards can succumb to excess greed. Gouverneur
Morris also was prominent in the proceedings while Madison and Hamilton,
as already explained, were virtual unknowns.
Lundberg called the convention
"very much a prefabricated group affair" with internal differences
over concentrating power in the President or Congress. Then, there were
the "tight nationalizers, those generally wanting a national government,
and lastly in the minority "states-righters" believing no
state power should be surrendered to a federal authority. "As for
flat-out democrats," said Lundberg, "there were none in sight."
In terms of what they achieved, he called it "Old Wine in a Fancy
New Bottle" with a new name under new management. The purpose of
the convention was to gain formal approval for what the leading power
figures wanted and then get their creation rammed through the state
ratification process to make it the law of the land. On that score,
and after much wheeling and dealing, they achieved mightily.
The convention began in May,
went on through three phases for 120 days, and concluded in September
after dozens of parliamentary-type votes to postpone, reconsider, amend,
etc. with a document produced and turned over to a committee of detail
in late July. The final phase ran from August 6 to September 17, nine
states were needed for ratification with the larger, more populous ones,
granting concessions to the small ones to win the day.
Several scenarios or plans
were proposed, one of which was the Virginia Plan envisioning a central
national government with a bicameral legislature that, of course, was
adopted. All the plans were "strongly rightist" or conservative.
Members of the lower house were to be elected by the people and those
in the upper body by members of the lower one. That became the law and
stayed that way until the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, allowed
the people of each state to elect their own senators.
Also proposed was a chief
executive, a national judiciary with a Supreme Court at the top, and
provisions for admitting new states with republican governments in them
all. In addition, the finished Constitution included proposals for amendments
and much else including terms of office and staggered elections to prevent
too many officials being unseated at the same time. The final product
was what one academic observer called a "bundle of compromises"
from beginning to end.
Lundberg described the delegates
as "flinty hard-liners, determined to have their way, never to
yield on anything substantial....willing to make purely political compromises
(over) the means of carrying on government (but) adamantly resistant....when
it came to (its) ends." Those were primarily economic and social,
and those were left as they were when ties with Great Britain were cut.
Thinking then was much like
today with provisions in the Constitution targeting the discontented.
Congress was empowered to raise revenue through taxation, always hitting
the less advantaged hardest. It was authorized to borrow money without
limit meaning the people would have to service the debt. It was given
power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce assuring the rich
their interests would be served, and much more. In sum, the document
created "was the means by which the traditional establishment....was
re-establishing itself" leaving out of the mix the interests of
the "common man (who) in point of fact was going to be allowed
to remain....common (with) the Constitution, contrary to political blarney
(offering) him no bonuses for it."
Lundberg titled one sub-section:
"Down with the People." In it, he caught the mood of the delegates
as expressed by Roger Sherman of Connecticut who said "The people
should have as little to do as may be about the government." Elbridge
Gerry then denounced the evils stemming from "the excess of democracy,"
and debating delegates drubbed democracy and "the people"
repeatedly. That's how Alexander Hamilton saw things in his view of
"mankind in toto (being) wholly depraved" disagreeing with
Thomas Paine's notion of government being depraved and people being
inherently good. Paine wasn't a delegate so he had no input into the
proceedings and couldn't argue against the central interest of property
as a requirement for voting and holding office.
Even Jefferson accepted this
idea but hated the word enough to use another expression for it in the
Declaration of Independence he authored. His substitute language for
"property" was "the pursuit of happiness," meaning
the same thing. While Jefferson abhorred that "word," the
attending delegates (Madison and Hamilton among them) found it their
"favorite (one), often brought to the fore as a matter of deepest
concern." Also brought up was the "minority," but not
"any minority or all minorities. It was the minority of the opulent."
The far-sighted among them
foresaw a bonanza coming from the revolution that came about when the
states passed confiscation acts, putting properties up for sale at bargain
prices, still only affordable to the affluent. It sounds very much like
the way corporate predators planned to pillage and plunder Iraq and
have done a pretty good job of it.
There was also plenty of
graft to go around, again just like in Iraq and at home as well. Lundberg
noted "the other big bonanza of the revolution was the trans-Allegheny
domains in which patriot speculators made and lost fortunes." The
well-off had their eyes on thousands of parcels of land and buildings
wrested from their lawful owners. They also wanted to assure that never
happened to them.
