The Danger of Third Party Poltics in Modern Day America

Trotsky recently sent in this link to an article from TruthDig, a righteous lefty news feed webzine. It's disturbing to say the least. Professionally “leaked” White House documents that show what a hardliner United States President Barack Obama is on “terrorists” so the hard right cannot accuse him of being a “softy”. Ironic since that’s precisely why most people voted him into office. But that was then and this is now. And if there’s one thing we learn growing up in America, it’s that during election campaigns it’s all hopes and dreams and promises of peaches and cream. Once elected and in office it’s “time to get real” and “eat your peas”.  

Nothing new here if you’re an avid news hound. But strung together it’s a shocking series of discoveries about just how many people around the world president Obama kills everyday in the name of “keeping America safe”. Just more of the same revelations about what a ruthless killer he is in this new age of remote location drone strikes. Trotsky’s point being that honest intelligent and compassionate Americans need to stop voting for the candidates of both leading political parties in the United States if we’re ever to see a change in these kinds of brutal murderers holding the office of the president.

I've been down this path many times over the last twenty years. As long time readers know, I started an Independent Voters Page on Facebook (Here) and many moons ago as a young idealistic college student I ran a non-profit called Rock the Boat to encourage people to not vote at all, unless for a third party candidate, "because the two majority parties were so similar there was no recognizable difference between them. Along with many other little regional non-profits around the country, we accomplished an incredible feat: the little engine that could, Ralph Nader, won 2,882,995 votes in the general election, or 2.74 percent of the popular vote. Dem candidate Al Gore beat G.W. Bush by almost a million votes from what we know of the votes that were counted (many more never were counted due to an unprecedented intervention by the United States Supreme Court). Had the additional three million votes taken by Nader gone to Gore, which surely they would have, the Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz Death Machine would have never been able to have stolen the 2000 election, supreme court or not.  

Now depending on where one stands on that invisible line of the political spectrum, one could argue that things may have looked mightily different for America had the Neo-Cons never gotten into the White House. Fiscally they spent and borrowed more money than all other US presidents combined, (seriously?!), a shocking statistic; one that combined with some of the loosest Wall Street friendly anti-regulation, plummeted the country into the worst economic recession in its history. (Why the so-called “right” is allowed to forget this well known fact and blame the nation’s current economic woes on Obama is beyond me. Frankly I think they’re all just totally retarded, or they think the American public is. Who doesn’t remember seeing all those emergency meetings at the White House everyday between George W. Bush, Bernanke, Paulson and Barack Obama three months before Obama even took office as they scrambled to try to hand the hot mess off to Barack before the whole country imploded? We have never seen anything close to like that before in our lifetimes. He may be a murdering fuckhead but the man took office at one of the worst economic times in American history and to his credit got things stabilized pretty damn fast.)

Besides destroying the economy and skyrocketing the national debt, Bush the younger also made sure that education took a nose dive. But that's the soft stuff. The lasting legacy of those years, the story that will be studied in universities for centuries to come, was the near complete abolition of the basic rights associated with the once revered US Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and the incessant blatant criminal behavior that went completely unchecked in the name of national security -- and worse yet, eventually was pardoned by president Obama. The U.S. invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq in the face of unanimous global protests could and should go down in world history as one of the worst crimes against humanity in recent history. [Granted: The United States has so many other examples of similar such heinous atrocities in its history when it comes to overt imperialist acts of aggression against other countries that it is difficult to qualify such a statement.]

But because of Iraq, and numerous other calculated acts of violence and criminality, America lost its reputation as a respectable democracy on the world stage. Not only did Bush the man seem daft, if not downright mentally challenged, the whole lot of them appeared to be wicked murdering greedy and heartless. Imperialist monsters from days of old. It was embarrassing to be American for almost a decade if you travelled outside of our borders. Never before had we seen a president of the United States be portrayed as such a laughing stock internationally. Which one assumes is why since he left the office we don’t see much of him. Compared to say Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton who are still very active in the world. God only knows what GW is doing these days. If he weren’t so damn evil I would feel kind of sorry for him. He always seems a little sad and insecure. I think towards the end he got the joke and realized that it was on him; and frankly feels bad for it. He displays none of the pride (the good kind, as in being proud) that most American presidents walk around with post-presidency. Rather he seems to just stay in hiding.

But back to that election and the results of it. So it was, that for many who once thought that "it doesn't matter who you vote for, both sides are the same" a reality set in that perhaps it matters more than we realize. One wonders if president Gore would have accepted and approved the proposal to "plan and execute a military attack on American soil, like a modern day Pearl Harbor, that kills a minimum of 2,000 people but not more than 5,000, in order to foster the support of the American people for another war, i.e. a much needed invasion of Iraq to gain a better foothold in the Middle East" as was offered by the right-wing think tank 'Project for a New American Century', a proposal obviously accepted and approved by the Bush-Cheney administration. The same proposal was handed to then president Bill Clinton in 1998 and he refused to even consider it. Within less than a month in office the Bush administration and the Pentagon was filled with members of this same 'Project for a New American Century' think tank and already planning an invasion of Iraq. Months before their "Pearl Harbor-like attack on American soil" that transpired on September 11th, 2001. If Gore would have won that election, many believe that life on earth, especially as it relates to this new “global war on terror caused by the “attacks on 9/11”” would be very very different than it is today.  

