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Forget Third Parties — It Ain't Gonna Happen: Hijack The Democrats Instead
Huge numbers of Americans are disgusted with both the Republican and the Democratic parties right now, and are hungrily clamoring for a third alternative.
I know, I know - imagine that! What's not to like about one party that stands for greed, murder and destruction, and another that stands by for greed, murder and destruction?
Nevertheless, somehow things are not going so swimmingly in the world of American partisan politics. The arch-Republican in the White House has job approval ratings in the mid-20s and sinking. The former Republican Congress, equally regressive, was tossed out on their ears, losing control of both houses last year. Not to be outdone, the Democrats who gained control of Congress as the expression of an angry public demanding change have spent the last seven months responding to that mandate by doing ... well, virtually nothing. Now their standing in public opinion is slightly lower than Bush's.
So it comes as no surprise that tens of millions of Americans are fed up with both parties and anxious to find something else that they can not only vote for in good conscience, but can actually win. I, too, have shared that dream, have voted third party, and have even volunteered for one during a presidential election campaign. Remember Barry Commoner? Remember his candidacy for president as the leader of the Citizen's Party in 1980?
Yeah, well, I rest my case. Third party alternatives to hopelessly nihilistic Republicans, hopelessly equivocal Democrats, and the hopelessly self-serving lot of them make total sense except for one small problem. They can't win.
Not literally, of course. Technically, a third party could win. It's just that they don't, and, short of some dramatic changes in the future, that will continue to be the case - that is, they won't.
I don't dispute the circular determinism in a statement like that, which is no doubt the first response in the minds of those advocating an alternative to the two bankrupt political parties now running (and ruining) the country. It's quite correct to argue that continuing to believe that third parties can never win, and that a vote for one of them is therefore 'wasted', is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's absolutely true that this is the first impediment to the success of a third party in America, and one which by definition must be resolved before any such party can possibly succeed. But what is too often left out of the discussion are the additional and quite enormous obstructions which are waiting right behind this first one to block the rise of a new party to power in America.
To begin with, there is the country's ideological diversity. Compared to other democracies, ours has been historically pretty muted in this regard, though the range of popular ideological positions has increased somewhat in recent years, particularly as the Republican Party migrated from the center-right to the far right over the last few decades. But the comparative diversity of ideology in America relative to other countries is not really the point here.
What is the point is that the degree of diversity we do have is prohibitive to a successful third party arising in the United States. Unless one is contemplating the rise of multiple new parties to viability (and here we've transitioned from hope to fantasy, I'm afraid), the resulting difficulty posed by this ideological diversity is pretty plain to see. Lots of people, for example, are disgusted right now with George Bush and his co-conspirators in the mainstream of the Republican Party. Most loathe him from the left, thinking he is an arrogant fool who is destroying virtually all the political values they hold dear. But others loathe him with equal intensity from the right, largely for the crime of not destroying those values fast enough. Between the Harriet Miers nomination and the immigration bill debacle, no small fraction of the sixty-five percent of America currently reviling the president are cavemen even more regressive than Bush (which may seem unimaginable to progressives, but is quite literally the case). And in-between are those of the angry middle, who are seriously disgruntled, but are reluctant to lean very far in either ideological direction for a solution to their unhappiness.
What's the relevance of all this? Well, try to imagine a third party with a presidential candidate that could be viable. Some of the current crop of disaffected voters would be happy to vote for Ralph Nader to replace Bush, but many others would equate that to living under Mao. Likewise, many of those wishing for a third party, complete with its own presidential candidate, would be delighted if someone like David Duke carried their standard. If it is imaginable for progressives that it could ever get worse than Bush/Cheney, this is certainly it. Then, of course, in the center you have the Ross Perot sort of voter, who is dissatisfied enough with existing choices to entertain alternatives, but not something 'fringe' in an ideological sense.
Put all this together and you have a sufficient critical mass for precisely nothing. Except perhaps maintenance of the status quo. Thus, one huge reason that the rise of an alternative third party in the United States is highly unlikely is the insufficient support for a single specific alternative, even when there is substantial general support among the electorate for some other option beyond the two parties. The idea is great in theory, and even more compelling when a significant cohort of the public says they want a third party to vote for. But unless you see redneck-pickup-truck-with-a-gunrack-driving-god-fearing-Georgia-crackers voting for Angela Davis, and unless you see long-haired-herbal-tea-drinking-Berkeley-lesbian-housing-rights-militants voting for John Bolton, forget about it. Maybe someone like Mike Bloomberg would get a healthy number votes if he ran in 2008, but the former Republican would get few from the left, nor would the Jewish mayor of New York City get many from the right.
So, after the vast bulk of voters have cast their lot once again with either Republicans or Democrats, the remaining dissenters - even if they are large in number - will dissipate their potential impact across a panoply of choices. Some will vote Green Party. Some Libertarian. Some Reform Party. Some the other Reform Party. Some Constitution, Natural Law, Populist, Taxpayers, Socialist or whatever other party is on the ballot. Even if all of the votes for these alternative parties in aggregate amounted to a numerical challenge to the Democrats and Republicans (and they are currently very far from doing so), the individual share of each of these various representations of different ideologies would completely dissipate any substantial impact, and likely any impact at all, like the air going out of a balloon.
Those are two monumental obstacles to the potential success of a third party in this country, but we still haven't even discussed what amounts to the biggest - namely, our electoral system. The term refers to the mechanism by which votes at the ballot box are translated into parliamentary delegates (or members of Congress) in a representative democracy. That might sound painfully straightforward and obvious, but the methods available for doing this are anything but, sometimes producing (far more painfully) obscure and mathematically complicated schemes which voters sometimes don't begin to understand. Don't know whether you prefer the Borda count over Bucklin voting, the Condorcet method, Single Non‑Transferable Voting (affectionately known as SNTV), the Gallagher Index, the Sainte‑Laguë or d'Hondt methods (or perhaps you are all about the cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping method, instead)? No worries, neither does just about anybody else. This confusion is not a good attribute for an electoral system to possess, but there are many other factors to consider as well, and polities are frequently experimenting trying to find the best system (none are perfect).
The question of electoral system choice may seem mundane in the extreme, but the consequences are enormous. Arguably, one of the factors which brought the Nazis to power was the flawed electoral system of the Weimar Republic, Germany's first (and, obviously, tragically failed) experiment with democracy. But even if a given system doesn't crash that badly, another of the consequences to the choice of electoral systems - and one which is highly relevant to the present discussion - is the number of viable political parties which they tend to produce.
All the multiple variations of electoral systems can be boiled down to essentially two types, plus a third and increasingly popular form, which is simply a hybrid of the first two. One of the two types is known as proportional representation (PR). Among other attributes, it can have a satisfying simplicity to it and, more importantly for our purposes, it tends to encourage the existence of multiple parties that are at least moderately prominent in a given system. That is because the basic principle, as the name implies, is that each party is awarded a number of legislators in parliament that is proportional to the vote it receives in a single polity-wide election. Therefore, even a small party which could only garner, say, six percent of the vote would nevertheless gain representation in the legislature. In fact, it would have six percent of the seats, which would be likely to mean, depending on the size of the body, more than thirty representatives (most lower houses of parliament - the ones with the most power - seem to be about 500-700 members in size). And, since there can be a certain (virtuous or vicious) cyclical quality to the growth or demise of political parties - such that having representation in parliament makes it easier to gain more of the same, and not having it makes it harder - this system is good news for small parties.
