by Alton H. Maddox, Jr.

The “Founding Fathers” penned the U.S. Constitution to the detriment of enslaved Africans who had hoped that the words of the Declaration of Independence were universal and would apply to chattel slaves who had died for this country during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.

“Slavery” itself was avoided in the U.S. Constitution but at least nine provisions of the “Supreme Law of the Land” supported the institution of slavery. Only wealthy, white men were permitted to attend the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, PA. These physiocrats established a timocracy.

Although enslaved Africans were disenfranchised under the U.S. Constitution, slaveholders were enhanced politically. States were allowed to count enslaved Africans as three-fifths of a person for political representation in the House of Representatives. This would give slaveholders in the South greater rights in political representation than white “citizens” in the North.

By 2008, the Democratic Party was able to assemble a coalition of historically-oppressed groups to militate against the “Dixiecrats” and put President Barack Obama in the White House. He was re-elected in 2012 despite the opposition by white males, the original citizens of the United States.

President Lyndon B. Johnson was a visionary. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party constitutes a duopoly. Until 1948, the South was solidly in the hands of the Democratic Party while Blacks were divided politically. Blacks in the North were mostly enrolled in the Democratic Party. Blacks in the South were mostly enrolled in the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party was founded by President Thomas Jefferson and President Andrew Jackson. These “mulattoes” were slaveholders. Their political voice under the First Amendment was the Democratic Party. While “Dixiecrats” started to invade the Republican Party after 1948, the Democratic Party in the South started to attract Blacks.

Among other things, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the armed forces. The Democratic Party also established a rule to ban racial segregation in its national headquarters. Truman also proposed a law to outlaw lynching and to establish a federal commission on civil rights. This was too much for “Dixiecrats”.

During the presidential election of 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy outflanked his Republican challenger, Vice President Richard Nixon, by making a phone call to judicial officials in Georgia to secure the release of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. from jail. Blacks in the South started, immediately, to flee the Republican Party.

After the assassination of President Kennedy, his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson upped the ante by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act pf 1965 and the Immigration Act of 1965. This legislative package would attract diverse, despised groups to the Democratic Party. Its new message was “civil rights”.

When white males fled the Democratic Party after 1948 and invaded the Republican Party, it was short-term gain and long-term pain. Now the Republican Party is stuck on stupid. Times have changed but the Republican Party has only changed uniforms with a mission to dismantle the “Party of Lincoln”.

It got worse when the Tea Party took over the reins of the Republican Party and announced its advocacy of “original intent”. They have set their sights on 1787 while everyone else is looking forward to 2013 and beyond. Groups that have suffered discrimination at the hands of white males are fighting back. They possess the White House for another four years.

Today, the U.S. Constitution rules over diverse demographics. Different groups have sought to exercise free speech but also political expression. This right of political expression has been aided by the right to criticize public officials under New York Times v. Sullivan. Republicans seek to return to a homogeneous society and the Alien and Sedition Act.

The U.S. Constitution has been turned on its head. The inmates have taken control of the asylum. Xenophobia has been diminished under the Constitution. “Strangers” are now in control of the asylum. This appears to be the apparent future of the United States. White males constitute a shrinking base and they will fight back soon.

Once upon a time, white females were allies of white men even though those men were not only misogynistic but also misogamistic. White women are finally pulling back from this abuse by white males and are expressing their views at the ballot box. President Obama was the recipient of a sufficient number of those votes.

The U.S. Constitution is also ergophobic for white males. For example, in 1776, a law was passed allowing for a white male to send a Black male in his place to fight in the Continental Army. The Civil War became a war of the poor since wealthy white males could buy themselves out of fighting.

Soon after President James Buchanan’s inaugural speech, the U.S. Supreme Court would decide Dred Scott and President James Buchanan would send federal troops into the Utah territory to remove Brigham Young as its territorial governor. Mormons had sought to establish a theocracy in a slaveholding territory.

In Reynolds v. United States, in 1879, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that polygamy should not be enforced under the U.S. Constitution. This was a blow to Mormonism. The federal government would not accept Utah as a state unless it would condemn polygamy. Mitt Romney’s grandfather went to Mexico to practice polygamy.

The Supreme Court decided Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. In the same year, the United States would admit Utah as a state after it rejected the practice of polygamy. Otherwise, Utah would have become, in effect, a theocracy. Mormons controlled state government and the press.

Soon after Bill Clinton had defeated Bush 41, the Wall Street Journal reported that the international bond market had met to give thumbs down to the re-election campaign of Bush 41. This would allow Clinton to defeat Bush 41. It suggests that the “Fourth Estate” and the bond market are an unbeatable combination.

This would also suggest that President Bill Clinton still has the support of the bond market and it was transferable to President Obama. It would seem unlikely that Gov. Mitt Romney was attractive to foreign markets especially given his marriage to the Tea Party and his reception in Europe this past summer.

After I arrived in Georgia to visit my aunt who was in a coma, I had to travel from inside Atlanta to the outskirts of the city on I-20 West. I decided to take the local streets back to my destination in Atlanta. On the outskirts of Atlanta, there is the Fulton County Airport which actually sits beyond the city limits of Atlanta.

There are these two gas stations near the county airport but outside Atlanta’s city limits. At one gas station (QT) the price of a gallon of regular, unleaded gas was $3.34 on Halloween 2012. At the nearby CITGO gas station, the price of unleaded regular gasoline was $3.27. These gas stations are within two miles of Atlanta’s city limits.

