IS DEMOCRACY TANTAMOUNT TO FREEDOM?

Is democracy tantamount to freedom?

We hear freedom and democracy together so often that they seem to be conjoined. But, history has shown that they are not conjoined, but are usually antagonists.

The United States, itself, is a good example. While this representative form of government purports to be a democracy, black men in the South could not vote, nor stand for office, before the "Freedom War," 1861-1865. Yet, those enslaved blacks were counted as 3/5's of a man for Congressional representation purposes in the South. Presumably, blacks in the North, prior to the "Freedom War," did not count at all, as they are not even indirectly mentioned, constitutionally.

So, in America, before the "Freedom War," there was neither freedom nor democracy, notwithstanding a representative form of government and a judicial system based upon the English common law, facetiously fair and disparately equal.

Even after the gains realized by blacks, immediately following the Freedom War, in the form of freedom from physical slavery, and the right to vote, a secret political compromise between Republicans and Democrats, northern and southern white men respectively, erstwhile adversaries, allowed a recrudescence or re-victimization of blacks, economically, politically, legally, educationally and socially in the South in exchange for the White House's power and privileges.

Lynching, bombing, burning, indiscriminate killing was the price paid by blacks seeking to exercise their newly acquired Constitutional "rights" for about 100 years.This denial of rights continued through the 1960's.

The Courts, wholly captive to the political process, for appointments, budgets and benefits, were of little help, usually conforming to the prevailing political winds favoring black repression, behind billowing clouds of sophistry and of legalistic legerdemain.

Both Hitler's Nazi Germany and the Union of South Africa's Apartheid fascists emulated America's own "white supremacy" doctrine, as did Italy's Mussolini.

Recently, the popularly elected government in Palestine was disrespected and undermined, because we disagreed with who won! This pattern had repeated itself over and over again in Asia, Africa, the America's and the Caribbean; usually "unpopular" governments were toppled by special operative funded or led by us.

So, no. Democracy is not tantamount to freedom. Too often, it has been freedom's principal antagonist as relates to colored people!

But, where on Earth do democracy and freedom coexist, where there are people of color, in what nation? I do not know. Maybe their joinder is the impossible dream that politicians and demagogues and oligarchs use to deceive, to beguile, to seduce us all!