But there are also certain prominent downsides to PR, as well. First, progressives should remember that it wouldn't only be lefty parties benefitting from this system in America. Where PR produces Green parties in parliament, it also produces the National Front. Second, so many parties usually means the necessity of coalitions to form governments, and that often means instability - coalitions break apart, and governments fall in-between elections, sometimes frequently. Too much instability and enter the Nazis, stage right. And, on top of all this, even PR systems have a tendency to produce two major parties alternating in government (usually in coalition with one or more smaller ones), anyhow, which somewhat defeats the purpose if our goal is get a third party to govern, not that America is anywhere remotely near converting to PR, anyhow. No one is even talking about it.
The main alternative electoral system to PR doesn't tend to suffer from these maladies, but also doesn't typically produce many small parties in government. This is the district model, and the way it works is to divide the polity into geographical districts and hold simultaneous elections in each. There are many variations possible on how to identify a winner from those separate mini-elections, but in the United States we use a plurality criterion. Do you have one more vote than anyone else in your district (even if you have far less than a majority, as would likely be the case in a district with multiple candidates)? Congratulations. You have a plurality, and you're going to Congress.
It's easy to see why such a system is hard on third parties. Let's say there was a prominent third party in the United States - I'll use my buddies the Greens, since they were kind enough to name their party after me! - and they won perhaps twenty-five percent of the vote nationwide, in a Congressional election cycle. A very respectable showing, no? But, of course, there is no national election, per se - only a bunch of simultaneous district contests (435 for the House representatives, every two years). Nevertheless, for the sake of exposition, let's say that the Greens got 25 percent of the vote in every district. Let's also say that in half the districts the Democrats get 40 percent of the vote to the Republicans' 35 percent, and vice-versa in the other half. In a PR system, the Greens would be awarded 25 percent of the seats in the House for this showing. Under the district model, however, such as is practiced in the United States, their twenty-five percent of the votes translates into precisely zero seats in Congress (arguably disenfranchising one-fourth of the electorate).
(By the way, the presidential election works essentially the same way, and would even were we to eliminate the Electoral College. You can't readily split the presidency like you can a parliament, so only one person can claim the prize, leaving voters for all the other candidates holding the bag, even if these losing voters represent a majority in total - as was the case, for example, in 1992, when Clinton won the presidency with only 43 percent of the popular vote.)
What does all the foregoing discussion ultimately mean? The bottom line here is this: One, we're not likely to change electoral systems in America any time soon. Two, unless we do, it will continue to be enormously difficult for any third party to gain enough traction to achieve viability, let alone to govern. Three, even if we did opt for PR, there are serious downsides to that system as well (a hybrid seems to be the best alternative, in which half of the legislature is chosen using the district model, and the other half using PR - Germany, Italy and other democracies employ this method), not least of which would be the concurrent rise of some nasty gangs of parliamentary thugs on the rabid right who could make Cheney's little GOP horror show seem tame by comparison. And, Four, even though it would likely provide representation in Congress, PR would still probably not bring a third party to power, except possibly as a junior partner in some sort of coalition government. Such a party would chronically occupy the role of a small fry swimming among big sharks, though it might have some improved chance over decades' time to rise to greater prominence.
In short, for reasons involving ideological diversity, electoral mechanics and more, the third party path is not the solution to the present crisis of democracy in America, especially from the perspective of forwarding the progressive agenda.
If you're dubious about the above theoretical analysis, feel free to try on the empirical one instead - it's even more grim. Here are two statistics that more or less say it all. There are 535 members of Congress in America. Guess how many come from a third party. The answer is zero. Not a single one. Doesn't that suggest rather infertile ground for such a plant to take root? But if you're still not convinced, how about this, then: When was the last time the United States experienced the reshuffling of the party structure such that a new party rose to the level of sustained viability? The answer is about 160 years ago, with the birth of the Republican Party. That, in a country which has only had political parties for about 200 years. In other words, this country has had two primary parties vying for power for almost its entire existence, and the last time even the name of one of those changed (but not the number of them, which has essentially never changed) was 4/5's of our history ago. I, for one, would argue that the ground for our multiparty plant has gone from infertile to downright toxic.
But here's where the good news comes in. If the above description sounds like rather an inconceivable degree of stability for a political system spanning that many decades and myriad crises, that's because it is. And it is this observation that brings us closer to the true remedy for our problems. How could such a rigid two-party system - of the same two parties, no less - survive against all the powerful changes, strains and pressures of the last century and a half? And these are considerable. Such a laundry list would have to include, minimally, the Civil War, Reconstruction, industrialization, immigration, expansion, imperialism, civil rights movements for minorities, women and gays, the national rise to global prominence, the Cold War, about seven major hot wars and two impeached presidents, just to get started. Why the incredible stability of the party system, then? The answer is that the American political system doesn't tend to adopt new third parties, and it doesn't implode from the pressures of frustrated change, because what it does instead is to accommodate various political aspirations within the malleable shells of the existing parties.
A look at either one of them amply demonstrates the point. The Republican Party was born as essentially the political vehicle for the anti-slavery movement, when the existing parties failed to provide an outlet for that rising sentiment. Could today's regressive GOP amalgamation of robber-barons, religious troglodyte foot-soldiers and nearly outright racists possibly look any different from the party of Abe Lincoln? Indeed, the GOP of today would have been reactionary even in Lincoln's time. So what happened? How could the party of emancipation become the party of kleptocracy? What happened was that the robber-barons stole it and morphed it, growing increasingly clever over time as to how to employ nationalism, jingoism, imperialism, racism, sexism, external bogeymen, general fear and cultural backwardness in order to line up sufficient votes, augmenting those of the richest two percent of the country, necessary to form a viable party. The examples of this are as endless as they are depressing, running from red scares to race-baiting and back again. More contemporaneously, suffice it to say that not for nothing did Karl Rove arrange to place gay marriage initiatives on the ballot in eleven states for election day 2004. (My personal fantasy is to find every fool who voted for one of those but now hates Bush and shake them vigorously by the shoulders, yelling in their faces, "Are you happy now? Isn't it great that there won't be any gay marriages in our crumbling excuse for a country?")
Ahem. Uh, where was I? (Please stop me before I fantasize again.) Ah, yes - morphing parties. Similar to the GOP experience, it was not so long ago that the main component of the Democratic Party was the Solid South of white voters below the Mason-Dixon line. It was FDR who turned the party into a much broader coalition that came to include the working class, union members, Jews, Catholics, intellectuals, liberals, urban-dwellers, immigrant communities and more, as well as the white South. It was LBJ (fully knowingly, and with lots of help from the likes of Nixon, Reagan, Atwater, Rove, Bush I, Bush II and the rest) who alienated white racists, both North and South, by pursuing various civil rights agendas, principally concerning race.
In short, both parties look a lot different today than they once did, and that happened largely through the efforts of activists seeking to achieve precisely that end. And this, it seems to me, remains the only viable solution for the progressive community today - not a continuing hopeless quest for a prominent third party that has a very low probability of materializing, especially given the institutional and ideological obstacles described above.