Then there was the ratification
process itself that turned out to be a tussle as soon as the Constitution
was sent to Congress. Lundberg reviewed the arduous give and take process
of compromise that finally got the document passed by 13 states with
three others rejecting it.
This was when adopting the
Bill of Rights made the difference. The ones adopted in the first 10
amendments weren't for "the people," nowhere in sight, but
to provide them to property owners who wanted:
-- prohibitions against quartering
troops in their property,
-- unreasonable searches
and seizures there as well,
-- the right to have state
militias protect them,
-- the right of people to
bear arms, but not the way the 2nd Amendment is today interpreted,
-- the rights of free speech,
the press, religion, assembly and petition, all to serve monied and
propertied interests alone - not "The People,"
-- due process of law with
speedy public trials, and
-- various other provisions
worked out through compromise to become our acclaimed Bill of Rights.
Two additional amendments were proposed but rejected by the majority.
They would have banned monopolies and standing armies, matters of great
enormity that might have made a huge difference thereafter. We'll never
know for sure.
Lundberg stressed the importance
of the amendments adopted. Without them, the movement for a second convention
likely would have prevailed that might have derailed the whole process
or greatly changed the Constitution's structure. That possibility had
to be avoided at all costs and was by this compromise that had nothing
to do with granting rights to "The People."
Government Free Style
Lundberg destroyed the popular
myth of a government constrained by constitutional checks and balances.
In fact, it can and repeatedly has done anything judged expedient, with
or without popular approval, and within or outside the law of the land.
In this respect, it's no different than most others able to operate
the same way and often do. It's done through "the narrowest possible
interpretations of the Constitution," but it's free to "operate
further afield under broader or fanciful official interpretations"
with history recording numerous examples.
Many presidents operated
this way. Lundberg noted Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Wilson, T. and F.
Roosevelt, Jackson, could have named Lincoln, and didn't know about
Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton and, most of all, GW Bush when his book was
written.
A key point made is that
"government is completely autonomous, detached, in a realm of its
own" with its "main interest (being) economic (for the privileged)
at all times." In pursuing this aim, "constitutional shackles
and barriers (exist only) in the imaginations of many people" believing
in them. Regardless of law, custom or anything else, sitting US governments
have always been freelancing. They've been unresponsive to the public
interest, uncaring about the will and needs of the majority, and generally
able to finesse or ignore the law with ease as suits their purpose.
As Lundberg put it: "forget the mirage of government by the people,"
or the rule of law for that matter, with George Bush only being the
most extreme example of how things work in Washington all the time under
all Presidents.
Lundberg went on to explain
the Constitution effectively confers unlimited powers on the government.
He cited Article I, Section 8, Sub-section 18 allotting to Congress
power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested
by this Constitution....or any department or officer thereof."
It's up to government, of course, to decide what's "necessary"
and "proper" meaning the sky's the limit under the concept
of sovereignty. The power of government is effectively limited only
"by the boundaries of possibility." Special considerable powers
are then afforded the President, dealt with in a separate section below,
and another on the Supreme Court.
Lundberg explained how the
"three divisions of the American government operate under the immoderately
celebrated system of checks and balances" with the framers believing
too much power in the hands of one person or group of persons was a
potential setup for tyranny. Lundberg believed the theory was false,
used the British model to make his case, but he never met George Bush
who might have given him pause.
In Britain, the legislature
and executive are inextricably linked, a single House of Commons runs
the government, the upper House of Lords is only advisory, the courts
can only apply the law the legislature hands them, all laws passed become
part of the constitution, and new elections are generally called if
a sitting government loses a vote of confidence.
In the British parliamentary
system, the government consists of a committee of the House of Commons
called the Cabinet presided over by a prime minister elected by his
party members. He and all cabinet members are elected members of parliament
(MPs) and can be voted in or out in any general election with all members
standing at the same time. It's a vastly different and much fairer system
overall than the convoluted American model even though, in theory, a
British prime minister has much more control of the parliament than
a US president has over the Congress with two parties and numerous disparate
interests.
