[lbo-talk] Voter fraud?

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Mon Oct 27 15:03:33 PDT 2008


``Who was it that claimed/observed that US cities have typically gotten their first black mayors right as their economies hit the skids? Any truth to this?'' Joseph Catron

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Don't know the answer. But the idea sounds very likely accurate.

It also reminded me of a thought I had once long ago while I was reading Roman history in a Man and Western Civ course. Near the end of the Roman Republic, more and more plebian political parties were gaining power in Rome itself. As these factions gain an occasional sympathetic office of Tribune of the Republican government and began to enact reforms, the Senate would block them, or have them assassinated like the Gracchus brothers, or the Senate would invent a new department with slightly different, but mostly the same duties and then appoint a public office holder of their own, with more connections to the Senate and more representative of the upper class wishes. The political effect was to keep political power, connections and wealth away from the politically active plebian parties.

The Gracchus brothers are the most famous of these attempts to make the Republic more representative of the common citizen and their interests.

This history has a scary sort of modern ring to it. Here's the wiki page on Tiberius Gracchus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_Gracchus

The essential lesson for class war is just as `We' gain any power, the elites will do what the Roman Senate did, block the legal reforms, move authority and power to a different branch or agency or level of government, and or ruin (or have killed) any popular leadership--or of course do all of the above.

CG



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