What progressives need to do today is what regressives began doing forty years ago. We need to seize the party closest to our politics and take control of it, marginalizing DLC types like Clinton or Lieberman into irrelevance, just like the old Gerry Ford centrist wing of the Republican Party was shoved aside by the radical right. We must become the parasites that infect the host until we eventually take it over completely.
It would be lovely if there was an alternative, but to my mind the above concepts and historical precedent amply demonstrate the improbability of a third party rising to power. Moreover, even if one did eventually arise, in the meantime we continue to risk producing the Nader 2000 effect - such that following our best instincts splits the left-of-regressive vote and succeeds only in empowering the worst alternatives. (For example, imagine a race in 2008 between Clinton and Giuliani, with Gore running as the nominee of the Green Party. Clinton and Gore would collectively receive far more votes than would Giuliani, but Giuliani would be the next president, even without the Electoral College effect.)
And let's not kid ourselves, way too many Americans presently worry if the Democratic Party is too liberal to govern, not whether it can become progressive enough. A large part of that has to do with the complete collapse over the last decades of the progressive message and especially the Party, in the arena of public debate. The American public is going to have to be deprogrammed and reprogrammed after decades of regressive Moonyism (including by the Moonies themselves). That is a separate issue, albeit one which is much better addressed by an ideology that has the benefit of a solid institutional platform from which to operate. But the point is that a third party to the left of the Democrats would not at present be anything like an easy sell. Far easier to win by turning one of the only two alternatives available to voters into a progressive party (especially when the other one has become reprehensible in the extreme).
All of which leaves two questions. First, can the Democratic Party serve that function, or is it hopelessly lost, a permanent captive to its corporate masters? I know of no evidence whatsoever that Paul Wellstone or Bernie Sanders (an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and an avowed socialist, for chrissakes) have been ostracized by party elites or subjected to attempts made either to force a change to their politics or to drum them out of the party. Ditto Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, John Conyers (or, should I say, the Congressman formerly known as John Conyers), or Henry Waxman. Howard Dean was something of a threat to the status quo party hacks in 2004, it's true, but my guess is that that was mostly because it wasn't yet hip at that time to be anti-war, and they feared that a Dean candidacy would take down the whole party with it (which, no doubt, must be why they brought in a real fighter like John Kerry to go up against Rove and the GOP). Anyhow, nowadays Dean is chairing the damn thing, so their resistance to him can't have been that intense.
All of which suggests to me that the party is ours for the taking if we want it. Given enough Wellstones, we can own this thing and shape it into a force for true progressive change. And if you still require additional evidence that it can be done, just remember that it has been done - twice already (or even three times if we count some of Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy ideas). Both the New Deal in the Thirties and then the Great Society in the Sixties were periods of substantial and meaningful progressive flowering in American government, even if they weren't ultimately everything we might have wanted them to become (and let's not forget that we are dealing here with the most politically backwards populace amongst all the Western democracies). Moreover, and again following on those models, the ascension of a relatively progressive president such as perhaps Al Gore could help expedite this process from the top down.
But then comes the second question, could a progressive Democratic Party win? Again, it seems to me that both history, contemporary conditions and loads of polling data provide a pretty compelling affirmative answer. That it has happened twice suggests that it is certainly possible. That polling data consistently demonstrate the public tending to favor progressive positions on almost every issue put before them, despite decades of unanswered regressive brainwashing, is further argument that this is possible. Finally, Americans are growing increasingly anxious today as their prosperity, their empire, and their sense of security are diminishing right before their very eyes. These conditions are likely to grow more, not less, acute, particularly as Baby Boomers transition from being net contributors to the welfare state system back to being net recipients (never underestimate the depth or the power of Boomer selfishness!).
Such insecurity-inducing scenarios radicalize politics, if that's not too strong a term, pushing the electorate either to the right or the left. One of those alternatives has just recently been tried. Its chief exemplar now has Watergate-level job approval ratings, which will only get considerably worse in the ensuing months. It is true that the public could theoretically be persuaded to turn further still to the right, but you don't much hear those voices out there clamoring for that direction amongst the political class. Even the few remaining droolers like Bill Kristol who advocate for something idiotic like bringing Bushism to Iran now that it has demonstrated its wonderful virtues in Iraq and Afghanistan are increasingly being sneered at like the laughable but still dangerous morons they are. The right-wing experiment in American politics is a complete and utter failure, of course, but more importantly it is increasingly recognized as such. It has totally come a cropper in terms of public opinion. This is 1932 all over again. No more Hoover, no more Bush. The country began its retreat from this horror show in 2006, and would have started even earlier had not John Kerry been such an abysmal presidential candidate. It is now turning decisively to an alternative somewhere to the left of the current GOP, as it more or less must. The only question (further national security 'emergencies' aside, of course), is what will be there for it to turn to, and how far down that path we go from here.
Personally, I don't give a damn about the Democratic Party (which for decades has almost never failed to disappoint anyone possessing any progressive expectations for it), or any other party. In fact, I share many of the concerns about the general pernicious effects of partisanship that the Founders held - though I also recognize that, as a practical matter, it's pretty hard to envision doing national politics in a polity of 300 million people (and politically lazy ones, at that) without the organizing benefits and programmatic shorthand that parties bring to the table. While I don't care about parties, what I do care about are policies. Do we have healthcare, or not? Do we rescue people after a hurricane and flood devastate their city, or not? Do we act like an predatory empire, or not? If the Democrats can deliver the right policies, then fine. If we need the Greens to do the job instead, hey, that's groovy too. If we have to import SWAPO from southern Africa to get it done, then whatever. Heck, I'd even vote Republican (gulp) if they somehow miraculously managed to stumble into some good politics (though that's probably about as likely as Dick Cheney volunteering to become a soldier). I could care less about the label and the organization, as long as it delivers progressive policies for the country.
As a practical matter, though, a third party - let alone a viable leftist third party - is extremely unlikely to develop for all the theoretical and historical reasons outlined above. Our mission, therefore, should be to capture the Democratic Party and lead it toward a series of increasingly progressive (and already publicly popular) legislative accomplishments, starting with ending the war and providing universal national healthcare coverage. It won't be that hard to do, and we can thank the Dark Side in part for creating the best conditions in half a century for this opportunity (just the same, though, I think I'll pass on sending a nice note of gratitude to Mr. Rove). After all, it's not exactly like avoiding unnecessary wars, providing healthcare and quality education for all, pursuing economic justice, or saving our little planetary spaceship from the threat of global warming are such radical ideas that would be hard to sell.
I share the sentiment of many in the progressive community that the Democratic Party is, with a few notable exceptions, a cesspool of ambitious sell-outs, ready to mortgage any policy position or principle in service to their own petty personal gratifications. It would be wonderful, for that reason, if we could just nuke the thing and move on to something else. Wonderful, but not possible.
Fortunately, there is another alternative. I say we hijack it instead.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
218 Comments so far
Show AllQUOTE FROM VAGREEN
As I mentioned in a previous post, many of the ideas adopted by the two major parties were originally advocated by third parties.