In practice, many US presidents
get their way, despite the obstacles, and George Bush gets nearly everything
he wants, takes it when it's not offered, and hardly ever faces congressional
objection. The section below on the power of the presidency shows how
the Constitution makes it so easy to do with Presidents, like Bush,
taking full advantage on top of all the enormous powers he has under
the law.
Britain has another interesting
feature unheard of in Washington that would be refreshing to have. Once
a week, there's a question period when the prime minister and his cabinet
are held to account by the opposition and must answer truthfully or
pretty close to it, at least in theory. Also, theoretically, a minister
is supposed to face certain expulsion if an untruth stated is learned.
In the US, in contrast, Presidents routinely lie to Congress, the public
and maybe themselves to get away with anything they wish. They face
no penalty doing it, under normal circumstances, with exceptions popping
up occasionally like for Richard Nixon's serious lying and smoking gun
evidence to prove it and Bill Clinton's inconsequential kind that was
no one else's business but his own.
Lundberg then reviewed the
labyrinthine US system the framers devised under the Roman maxim of
"divide and rule" as follows:
-- a powerful (and at times
omnipotent) chief executive at the top;
-- a bicameral Congress with
a single member in the upper chamber able to subvert all others in it
through the power of the filibuster (meaning pirate in Spanish);
-- a committee system ruled
mostly by seniority or a by political powerbroker;
-- delay and circumlocution
deliberately built into the system;
-- a separate judiciary with
power to overrule the Congress and Executive;
-- staggered elections to
assure continuity by preventing too many of the bums being thrown out
together;
-- a two-party system with
multiple constituencies, especially vulnerable to corruption and the
power of big money that runs everything today making the whole system
farcical, dishonest and a democracy only in the minds of the deceived
and delusional.
This is a system under which
Lundberg characterized the US electorate - left, right and center -
as "the most bamboozled and surprised in the world" and leaves
voters "reduced to the condition of one of Pavlov's experimental
dogs - apathetic, inert, disinterested." It got Professor J. Allen
to say "A system better adapted to the purpose of the lobbyist
could not be devised," and that remark came long before the current
era with things in government totally out of control leading one to
wonder what Lundberg would say today if he were still living and commenting.
Court Over Constitution
Article III of the Constitution
establishes the Supreme Court saying only: "The judicial power
shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as
the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Congress
is explicitly empowered to regulate the Court, but, in fact, the Court
"seems to regulate Congress." Lundberg believed it was to
allow those unelected on it to be blamed for unpopular decisions getting
them off the hook. Congress, if it choose to, has the upper hand, and
even Court decisions on various issues only apply to a specific case
leaving broader interpretations to other rulings if they come.
As for the common notion
of "judicial review," it's unmentioned in the Constitution
nor did the convention authorize it. This concept is derived by deduction
from two separate parts of the Constitution: In Article VI, Section
2 saying the Constitution, laws, and treaties are the "supreme
Law of the Land" and judges are bound by them; then in Article
III, Section 1 saying judicial power applies to all cases implying judicial
review is allowed. Under this interpretation of the law, appointed judges
theoretically "have a power unprecedented in history - to annul
acts of the Congress and President."
Lundberg then reviewed some
notable examples of judicial power, first asserted in the famous Marbury
v. Madison case in 1803. It established the principle of "judicial
supremacy" articulated by Chief Justice John Marshall meaning the
Court is the final arbiter of what is or is not the law. He set a precedent
by voiding an act of Congress and the President. It put a brake on congressional
and presidential powers, theoretically, but Presidents like George Bush
act above the law by ignoring Congress and the Courts and usurping "unitary
executive" powers claiming the law is what he says it is. He gets
away with it because the other two branches do nothing to stop him.
In 1776 and at the time of
the convention, few in the country believed in judicial review with
theoreticians like Madison and James Wilson zealously opposed to it.
They wanted legislatures and the executive to be the sole judges of
their own constitutional powers. Lundberg then said "Judicial review....is
just one of the usages of the Constitution that sprung up in the course
of jockeying among the divisions, personalities and factions of government."
Lundberg then reviewed numerous
other notable Court cases, including the shameful Dred Scott decision
when claimant Scott, a slave, sued for his freedom on justifiable grounds
and lost due to the tenor of the times.