As soon as I entered the city limits of Atlanta, the price of a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline jumped to $3.47 per gallon for Black residents. The price of gasoline went higher as you traveled into the “hood”. About the time I reached my destination, the price of the same gasoline per gallon had leaped to $3.59 per gallon. This is a stretch of only five miles from the airport.

The arbitrary leap in gasoline prices resulted from either price discrimination which is in violation of the Clayton Act or price-fixing which is in violation of the Sherman Act. These are anti-trust violations and they are subject to legal action including treble damages in addition to Black selected officials not being awake at the switch.

The impoverished Black residents of Atlanta are paying a stiff price for having no political representation. They are entitled to representation by elected officials. They have been assigned Black selected officials who are either ignorant of the law or indifferent to it. Ignorance, indifference or a combination of both carry exorbitant costs for voters and non-voters alike.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy”. This is a stealth form of genocide. Politics is a weapon which should be employed to stop governmental rip-offs. Voting is one of its weapons. The weakest weapon is “plantation politics”. Its use will discourage the use of voting. Blacks are disenchanted because they have chosen the weakest weapon to protect themselves.

Three months ago, I urged all Blacks in New York City to cast an anti-incumbent ballot for state and local offices. It could have been applied to federal offices except that I was afraid that this advice would be employed to suggest that I favored Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama. Romney is beholden to the Tea Party which advocates “original intent”.

The weapon of choice for Election Day should be the write-in vote. This vote can arise out of the will of the people instead of political deals made in backrooms by unscrupulous politicians for the Democratic Party. For maximum effect, a nominating convention should have preceded the General Election on November 6. A nominating convention is beyond my wallet. It requires group action.

This is an interim remedy, however. The Freedom Party should be fully operational by 2014. It should hit the ground running in 2013. There is a need for political and continuing education in the Black community. Marches are anachronistic. Blacks must vote with their hands and not with their feet.

Most Black voters are simply limited to engaging in voter registration. Very few Black voters receive voter education. Political education is out of the question. These are building blocks for an independent, political party. Within the last year, I have already written more than 400 articles in one year on myriad topics under the rubric of political education.

New York is not required to provide either voter education nor political education to Blacks. It is not in the best interest of Black selected officials for Black constituents to be educated voters especially when Black selected officials have no more that a voter education themselves. See the “Miseducation of the Negro.”

Political education requires a basic political education in addition to continuing education. This education is a cost-saving device which puts more money in the pockets of educated voters from political educators and not from political pawns. Money saved enhances living standards. An understanding of Blueprint for Black Power by Dr. Amos Wilson is a prerequisite or a “must read” for political education.

Blacks who are ergophiliacs should be concerned about both prices and wages. In both situations, Blacks are exploited by unscrupulous merchants and employers. They pick our pockets. In addition, Blacks are cheated out of a substantial share of the municipal and state budgets. Protection of prices and wages amount to “job creation”.

Cong. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. said that if Blacks constitute a fourth of the city’s population they should enjoy a fourth of any municipal budget. In New York City Blacks should have enjoyed $16 billion from the basic municipal budget of $64 billion in 2012-2013. This year, the Black cut was no more than $1 billion. Whites took the rest. This accounts for our impoverished communities. They are being soaked. We can do better.

Plantation politics is killing us because we lack a knowledge of political education. Whites are engaged in politics 24/7 three hundred sixty-five days a year. At best, Blacks only make two trips to polling booths per year. Politics only help persons who are engaged in an organization. Membership in churches and mosques do not qualify. There is a separation of church and state under the First Amendment. We are in the church but outside the state.

Maynard Jackson became the first Black mayor of Atlanta, GA in 1973 and he shaped the political agenda for Blacks in the city. This agenda included arresting rampant police brutality, implementing an affirmative action plan and increasing municipal contracts for Blacks. It did not hurt that Atlanta was constructing a major airport. Blacks benefited from its construction.

In the meantime, Blacks failed to build a political organization to sustain economic growth after Maynard Jackson had to step down after eight years because of term-limits. Politics is of limited utility to a people who refuse to build, sustain and finance an independent, political organization or political party. Maynard later came back for a four-year term in 1989. Blacks in Atlanta went into a political tailspin after 1993.

An independent, political party is needed in New York City for several reasons. The practices of “Black selected officials” and “plantation politics” must come to an end. There must be the fashioning of a Black, political agenda. Political and economic growth for Blacks must not only be sustained but must also be fostered through well-connected organizations.

These goals and the funds to finance them must start forthwith and especially on November 10, 2012 at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A political cartel is necessary to seize the political reins of New York City. This will probably include Blacks, Latinos and Asians. The common thread for these groups is xenophobia by whites.

Acting alone, Blacks should acquire at least twenty percent of the political levers in New York City. A political agenda should be fashioned on or before January 15, 2013. Aggressive voter registration, campaign finance, voter education and political education should coincide with the formation of an organization. These are the building blocks for the Freedom Party.

Black Atlanta is dying because of ineffective, Black leadership and the lack of a political organization to sustain the political direction of the late Mayor Maynard Jackson. Black selected officials and their constituents are being hampered because of “plantation politics”. The case for a political organization was made by Thomas Jefferson who stated: “The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance”.

Too honest for the White Press and too black for much of today’s Black Press; bullet columnist Alton Maddox upsets the same people and status quo as he did as an uncompromising Defense Attorney. He is also a founding member of the Freedom Party. Please sign his Petition to save “Like It Is.” Contact him at c/o UAM P.O. BOX 35 BRONX, NY 10471