END QUOTE
I don't disagree with you about this fact, and fully recognize the progressive achievements that you cite. Where we differ is not in recognizing that third parties have a role, it's in recognizing what that role is. Not a single one of the achievements that you cite is the result of a third party getting its candidates elected to office, is it? Those achievements are, as far as I'm aware, the result of steering one of the two dominant parties into changing their positions. If you are suggesting that third parties play a similar role in the future, that's all well and good. If you are suggesting that it's possible for a third party to get its members elected to national office in any significant numbers, I think that is a misguided hope. Moreover, the Clinton/Gore/Giuliani hypothetical that Professor Green presents in regards to splitting the vote seems to me quite compelling. In other words (leaving aside the contentious issue of whether this has already happened) the possibility that the progressive vote could be split, thus empowering those with antithetical views, is all too real.
What professor Green appears to be advocating is a more direct route to doing exactly the same things that many third parties want to achieve. While third party activism is a viable political strategy, it is demonstrably not a viable electoral strategy. It seems to me that far too many people conflate the two, serving only to decrease their ability to make much-needed changes.
baska said:
aymon July 30th, 2007 7:39 am
"thamks to everyone (except Alkalye)"
Look, I was annoyed at first by that post too - but it took only a sec to realize the guy/gal was distraught to the point of derangement, extremely isolated, and in pain. I didn't respond…but, jeez, if ever there was someone off their meds, it was him/her…Hope they didn't hurt themself…"
THANKS VERY MUCH. YOU ARE RIGHT. I APOLOGIZE TO ALKALYE FOR REDUCING HIS HUMANITY whilst thinking he is a yahoo troll, one among many who visit our site frequently to disrupt progresive discourse.
Also, thanks for that superb counter example to soundbite analogical thinking re: Potemkin vs Titanic. Soundbite (yuck, yuck) analogies to score debating points is a favorite (lawyerly) device of neocons to divert attention and trivialize a major argument in front of gullible masses. I'll put it in my repertoire of logical responses.
Peace
Aymon
VAGreen:
"Many Greens decided to not support Nader because he was not seeking our nomination like he did in 2000, but only wanted our endorsement. This was important to us."
Ah but you see, that was not important to us. We wanted a credible peace candidate on the presidential ballot, one who would actually be a threat to the Democrats, and the Greens instead gave us a nonentity placeholder who was no threat at all. So all the Nader voters felt betrayed by the Greens and dropped out of the party. You are simply no use to us anymore, and we will not support you. We cannot trust you. You are more concerned about your party than you are about impact, and you can't stand the heat from the Democrats.
In Oregon the Greens still had, last time I checked, around 5000 registered voters, but they have no way to organize them. The Greens do put candidates on the ballot, but no one pays them the slightest attention, because they've completely lost their credibility. They're not a threat.
I think there are more Nader voters in the country than there are Greens. When you decided to split from us you lost the only chance you had to be relevant at the national level.
Lynn Porter
Cindy Sheehan has suggested an idea for a satyagraha that could drive things the way commenters here would like. Suppose, in response to a ridiculous executive order that claimed the right of the government, for reasons straight out of their butts, to seize property from those "supporting the Iraqi insurgency," the following satyagraha was run: 1 million progressives create a money order in the amount of $0.01 and send it, via mail, to some chosen person in Iraq, with the annotation, "Help for the Oppressed Iraqis" on it. This after signing over all of their possessions to somebody else. So now a million of these go in, and what does the government do? Put 'em all in jail? Seize all the assets they don't have, so that the government, individually, would have to untangle the ownership of each and every one of the millions or else just give it up, and with the media coverage sure to follow, back off the executive order. Now repeat this, through every administration, for every obnoxious policy coming out, whether from dems or reps or from anybody else. This would establish the policy that millions would be willing to directly oppose a policy made by the government if it were sufficiently seen as outside of the public interest. If this were done, it sure as hell would command attention, because it would have the clear chance to mobilize millions to an orchistrated action very quickly, such as: boycott some offending corporation? Or whatever. Anyway, the concept of active nonviolent resistance to a regime has worked. In fact, in some 20 cases in which a democracy has emerged from a dictatorship, in 19 of these, it was the strategy of satyagraha that led to success. It's worth some careful thought. Read Michael Nagler's book for more information on this point.
The opinions expressed here, hostile to Green's idea of hijacking the dem party, are well taken. The only way anything changes in this country is if the election process changes in a fundamental way. Yes, we have examples on how to do it in some states: Arizona and Maine have mandated elections based only on public money. That would be key. For all the reasons here described, this is a solution that is never going to happen nationally. The oligarchs have too much at stake. With a strong middle class again, they could become all the richer, but what they will NEVER give up is even a scintilla of power. So there is no political solution open to us on the national level. Revolution? There is one powerful way developed and demonstrated by Gandhi, satyagraha, the act of nonviolent, yet engaged, active resistance to the regime. Absent a charismatic leader like Gandhi, this is essentially off the table in this country as well. Recently, a satyagraha in Serbia displaced the terrible dictator Milosovic; no, the NATO bombing had nothing to do with it. But such action demands a populace that is largely aware of the issues causing their suppression, which in this country, given flat widespread ignorance of relevant issues such as here so well and passionately presented, cannot happen. So only one course of action remains, and that is for states or groups of states to secede from the U.S. and let smaller areas do self governance: the present country and government is too big/cumbersome to be effective in any meaningful way even if the "right" people were to ascend to power. This course will also be opposed by the oligarchs, and so probably cannot be successful, save secession of "unimportant" states like the Dakotas; think the U.S. would ever voluntarily allow California or NY to secede? We are, then, as the Titanic, heading inexorably for a very big fall, occasioned by any one or more of the kinds of maladies and afflictions alluded to in these comments. I quite find it impossible to be anything but pessimistic for the continuation of anything resembling a representative democracy in this country. I am profoundly sorry on behalf of our grandchildren that we have so disastrously f'ed it up for those who might follow us.
A few passing thoughts...
Aymon wrote:
"thanks to abbywod and CRCox for a spirited defence of all of us who honour the fundamental human right to articulate thoughtful positions for discussion and comment by others who are also thoughtful and articulate.
"PowerofLove: Siouxrose and I used to post some "out of the box" stuff earlier, but it seemed to many that we were not only "out of the box" but "out of our mind". so it is risky here to be too much "out of the box"...."
I thought a bit about the above statement, Aymon.
I think that to the degree that I'm allowing myself to come from a place of love, wisdom, compassion -(different facets of one energy!) - I'm required to simply speak my truth and offer the best that I have at a given moment.
There are a few ramifications to this:
The first is that whenever something shockingly innovative shows up, we humans seem to have a knee-jerk reaction "pooh-poohing" it: in many cases ridiculing radically fresh ideas, and the person(s) proposing them.
It's just the "reptile" part of our brain reacting to anything outside of its set, instinctive purview. Let's call it "embracing our inner conservative!"
Imagine all the people who laughed at the idea of an "Auto-Mobile!" You know, the "our horses have always provided us all the transportation we need" response.
Second, (and, without getting grandiose here) if I (or any of us) truly care -- about humanity and our other natural brethren -- it's necessary make the effort to wean ourselves off from the felt-need for others' approval.