A few others were:
-- Fletcher v. Peck in 1810
that stabilized the law of property rights, especially regarding contracts
for the purchase of land;
-- Dartmouth College v Woodward
in 1819 with the Court holding charters of private corporations were
contracts and as such were protected by the contact clause;
-- McCulloch V Maryland also
in 1819 with the Court ruling a state couldn't tax the branch of a bank
established by an act of Congress;
-- Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824
when the Court upheld the supremacy of the United States over the states
in the regulation of interstate commerce;
-- Plessy v. Ferguson in
1896 with the Court affirming discrimination in public places;
-- a number of cases, including
US v. EC Knight Company in 1895, in which the Court vitiated the Sherman
Anti-Trust Act of 1890 while at the same time keeping "hot on the
trail of labor unions" as conspiracies in restraint of trade in
violation of Sherman in Loewe v. Lawler in 1908;
-- Santa Clara County v.
Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886 when Court reporter JC Bancroft Davis
wrote what the Court refused to refute, thereby granting corporations
the legal status of personhood under the 14th Amendment with all rights
and benefits accruing from it but none of the obligations. In this writer's
non-legal judgment, this decision above all others, adversely changed
the course of history most by opening the door to the kinds of unchecked
corporate power and abuses seen today. It stands as the most far-reaching,
abusive and long-standing of all harmful Court decisions now haunting
us.
Lundberg ended this chapter
with a section titled "The Corporate State" citing what's
pretty common knowledge today in the age of George Bush. The US is a
corporate-dominated society run by near-omnipotent figures within and
outside government. They believe in an "individualistic economy,"
with the law backing it, based on the inviolate principles of free private
enterprise, with them in charge of everything for their self-interested
gain. In a zero-sum society, it means their benefits harm the rest of
us, and that's pretty much the way things are today with things far
more out of control than when Lundberg wrote his book.
Even so, his comments pre-1980
observed how giant corporations arose "under the ministering hand
of government officials, especially in the courts (and there emerged)
wealthy dynasties of successful corporate intrepreneurs, insuring a
line of (future) Robber Barons." With the Constitution forbidding
"the granting of titles of nobility," corporate titans, in
fact, had all the "material substance pertaining to European nobility
(making) Money per se....ennobling in the American scheme."
Gross disparities in income
and personal wealth, far more out of proportion now than three decades
ago, are largely the result of these earlier events with government
and business conspiring to make them possible. Earlier, and especially
now, "successful wealthholders in almost every case had an omnipotent
lever at their service: the government, including Congress, the courts
and the chief executive." The constitutional story comes down to
a question of money and money arrangements - who gets it, how, why,
when, where, what for, and under what conditions. Also, who the law
leaves out.
This story has nothing whatever
to do with guaranteeing, as they say, life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness; establishing justice; upholding the rule of law equitably
for everyone; promoting the general welfare; or securing the blessings
of freedom for the general public unconsidered, unimportant and ignored
by the three branches of government serving monied and property interests
only, of which they are part.
This was how it was when
the Constitution was drafted, it stayed that way through the years,
and is written in stone today with Lundberg concluding "It seems
safe to say (this way of things) will never be rectified." Never
is a long time, hopefully on that count he's wrong, but how insightful
and penetrating he was on the constitutional story he revealed equisitely
so far with more below, beginning with the crucially important next
section. George Bush will love it if someone reads it to him or this
review.
The Veiled Autocrat
Lundberg's dominant theme
here is that the US President is the most powerful political official
on earth, bar none under any other system of government. "The office
he holds is inherently imperial," regardless of the occupant or
how he governs, and the Constitution confers this on him. Whereas under
the British model with the executive as a collectivity, the US system
"is absolutely unique, and dangerously vulnerable in many ways"
with one man in charge fully able to exploit his position. "The
American President," said Lundberg, stands "midway between
a collective executive and an absolute dictator (and in times of war
like now) becomes in fact quite constitutionally, a full-fledged dictator."
A single sentence, easily
passed over or misunderstood, constitutes the essence of presidential
power. It effectively grants the Executive near-limitless power, only
constrained to the degree he so chooses. It's from Article II, Section
1 reading: "The executive power shall be vested in a President
of the United States of America. Article II, Section 3 then almost nonchalantly
adds: "The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully
executed" without saying Presidents are virtually empowered to
make laws as well as execute them even though nothing in the Constitution
specifically permits this practice. More on that below.