P'm also clear that it is my responsibility - if I really hope to be understood - to back stuff up (no matter how wierd it might seem!). That's why I try to at least indicate where I've learned about this or that.
And, I see no reason at all to be extreme or purposely provocative in describing our upcoming challenges as I see them ---- even if I believe they will be extreme and extraordinary (which I do).
After all, even though I'm guessing that events between now and approximately 2012 will be blowing our minds (time and again)- in the final analysis it's all just human stuff. We'll need to open, nurse our initial shock and denial, be persistent as well as patient, be gentle with ourselves and each other, etc. Countless humans have adapted to big changes. It's usually either that, or go down the tubes.
Last, but least, IMHO we're all going to be challenged to grapple with whole new worldviews and to find languages that do them justice. I want to say again, that I believe there is no precedent to the "opportunites for change and growth" -("Just Peachy! Another Fucking Growth Opportunity!")- that are rapidly heading our way.
Those of us whose minds remain tightly "wide-shut" will simply be at a huge disadvantage (The Earth is FLAT!!") and very limited in what they have to offer our world.
What is the saying? "Minds are like parachutes. In the open air (of life) they function best when open!"
From this point of view one can choose to embrace excitement, rather than fear.
How many psychologists does it take to change a light=bulb?
One.
But the light=bulb has to be willing to change. (hardyharhar!)
"Between the Harriet Miers nomination and the immigration bill debacle, no small fraction of the sixty-five percent of America currently reviling the president are cavemen even more regressive than Bush (which may seem unimaginable to progressives, but is quite literally the case)."...
Finally, someone with the intellectual honesty to admit that Bush's low approval ratings aren't due to a leftward shift, or due to Americans upset with far-right politics. No, of the nearly 75% of the population who disapprove, not all of them "woke up".
I've said this many times to my friends and a couple of times on here - the scary fact is that many of the people who hate or disapprove of Bush do so from a perspective even further to the right of Bush/(the "caveman", the author of this article referred to). We are talking about unabashed fascists-nationalists, neo-Nazis, racists, extremely fundamentalist Christians, anti-Semites, and philo-Semite Zionists(what a bunch of misfits, LOL) who hate Bush for not bombing Iran(or maybe for threatening to bomb Iran), or "screwing up" the Iraqi occupation by not being "brutal enough". To some of these folks, Bush is an "ultra-liberal", and possibly secretly affiliated with the communists, to their minds. The racists of course hate Rice for all the wrong reasons. Trust me, you don't come across them very often, but they are out there, just listen to some right-wing talk radio for 20 minutes if you want your skin to crawl(compared to right-wing talk radio, especially short wave, Fox News is "ultra-liberal").
In a word: no.
If we accept that the Bush administration is the most criminal and loathsome ever, then reform of the tepid enablers is an inadequate response to an extreme situation.
To vote for Democrats that have participated in the dramatic rightward shift is to vote against one's interests and, frankly, against civilization. When your vote supports policies and values diametrically opposed to yours, it becomes a farce. Long-term internal reform is an inadequate response to this problem. Making the vote into a farce is too great a price to pay.
If my ideas about civilization are dismissed a priori by my colleague, then tough. I will not sell out to Bush enablers any more than I will sell out to Bush. My soul costs more than that.
A professor should value ideas over realpolitik. What a shame that this one has trouble with that.
We now live through historical singularity in this US of A. So all politico as usual does not work, as well as all logical arguments Professor David Green so eloquently presented here. At the same singularity almost 150 years ago GOP was born.
Next time, in 1932, Democratic Party managed to live through the singularity; but compare Democrats of defeated Confederacy with FDR Democrats will give a good pose to deny plausibility of the third party in the USA.
So, I thank Prof. Green for his piece but vote for Democrat? Not even in the next life.
As Howard Zinn famously put:
"When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them...Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress."
How true that quote is. Why do we put our faith and trust into elected officials when we all should put faith and trust in each other?
RE: INCOMING...PRO-THIRD PARTY - TWO VIEWS
The third party question is central to commondreams' posters. Not just whether to vote third party - it appears most will - but the greater purposes of a third party vote.
Two preliminary comments:
1) this article represents an editorial weighing-in by the commondreams editors - whereas, to represent their readers and a central topic of argument, they should also include pro-third party arguments; and
2) this is THE main issue dividing commondreams readers - not so much whether to vote third party, but why. For one group, it is the only strategy; for a second group, third parties are one approach, that can be combined with other activist approaches that involve either directly pressuring the Democrats through other organizations, working within that party, or using third parties to pressure and negotiate with Democrats.
As I stated in another post laying out the two positions:
baska July 26th, 2007 9:30 am
"...the underlying split on this website's threads concerns the third party question: not whether to vote third party (a majority will), but the purpose of a third party vote:
a) as an alternative to a hopelessly corrupt and unchangeable Democratic Party, with the goal of a new progressive majority; versus
b) as a way of articulating the views of a sizable minority with the goal of halting the rightward trajectory of the Democrats and forcing their platforms left.
In other words - both groups agree on breaking w/Democrats, withholding votes, and going 3rd party, but for quite different reasons.
If___ Will Rogers, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, JFK, Moses, or anyone else came back to life and any of them were a third party candidate___ they would lose.
The electronic balloting with no paper trail would insure that. It will be another president, (if there is an election ), who will take their orders from the powers in the shadows ___ those who really rule all of us.
It's big money. ___ That is how it is and we have allowed it to happen.
Sigh. Didn't get further than the title yet. Afraid I'll be too pissed off if I read another long list of excuses, rationalizations and apologies.
Where is RichM? He always is spot on in his analysis of these tired strategies.
To read or not to read..hmm...to read or not to read...
"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789
Support secession movements. It is the only way out. It may appear hopeless now, but in the coming years if we get the ball rolling Vermont, and then maybe a few others will follow.
The truth, which Professor Green doesn't address, is that the political system has been hijacked by corporate money, which maintains its control, not just through its billions of lobbying and campaign dollars, but through its ownership of the fourth estate. As long as the drones are mesmerized by the media, which tells them that Hillary Obama is a flaming Liberal, Edwards a dangerous Lefist, and Kucinich (who's that?) is a non-entity, then progressives don't stand a chance in hell --in or out of the Democratic Party.
Until we put that into the equation, this argument will go nowhere with me.
Interesting but dumb. There are only two viable solutions to any of these problems, 1) electoral reform that gives voters in all elections, federal, state and local the option to vote for "none of the above", accompanied by 2) a meaningful, sizeable stripping of power, money and resources from the Federal Gov't and a return of same to the States. The reason we have impasse, gridlock and gov't of the worst solutions to every problem is because the country is too vast to be governed effectively from a centralized federal governmental system. The problem gets worse with the increase in population. The only workable solution is to downsize and redistribute back to the States where voters can effectively exercise oversight and control. The only way to kill the lumbering, ineffective and bumbling beast the the Federal gov't has become is to starve it of the trillions paid in taxes to it every year and keep those dollars at home in the States from which they originate.
"Support secession movements. It is the only way out. It may appear hopeless now, but in the coming years if we get the ball rolling Vermont, and then maybe a few others will follow"
We fought that war 140 years ago, and we lost. You made us stay, you can bet we're gonna make you stay.