Lundberg said the proper
way to understand the Constitution is to view it as a "symphony"
with big themes being like separate movements. Theme one in Article
I, Section 1 says "All legislative powers herein granted shall
be vested in a Congress of the United States." Theme two is the
dominant one on the Executive in Article II, Section 1 cited above.
The final movement or theme three deals with "The judicial power."
Lundberg then continued saying
"to understand the inner nature of the United States government
(the key question is) What is executive power? - aware all the time
that it is concentrated in the hands of one man." He also reviewed
how Presidents are elected "literally (by) electoral (unelected
by the public) dummies" in an Electoral College. The process or
scheme is a "long-acknowledged constitutional anomaly." They
can subvert the popular vote, never meet or consult like the College
of Cardinals does in Rome to elect a Pope, so, in fact, its use is "a
farce all the way."
Now to the issue of executive
power covered in Section 2. It's vast and frightening. The President:
-- is commander-in-chief
of the military and in this capacity is completely autonomous in peace
and a de facto dictator in war; although Article I, Section 8 grants
only Congress the right to declare war, the President, in fact, can
do it any time he wishes "without consulting anyone" and,
of course, has done it many times;
-- can grant commutations
or pardons except in cases of impeachment. Nixon resigned remember before
near-certain impeachment;
-- can make treaties that
become the law of the land, with the advice and consent of two-thirds
of the Senate (not ratification as commonly believed); can also terminate
treaties with a mere announcement as George Bush did renouncing the
important ABM Treaty with the former Soviet Union; in addition, and
with no constitutional sanction, he can rule by decree through executive
agreements with foreign governments that in some cases are momentous
ones like those made at Yalta and Potsdam near the end of WW II. While
short of treaties, they then become the law of the land.
-- can appoint administration
officials, diplomats, federal judges with Senate approval, that's usually
routine, or can fill any vacancy through (Senate) recess appointments;
can also discharge any appointed executive official other than judges
and statutory administrative officials;
--can veto congressional
legislation, with history showing through the book's publication, they're
sustained 96% of the time;
-- while Congress alone has
appropriating authority, only the President has the power to release
funds for spending by the executive branch or not release them;
-- Presidents also have a
huge bureaucracy at their disposal including powerful officials like
the Secretaries of Defense, State, Treasury and Homeland Security and
the Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department;
-- Presidents also command
center stage any time they wish. They can request and get national prime
time television for any purpose with guaranteed extensive post-appearance
coverage promoting his message with nary a disagreement with it on any
issue;
-- throughout history, going
back to George Washington, Presidents have issued Executive Orders (EOs)
although the Constitution "nowhere implicitly or explicitly gives
a President (the) power (to make) new law" by issuing "one-man,
often far-reaching" EOs. However, as Lundberg explained above,
the President has so much power he's virtually able to do whatever he
wishes, the only constraint on him being himself and how he chooses
to govern.
-- George Bush also usurped
"Unitary Executive" power to brazenly and openly declare what
this section makes clear - that the law is what he says it is. He proved
his intent in six and a half years in office by subverting congressional
legislation through his record-breaking number of unconstitutional "signing
statements" - affecting over 1132 law provisions through 147 separate
"statements," more than all previous Presidents combined.
In so doing, he expanded presidential power even beyond the usual practices
recounted above.
-- Presidents are, in fact,
empowered to do almost anything not expressively forbidden in the Constitution,
and very little there is; more importantly, with a little ingenuity
and a lot of license and chutzpah, the President "can make almost
any (constitutional) text mean whatever (he) wants it to mean"
so, in fact, his authority is practically absolute or plenary. And the
Supreme Court supports this notion as an "inherent power of sovereignty,"
according to Lundberg. He explained, if the US has sovereignty, it has
all powers therein, and the President, as the sole executive, can exercise
them freely without constitutional authorization or restraint.
In effect, "the President....is
virtually a sovereign in his own person." Compared to the power
of the President, Congress is mostly "a paper tiger, easily soothed
or repulsed." The courts, as well, can be gotten around with a
little creative exercise of presidential power, and in the case of George
Bush, at times just ignoring their decisions when they disagree with
his. As Lundberg put it: "One should never under-estimate the power
of the President....nor over-estimate that of the Supreme Court. The
supposed system of equitable checks and balances does not exist in fact
(because Congress and the courts don't effectively use their constitutional
authority)....the separation in the Constitution between legislative
and the executive is wholly artificial."