Evelyn Smith July 27th, 2007 12:35 pm
"The electronic balloting with no paper trail would insure that. It will be another president, (if there is an election ), who will take their orders from the powers in the shadows ___ those who really rule all of us."
Evelyn nailed it. That's why Congress put this issue on a back burner. This is an oligarchy run by $$$$ not a democracy.
As Woody Allen once said, "It's like deja vu all over again".
We've heard arguments like Professor Green's so many times that I don't know why he wastes his breath recycling them. And I don't understand how he or any other intellectual trained in political science can make such fatuous claims with a straight face.
I won't rehash all of the details of my post from yesterday: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/26/2785/ But as I said there, there is one major, all encompassing political party in America, the Corporate Party. It is comprised of two factions: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans raison d'etre is to advance every goal of the Corporate Party with no regard for the 90+% of Americans who reap no benefits from these goals. But the Corporate Party is quite rational, calculating and looks carefully to the long term. It knows that unfettered capitalism/corporatism, imperialism and neo-fascism, while in its short term interest would eventually spark a popular revolution. Hence, the Democrats exist to solidify the Corporate Party's hegemony. Whenever, Republicans go too far, pushing the populace to the brink; Democrats come forward as a viable alternative and, once in office, grant minor concessions to the populace...just enough to satiate them and thwart any major resistance. Once the Corporate Party's hegemony is again secure, Republicans return to power.
I agree with Professor Green that America is a two-party system. We are a Presidential, winner take all "democracy" and this will not change as long as either faction of the Corporate party is in power. So no, THIRD parties cannot be successful. What I want, what I and so many progressives are working to build is a SECOND party. A party that genuinely represents the workers, minorities, the LGBT community, the environment and the peace movement.
Make no mistake about it, the Corporate Party knows that four more years of the Republican faction in power would be incredibly risky. They need a Democrat in 2008 to pull the populace back from the brink of openly revolting. This is why the GOP is lagging badly in its strongest talent: raising money. I have little doubt that the Democrats will win the Presidency in 2008, probably under Hillary. She's the ideal candidate, willing to shill almost unequivocally for the Corporate Party, but appealing enough (and just enough) for "progressives" to keep them complacent.
The problem with many on the left is that they cannot plan for the long term. We were told in '04 that we MUST vote for Kerry because Bush is so terrible. We were told in '06 that we must vote Democrat this time to win back Congress. Now we're told that we must vote Democrat in 2008 to win the Presidency; then, real change will happen. Right... And when President Hillary throws the populace the requisite breadcrumbs and no more we'll be told that it's because the Democrats Congressional majority is too small, so we must vote Democrat in 2010. And on, and on, and on.
Enough! Time to think about the long term. No, a genuine progressive-workers-peace party will not win the Presidency in 2008 or 2012; nor will it win probably any Congressional elections in 2008 or 2010. And that's fine; we should be thinking about 2016, 2018, 2020 and beyond. The time to start building the party is NOW. As I said in previous posts, Ralph Nader is the only person I see with the tenacity and intransigence to lead this movement. He has taken more abuse and vitriol than most people could stand without giving up. And yet he hasn't given up. He needs our support. If you haven't yet, please sign this petition:
http://www.draftnader.org/petition.html
And thanks for listening to my tirade. :-)
nwfisher,
I live in Vermont and secession would be interesting. However..... the Second Vermont Republic, the organization leading the charge is associated with racist organizations like the League of the South and also has some non-native Vermonters on their steering committee with questionable pasts associated hate groups. This is the case and I don't want these guys in charge of a meaningful movement which could take root. As long as the Second Vermont Republic gets rid of these people on their board, then don't expect much to come from here.
Just a little FYI of our situation up here.
Did anyone actually finish this article? I'm deeply involved in these issues, as an officer of the Oregon Green Party, and I started skimming half way through. It's too bad - the issues are vital.
Oddly enough, he completely omitted the real alternative to our real problem with the electoral system. The real problem is plurality voting, which, as he noted, makes it possible to win an election with a small minority of the votes, as Bill Clinton did the first time (thanks to Ross Perot). The real solution is Instant Runoff Voting (or Preference Voting). Even that has a number of variations. I won't go into the mechanics, lest you all start skimming this, too. If you care about our democracy, look it up. In short, it counts voters' second (or even 3rd) choices to reach an actual majority - every time. It allows us to vote for the candidate we really want without the danger of "electing" the one we really don't want, as plurality voting forces us to do. It is presently in use in two American cities and several other countries.
Back to the real world: the big problem with our present electoral system is that it fails very badly. At some point, like the present, the voters become so disgusted with the status quo that they vote for other parties anyway. At that point, you get officials elected with far less than a majority. If it's a 5-way race, you can "win" with 21% of the vote. Not exactly a mandate. But it's a huge opportunity for "third" parties.
In fact, there are countries with similar electoral systems with very strong third parties. One is next door: the last Mexican election went to a candidate with only 38% (if that) of the vote. There were two at that level, so without a runoff they nearly came to war over it - and may yet. In Britain, with a parliamentary system exaggerating the effect, Blair was "re-elected" with 35%. The Liberal Democrats, their third party, may well win next time - with a similar minority. 3-way split. It happens. It happened here, in 1996. And it's going to happen again, in spades.
What about Prof. Green's solution? It's been tried. I've been hearing calls for a progressive "take-back" of the Democratic Party for at least six years now. They even had some successes last year. And the result? The Dems, with control of Congress, just stuck their thumb in progressives' eye and twisted it. If you're reading this site, you know what I'm talking about - but don't forget their deal with the Bushies on "free trade." It isn't just the war, it's imperialism. The message is very clear: not a chance.
And the question is: when do you stop beating your heads on that brick wall? I don't even know just how the party apparatchiks control the results so thoroughly, since I'm not an insider. It's probably mostly the money. But the lesson is crystal clear.
Now, next year. At this point, Bush is polling under 30%, and the Dems in Congress are at 14%. Is this telling us something? Well, yes, and alternative parties are coming out of the woodwork. It isn't just the Greens, experiencing a resurgence from our low point after '04: the Libertarians are, too, as real conservatives flock out of the Republican Party; and then there's Unity08 and Bloomberg, preparing to make a run up the middle with a billion dollars of his own money. Anyone can buy the presidency for a billion dollars, and Bloomberg is an effective politician.
That's a 5-way split, with more to come. It's going to be a very exciting year. Come join the Party: we need you.
That's GPUS.org, or in Oregon PGP.org. Or just start a chapter and then find us.
"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824.
Interesting comment by Mr. Jefferson, "...or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still...", or more appropriately, since Mr. Jefferson couldn't have envisioned the extent that monopolistic power has taken over the governmental process, Gore Vidal expressed it more succinctly: "...the United States has only one party — the property party. It's the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican." Mr. Jefferson warned us of this, but I'm positive he didn't envision the full manifestation of what we live with now.
I agree with Green's logic, but removing corporate control would be the hardest part in making a Democratic takeover worthwhile. Is it possible?
As usual, Green has written an amazingly well thought-out article. However, he is indeed utilizing the theory that all political problems must be ultimately solved by political - as opposed to social - action plans.
Still, there is one thing he has hit on here that a lot of us idealists and revolutionaries seem to not comment on enough. What if a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination did step up who actually did put forward the posits that we hold so dear? What if a candidate came forward who was actually willing to challenge free market capitalism head on? Dig? What then? Do we just say "hell no, do Democrat will ever get my voice?" I'm not sure that's the smart way to go in a country that has been so utterly ruined.
I guess I'm saying I totally agree with one part of the his argument, that parties don't mean squat in this country. What does have meaning, for me at least, is policy and action that comes from the voice of the people. I don't think mob rule is smart - ala Gravel - but I do think that a President that actually operates from a position of representative of the people is desirable, no matter what party they are in. I'm not sure I could include the Republican, Libertarian, or like parties, because their platforms quite clearly are against what Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of, and anyone who would run under those platforms should not be trusted.
So what about that? Would we, the idealists and the would be revolutionists and the like, throw our weight behind someone who really spoke for us, even if he or she was a card-carrying Democrat?
Oregoncharles: You just posted a very good, a very intelligent and an informative blog. You wasted your time.
It is not who votes for whom, it is how the votes are counted. With the electroic voting with no paper trail now, the party with the best computer hackers will win. If a third party managed to have the best hackers, the election would be declared null and void and the Supreme Court would elect the next president. That couldn't happen?___ Hmmmm.
Afterthought:
It isn't just the presidency. Those poll numbers, and people's deep disgust with the Demublicans, will ricochet down through all the partisan races. It's going to be wild, and a great many incumbents are at risk. This is once in a lifetime. Things will stabilize, and we need to make our mark now.
Ross Perot cost George HW Bush re-election.
Ralph Nader cost Al Gore election.
Our 'winner take all' system of Democracy ensures third party candidates can be spoilers only: ironically hurting the candidate who most agrees with their position.
I don't know why that is, other Democracies allow for third parties to become something more constructive, but not here. We need constitutional reform, but until then, a vote for the Green Party is a Republican vote.
I would support a 'genuine progressive-workers-peace party' ala Nader08, but only if they promised NOT to run any candidates. Instead their purpose would be to throw support to whichever traditional candidates did the most for campaign finance reform and true multi-party reform of our Democracy. Finance reform has to be comprehensive, you cannot throw the 'corporate influence' out of just one party.
Great article
baska: There have been dozens are articles published on CD that are pro-third party. Sorry, I just really needed to go to bat for them on that one.
Go to your local Democratic or Republican caucus next time around. Encourage your progressive friends to go as well. Make sure that one of you becomes a state delegate. If done in a sufficient number of precincts you can have real sway at the state level who gets party endorsement.
I was a state delegate for the Democrats myself once and remember an idealistic would-be senator speaking at North St. Paul High School (place I graduated from). Paul Wellstone.
Is the vote rigged at the party state convention? Well, let's assume the worst and say it is. But let's say that more than 50% of the delegates are in sharp support of progressive candidate X who mysteriously got far less than 50% of the votes. You then make a procedural move to count the votes openly.
That's how bottom-up democracy works, folks...
Evelyn - and everybody:
Excellent point. I'm a little spoiled, since Oregon's mail-in balloting puts everything on paper. (I recommend it highly.)
Most important: voting mechanics are a LOCAL issue. Elections are run by COUNTIES - right there next door to you. Go talk to your county elections administrator, find out what they're doing and why. If you don't like it, talk to your county elected officials. Take some neighbors along - enough to represent a lot of votes. If they like their job, they'll listen. It's the biggest impact you can have.
The next level is the state secretary of state. That's pretty close, too, in most states, and another elected official.
First we need to take all private money out of politics, until we take that action, the government will always be owned by the rich. It used to be that we would have middle class organizations that would balance out the rich (like unions) but Reagan and beyond (including Clinton) has ripped holes in our right to assemble. Next we need to find a set of principles we can all agree on and stick to them. Then we should do to the neo cons what they have been doing to us for the past 35 years
Ilike the idea of a national strike
RE: PRO-THIRD PARTY ARTICLES?
"CRCox July 27th, 2007 1:28 pm
"There have been dozens are articles published on CD that are pro-third party"
Dozens? Where the topic is front-loaded and included in the title, where the brunt of the argument is focused on the viability of third parties - not an assumption, or something implicit in the argument, or a secondary or parenthetical note? That appear at the top of the 'daily-pick' list?
Well, OK - I humbly submit that, perhaps, I've overlooked this.
So help me out. Link one.
RE: NATIONAL STRIKE? GET REAL...
Bladerunner July 27th, 2007 1:23 pm
"the first thing we need to do is have a national strike."
Uh-huh. First thing? Right now?
And how many of your fellow workers are prepared to follow you in this action?
And for how long?
And at what cost to themselves or their families?
And for what transnational agenda of what third party, organization, or existing movement?
A National Strike is long overdue. We need to shut this country down until everyone connected to this regime is removed.
As for "hijacking the Democratic Party," forget it. It was hijacked a long time ago and we don't have the dough to unhijack it. We need to build a progressive alternative.
A national strike is a great idea, and some day in the future it may be the impetus for a radical restructuring of our political, economic and social framework in America. Alas, I don't so it happening anytime soon.
RE: NADER COST GORE THE ELECTION? EVIDENCE, PLEASE...
ubrew12 July 27th, 2007 1:28 pm
"Ralph Nader cost Al Gore election....a vote for the Green Party is a Republican vote."
Evidence, please. Thanks in advance for arguments AND links suupporting your assertion.
Why don't they say, 'Hijack the republican party.' Same chance of it happening.
The democratic party wants us to vote for them out of 'fear,' just like they did the last two elections.
Anybody but Bush is not enough of a reason for me to vote for them. I voted independent the last two presidential elections, and I don't regret it one bit.
I do regret that the democratic party leadership still don't get it. Or maybe they do, maybe they are even more sinister and we are just naive in thinking that they are a little bit better than the republicans.
Which party do you think is betraying their supporters more? I think it is the democrats.
www.NotOneMore.US
"I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want, and get it." - Eugene Debs
"Heck, I'd even vote Republican (gulp) if they somehow miraculously managed to stumble into some good politics..."
Teach both parties the lesson they so sadly need to learn: vote Ron Paul, and toss out as many GOPathologicals as possible in both Houses. Blues in the house, Paul at the helm, checks and balances restored, out of Iraq and lots of other countries, respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
That's the "independent" choice. Although he's running on the Red tick, he's a solid libertarian and the furthest thing from Cheneybbush out there.
Wow, amazing commentary. No wonder I am becoming addicted to the comment section of Common Dreams! I must say that I am really conflicted right now. There are such good arguments from multiple sides.
Green did indeed totally miss the corporatist side of things. However, that is not what the article was focused on. It was focussed on the an argument against putting our faith in building a third party in a system that is built around NOT allowing a third party - indeed a system of the "lesser of two evils".
As unfortunate as it is "ubrew12" pretty much hammered the nail on the head here folks.
I would ad this: There are only two real options to reforming the system of voting we have in this country, and therefore our socio-economic values. One, elect the most progressive legislature and executive we can and push them CONSTANTLY, until we get the reforms that are needed. Two, do whatever we must in order to cause the entire system to fall down around us, so that we can rebuild it from the ground up. "Bladerunner" might have it right.