Further, it's pure myth that
the government is constrained by limited powers. Quite the opposite
is true "which at the point of execution (reside in) one man,"
the President. In addition, "Until the American electorate creates
effective political parties (which it never has done), Congress....will
always be pretty much under (Presidents') thumb(s)." Under the
"American constitutional system (the President) is very much a
de facto king."
Lundberg cited examples such
as Franklin Roosevelt, considered one of the nation's three greatest
Presidents along with Lincoln and Washington. He "waged (illegal)
naval warfare against Germany before Pearl Harbor." During the
war, he stretched his powers to the limit and functioned as a dictator.
Truman atom-bombed Japan twice gratuitously and criminally with the
war over and the Japanese negotiating surrender. He also went around
Congress to wage a war of aggression on North Korea when its forces
attacked the South after repeated US-directed southern incursions against
the North. Lyndon Johnson attacked North Vietnam February 7, 1965 using
the contrived August, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as justification
even though there was none. The examples are endless, Presidents take
full advantage, and nearly always get away with it.
The only thing Presidents
can't do, in theory, is openly violate the law. But since he can interpret
it creatively, it's up to Congress and the High Court to hold him to
account, and that rarely happens. Nixon was forced to resign to avoid
impeachment because there was smoking gun evidence on tape to convict
him on top of his being roundly disliked making it easier to act. But
what he did overall wasn't unusual except that he paid the price for
it.
As Lundberg put it, "highhandedness,
unpalatable doings (and) scandals" are part and parcel of politics
from top to bottom in the system at all levels of government. Jethro
Lieberman showed this type behavior "is a steady occupation at
every level of government" in his pre-Watergate book - "How
the Government Breaks the Law." At the executive level, he showed
government proceeds "pretty much ad libitum outside the stipulated
rules at all levels." In other words, the nation was always infested
with Nixons at all levels, but most got away with their offenses and
today that's truer than ever.
As for impeaching and convicting
a President for malfeasance, Article II, Section 4 states it can only
be for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Based on the historical record, it's near-impossible to do with no President
ever having been removed from office this way, and only two were impeached,
both unjustly.
Lundberg quoted John Adams
on this issue saying he was right believing it would take a national
convulsion to remove a President by impeachment, it hasn't happened
up to now, which is not to say it never will with no President more
deserving of the "distinction" than the current sitting one
who almost makes Richard Nixon look saintly by comparison. It's long
past the time to smash the inviolate notion of presidential invincibility,
and given the growing groundswell, it could happen against all odds.
If it does, it will be a first, and if he were still living, it would
also make Lundberg rethink his final comment on the subject that it's
"virtually impossible to remove a President (and) His security
in office....is but one facet of his power." Still remember, an
exception, when it happens, only proves the rule, so Lundberg's assessment
is still valid.
Presidential power since
WW II is also reinforced by their own private army through the vast
US intelligence apparatus and much more. The CIA is part of it and today
functions mainly as a presidential praetorian guard and global mafia-style
hit squad operating freely outside the law as a powerful rogue agency
backed by an undisclosed budget likely topping $50 billion annually.
And since January, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security functions
as a national Gestapo about as free to do as it pleases as CIA that
also operates outside its mandate on US soil along with the equally
repressive FBI. They mainly target disaffected political groups and
individuals publicly standing against government policies with enough
influence to make a difference.
The Risks in One-Man Rule
Lundberg quoted noted political
scientist Herman Finer (1898 - 1969) again reinforcing what's covered
above that "there is (virtually) no limit to the Chief Executive's
power." In six and a half years in office, George Bush proved he
was right and then some. Finer, even in an earlier less complex era,
portrayed the President as overweighted with responsibilities while
having enough concentrated power in his hands to make irresponsible,
rash or dangerous decisions with potentially immense repercussions.
Finer proposed a way to improve
the presidency by relieving one man of more responsibility than anyone
can handle alone and minimize incompetency or villainy at the same time.
His idea was for a collective and supportive leadership formed around
the President, including a cabinet of 11 Vice-Presidents elected in
combination with the chief executive every four years.