The Clintons pretty much have the whole thing tied up as their own personal vehicle for political power.Yesterday I read somewhere that they were actually doing endruns around DNC policy in an effort to subvert fair play. No surprise. Seems they damn well traded the Democratic party to the robber barons for funding and triangulated on all issues as a strategy to diffuse the Right's power, thereby moving the Right to futher extremes. I don't know if this trend can be reversed when Neo-Libs put more effort and spew more venom in opposing the Progressives(while co-opting their identity) than they do in challenging the excesses of the Right. More often then not they are compicit and bow to the same task-makers from AIPAC to Wall Street. In fact, Pelosi has been responsible for back room deals weakening campaign finance reform, and Hillary Clinton admonished Feingold to "live in the real world" regarding reform. I don't really think the Democrats want to see changes that might personally influence their power broker connections--even if it mean they have no real connection with their constituents or the issues, except for promises at election time that we all know are bullshit.
You say:
"And let's not kid ourselves, way too many Americans presently worry if the Democratic Party is too liberal to govern, not whether it can become progressive enough"
Operative word being "liberal" but on ALL the issues, Iraq, healthcare, environmental issues--even gay marriage--they are all the old liberal positions that the majority supports.
The problem is even Democratic sites and organizations bully progressives--and, something I have really been fired up about lately, even progressives, apparently reflexively smear their own by adopting Right-wing (DLC) views that they are only in it for their ego. Isn't that the same as Clinton who postures as some Neo-con in foreign policy although the entire country now recognizes what a disaster it is. Who is she speaking to in triangulating on the Right's criminal deceptions?
RE: DEMOCRATIC PARTY - IMPERVIOUS TO CHANGE?
RichM July 27th, 2007 1:47 pm
"the [Democratic] party will remain impervious to any attempts to change it."
It is not impervious to change - since the 1980s, it has moved significantly right.
To address the question of whether it is impervious to a shift to the left, it is important to ask why it has moved right. What is your view?
Face it, the amount of money one has equals the amount of political rights one has. This is what American democracy has degenerated to. The rich pay less taxes, serve less time for crimes committed and have free speech. The poor pay and pay, are scapegoats for crimes and have no representation or voice in American culture.
The current political system only represents the interests of a few at the expense of the many.
A third party, multiple parties is the only way to get a representative democracy. The U.S, needs a parliamentary system. The current system is old, outdated, unresponsive and doesn't match the values of today's society.
RE: DEMOCRATIC CORPORATE DONORSHIP - IN THE PAST AND NOW?
RichM July 27th, 2007 1:47 pm
"let's assume...that by some miracle a bunch of antiwar activists (& assorted others) managed nonetheless to 'take over' the Democratic Party. In that case, the very first thing that would happen is that all the big donors would quit...The big donors come from big companies; all are corporatists"
Do you believe corporations have always co-supported the Democratic Party? Equally? Have you followed shifts in corporate donorship to the Democratic Party, since the 1980s? Just curious...
Thank you Oregon Charles. That is very good advice.
I have another suggestion also, and will waste my time typing it.
We should have an electon tax. (oh oh, another damn tax). Every person who is employed in the U. S, would be taxed one dollar a week. That money would be used for political candidates use for all of the congressional eletions, congress, senate and presidency. NO other monies, private, personal or any contributions could be used for their campaigns. ___All grass roots campaigning.
To run for the presidency, any candidate would have to personally collect a thousand petitions in their own state and win a primary election in their state in order to be eligable for recieving any of the election cash. The visual media and drive time radio would have to donate at least ten hours of free prime time a month, all year long, for each elected state candidate and all newspapers would have to offer equal space in any editorial pages.
That is the basic idea, the many minor details would have to be worked out and agreed upon by each of the States governing bodies and then a final vote on a constitution of the subject, by the fifty state governors. The constitution would become a federal law and never changed except by a vote of a two thirds margin by the congress of the U. S.
Congress persons and senators could only serve two four year terms. The same as the president.
That program would bring this nation back to a true democracy.
Third Parties...it ain't gonna happen??? Well, yeah, I guess if you don't want it to happen. It's all too apparent that from David Green's viewpoint, it is much easier to just try to bandage the wound rather than perform a risky operation. The Democratic Party is deaf and mute to the American progressive. Read this for equal time...
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_07_26.shtml
PS Prof. Green, progressives have bought your tease for too long with NOTHING to show for it but kicks to the groin and slaps across the face by the Dem leadership. It's time to move on.
Hijacking the Democratic party still does nothing to teach Americans how to count past 2. The universe will still be divided into good/evil, right/wrong, exalted/debased, white/black. There will still be calls for hearing "both sides of the story," as if stories had only two sides.
"Green" does us a disservice in talking about the history of third parties but not about the history of progressives within the Democratic Party.
I tilted at windmills in the D.P. in the late 80s-90s, and watched the party elite "disappear" attempts to include Living Wage and solidarity resolutions into the party platform, and saw the party faithful rally around the leadership to shut out progressives. The same has been experienced lately by Palestinian solidarity activists, who see their resolutions disappeared, or by Kucinich supporters who see their anti-war candidate endorse a pro-war candidate and their anti-war signs taken from them in the 2004 Convention. The Democratic Party isn't Democratic.
A professor should consider the history: look that the most recent high-water mark of progressives reforming the Democratic Party: Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition in 1984 and 1988. In 1988, the Rainbow Coalition united a broad spectrum of progressive activists around a number of social and economic issues, drew huge crowds and raised hopes. With such a grounded insurgency, the Rainbow pull 29% - 29%! of the Democratic primary vote in 1988 - orders of magnitude higher than Kucinich.
But in the end, the Rainbow achieved SQUAT, and none of the ideas that rallied the Rainbow activists became a part of the Democratic Party. I shouldn't say the Rainbow achieved SQUAT - it did do one thing: it hood-winked progressives into the Democratic Party for another generation.
In response the Democratic Leadership Council has tightened up their act, and politicians like Bill Clinton turned 'triangulation' into an art form.
When did Labor make its progress? In the 1930s, before it became wedded to the Democratic Party.
When did the Civil Rights movement make its progress? In the 60s and early 70s. After the Gary Indiana convention and the movement of civil rights activists into the Democratic Party, progress slowed and the reaction began.
Every election cycle the Democratic Party holds progressives hostage with tales of fear like the original post. And every election cycle the Democratic Party moves just a bit more to the right, until the politics of Clinton look farther to the right than the politics of Nixon (EPA? Nixon. OSHA? Nixon. Pulled troops out of Vietnam? Nixon. Appointed the judges that decided Roe v. Wade? Nixon. NAFTA? Clinton. 8 years of sanctions, bombing, withdrawal of weapons inspectors and the 'worth it' deaths of 100,000 iraqis? Clinton.)
The system is broken. Progress happens outside of it, not within it.
Yeah, more nonesense by the true believers. Highjack the Dems like ending the Iraq war, Impeachment, voting reform mandates...as nauseau... dream on...
I will agian be voting for Nader; hopefully he can knock Clinton or one of the other corporate candidates out like he did in Florida in 2000.