The framers structured the
government to frustrate and confuse the electorate. They did it through
staggered elections to avoid a clearly visible line of authority as
well as maintain a continuity of governance whatever else the public
might prefer. Finer wanted to correct these kinds of faults in the current
system. He also understood that Presidents are plucked out of almost
anywhere because of their perceived electability, not from their ability
to govern effectively in an office enough to overwhelm anyone no matter
how able and dedicated.
His idea was for Presidents
and Vice-Presidents to be required to have served in either house of
Congress a minimum four years to learn how Washington operates that
can be quite different from a state or the military where former generals
of note, like Dwight Eisenhower and others, went on to become very ordinary
or failed Presidents. Only George Washington was the exception proving
the rule, and being a new nation's first President (governing a population
smaller than Chicago today) was quite different from how things are
now.
Finer also wanted the President
and his cabinet to sit in the House of Representatives to make them
more visible and responsible like the British model. His main concern
was that too much responsibility lay with one man, with too much power
to discharge it, and far too often that man turns out to be incompetent,
venal or both. Under the present system, the President is near-omnipotent,
operates in secrecy, is most often the wrong one chosen, and is able
to spring surprises at will, often with potentially disastrous implications
like today under George Bush.
He was also concerned about
Presidents having secret ailments, impediments or becoming seriously
ill enough to be unable to govern yet still be able to retain the power
of the office. Woodrow Wilson was a case in point as he suffered a severe
stroke and paralysis on his left side 17 months before his second term
of office expired. His principle biographer said he was "either
gravely ill (his last year in office) or severely incapacitated at the
time the country needed his leadership most."
Wilson never should have
been allowed to run at all as it was known seven years earlier he was
a bad health risk. He did it because the information was concealed from
the public even though Wilson himself thought he might die at any moment,
was blind in one eye, suffered episodes of depression, dyspepsia, colds,
headaches, dizziness and feelings of dullness and numbness in one hand
the result of diseased nerves. In short, he was a physical and emotional
basket case running the country and unable to do it much of the time
and not all late in his second term.
Franklin Roosevelt is another
prime example. At age 39, eleven years before being elected President,
he was stricken with what was thought to be polio and was permanently
paralyzed from the waist down. Yet, he kept his condition secret and
(before the age of television) was never photographed in a wheelchair
in public. In his third term, he was advised not to run for a fourth
time because of his health. He did, of course, and won, but in 1941
his blood pressure was high and rising, his heart was enlarged, and
he suffered from congestive heart failure from which he finally expired
in April, 1945. By early 1944, he was in marked decline and a dying
man.
With the most calamitous
war in history in its late stages and the power of the chief executive
most needed, Lundberg described FDR as "a burned-out matchstick"
barely able to function. It showed in some of his irrational decisions
at the end. Yet, he was still in charge as commander-in-chief and the
most powerful leader on earth as the war in Europe and Asia still raged,
and he alone was calling the shots.
With future Presidents just
as vulnerable to serious health problems, Lundberg's view was as the
presidency is now structured, "the American people are sitting
on a bomb....likely to explode (unexpectedly) at any moment." The
problem, he said, isn't just about an imperial presidency, but an "anarchic,"
"wild-cat" or "Protean" one under which "anything
can happen." Drawing an analogy to a modern-day corporation, he
explained the obvious. No large publicly-owned corporation would ever
operate this way. It would never put its chips on a single person or
"choose its chief executive (as) nonchalantly as does the United
States."
Wilson and Roosevelt weren't
the only Presidents who served in office while experiencing serious
illness. Eisenhower suffered two heart attacks along with other health
problems, and Kennedy "was a walking bundle of ailments" with
much of it concealed. Lyndon Johnson, as well, was in trouble from the
start, suffered a massive heart attack before winning national office,
and (unknown to the public) was never judged physically or mentally
sound while President.
His actions proved it and
give pause to what may be afflicting George Bush, kept secret from the
public. A disastrous six and a half year record conclusively shows this
man is unfit to serve in the nation's highest office or in any responsible
capacity. Because he's there taking full advantage, all humanity is
held hostage to what's coming next at the hands of a venal, incompetent
and possibly mentally unbalanced or deranged US chief executive.
For all the above-stated
reasons along with the examples just cited, Finer believed the office
of the President was ill-structured and should be drastically changed
for the betterment of the country (and all humanity). As far as achieving
any of what he proposed or any other type broad brush makeover of the
system, Lundberg believed it's near-impossible. Doing it would involve
amending the Constitution and in a wholesale way. With certain opposition
in enough states, there's almost no chance these type changes can happen.
How did this happen, and
were the framers at fault, Lundberg asks? To some degree, but not entirely.
It's pure fantasy to imagine any group of men, even if they'd been the
most talented and far-sighted, could have met in 1787 to produce a Constitution,
elaborate, detailed and ingenious enough to "anticipate and provide
for every facet and contingency of the nation" that would eventually
encompass 50 states and grow to a diverse population exceeding 300 million.
It was impossible then and now everywhere. Furthermore, they made the
amending process extremely hard to do even though it was subsequently
accomplished 17 times after the Bill of Rights was added to get the
Constitution ratified in the first place.
At a much simpler time, the
framers didn't understand that governments fundamentally act in their
own self-interest whatever the law says. The Constitution complicates
it for them by consisting of a "set of incomplete prescriptions,
ostensibly frozen in time except as subject to an almost impossible
amending process." So to get around the problem or ignore it, governments
function ad libitum with one man at the top calling the shots even though
this isn't what the framers had in mind.
So all the "patriotic
praise....heaped upon the Constitution in schoolbooks....is simple nonsense,
pap." How well the country is served at any time depends on the
pure luck of the draw to get a really first-rate capable leader as President.
It rarely happens, and Lundberg cites only the three example of Washington,
Lincoln and Roosevelt. None of the others matched them, and far too
many were abysmal failures or worse with one candidate just cited standing
out prominently as the overwhelming choice for the worst and most dangerous
ever.
On top of all the other flaws
and faults, "the people" were deliberately and willfully left
out of the process proving "democracy is not recognized in the
Constitution," shocking as that notion is to most people reading
these words. Lundberg had hopes, however, that a future time would come
that would embrace constitutional improvement on a significant scale.
As he put it, this document, "as it stands, is by no means the
system the United States is ultimately fated to embrace (forever). For
there is a great deal of room for improvement - a great deal" (indeed,
and then some).
A Renewed Call for a Second
Convention
With the need so much greater
now than 30 years ago, in the age of George Bush, it's time we went
about the process Lundberg advocated in the title of this section. Doing
it, however, is infinitely harder than achieving relatively simpler
amendment tinkering here and there, even though Article V allows for
such a procedure. With everything in mind from what's covered above,
it's easy to believe, whatever the Constitution allows, convening a
convention for constitutional change is near-impossible given the way
the country is now run, by whom and most importantly for whom - the
immensely powerful monied interests sitting in corporate boardrooms
running the country, the world and our lives.
They've got everything arranged
their way, it's taken decades to get it, they engineer elections to
get the best "democracy" they can buy, and it always turns
out that way, more or less. The bankers and Wall Street even own the
Federal Reserve giving them the most powerful instrument of government
- the right to print and control the nation's money supply and charge
interest on it. By so doing, the government (and the public) must pay
interest on its own money that wouldn't happen if it printed its own
as Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says only the government
can do.
It relinquished that power
when Woodrow Wilson betrayed the public by signing the most disastrous
piece of legislation in the nation's history willfully after Congress
passed the Federal Reserve Act in the dead of night December 23, 1913
with many of its members away for the holiday and most others unaware
of what, in fact, they were signing.
Today, with a virtual stranglehold
on state power, in league with Democrat and Republican governments in
their pockets, why would corporate giants ever give up what took so
long for them to get. They never will, Lundberg knew it, too, and said
the chance for real change from a second convention "is almost
nil....if (these pages) have shown anything, (it's clear as day) the
government (backed by the power of money) controls the Constitution,"
not the other way around or "the people" either, left out
completely from the start.
Lundberg didn't say it but
surely believed achieving the kinds of democratic changes he wanted
would have to come from the bottom up. Only an aroused public, en masse
and undeterred, fed up with the state of things and committed can make
it happen. Impossible as it seems, history at times surprises, and if
it does this time, it will be the greatest one ever....and not a moment
too soon.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen Saturdays to the
Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com at noon
US central time.
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