What’s being discussed of course is known as "the lesser of two evils" argument. It's a devastating realization. If moderately intelligent it is a revelation that every American citizen has at some point in their lives -- usually during their late adolescent years, which customarily leads to a period of nihilistic apathy where they don't vote or think about politics at all for a while. If the person is the least bit compassionate, this phase is temporary and is followed by a renewed sense of righteous desire for justice and change, which leads to the obligatory joining, rallying and voting for one of the many small alternative “third parties” that exist in the American political playing field. This is "late twenties" stage stuff. "We can do this! We can make a change! We can eradicate the stranglehold that the Republican and Democratic parties have on American government!" This is the territory of Ralph Naders and Ross Perots, Ron Pauls and what's his names.

But again, this phase too is temporary. If the person is practical they quickly realize that, like it or not -- like Russia, China and the United States dominate in the global arena -- the two party system does indeed have a monopoly on American government and a third political party in the United States doesn't stand a chance of winning any important elections any time soon. So they head back to focusing on making "a slight difference at least" by helping to choose the lesser evil of one of the big two.  

These people, the newly reformed “no longer third party voters” call themselves Independents. They register not as republican or democrat. They truthfully despise both parties almost equally. But recognizing that we don't really have a choice outside of these two parties, they suck it up and attempt to discern from the limited amount of honest substantive data supplied to us during presidential campaigns who might make the least number of poor decisions. Or evil ones. It’s sad. I'll give you that. If you’ve made it reading this far, whether you're in the here now or somewhere in the far off future perhaps, yes, we are all very aware of how sad our current state of affairs is right now.

The article referenced above makes a very clear case that those who thought that a vote for Obama might make the country less evil or more respectable on the world stage when it comes to foreign policy were unfortunately wrong. His color may have changed, but his methods and mentality stayed the same. This president is every bit the cold blooded killer that his predecessor was. He's just craftier at disguising it. He plays b-ball instead of rides horses. And he knows how to tie his shoes. But other than that, he's the same old boss with more than his fair share of blood on his hands.

But what about domestic issues? Certainly there is something to be said about his health care reforms, his banking regulation proposals, his consumer friendly credit card company laws, his commitment to social welfare programs, tolerant immigration reform, middle class protectionism, improvement of education, women's reproductive and health care rights and his newest crusade, same sex marital equality. If the two parties were indeed the same, being controlled by the same principles and running on the same platforms, then they'd have nothing to argue about. Romney wouldn't need to run for president. Or so the argument goes for "the lesser of the two evils".

I posed this question to Trotsky today via Facebook with the message below. He is still in that phase where he is staunchly opposed to voting for either of the two majority parties, feeling that if he and others do not begin to shift away from voting for the same old same old then we will forever be stuck with the same old same old. The Ex Norwegian agrees. I am torn and thus truly curious how people like he feel about this issue, how they'll feel if we end up with another George W. Bush in the office. So I said to him:

"The is incredibly shocking truth telling here old friend. Thank you for posting. The question posed then is, if Obama is as much an evil calculating murdering thug as Bush Jr. and/or Romney would be (we actually don't know how Romney would be, nor do I care), then it behooves us to NOT vote for Obama, simply on grounds of principle. (which is what I did in '08). So we vote for a more noble and less savage alternative than the choices being offered by the big two. But regardless, one of the big two will still win; at least as things stand now. If we do tip the scales that heavily to swing a decent percentage of moderates away from Obama, as we did in 2000 by supporting Nader, are we prepared for a Romney presidency? Would there be a difference? You infer repeatedly that u don’t believe there would be. (And related to international imperialism you are obviously right).

“But by many accounts it appears there would be huge differences here at home, socially and economically. But you are willing to live with the results if our social service programs are slashed? Financial regulations slashed? And the wealthiest 1% receive deeper tax cuts on the erroneous grounds of the foolhardy trickle-down economics theory? I'm just curious. Is it a "fuck all" mentality that you're operating from? Just to buck the system for purely anarchistic purposes? Or do you really believe there would be no difference between a Repub led White House versus a Dem led one? Because your constant lambasting of the current president does nothing but compel many in the middle to think twice before voting for him, and you very well might accidentally throw that slippery wish-washer Mitt Romney into the White House, though I don’t see it, not at all, intuitively speaking. But if you do, what I'm curious about is: are you o.k. with that? Do tell."

I'll keep you posted. It's an intriguing place America is in right now. More discouraging a place one might say than we’ve ever been in. It’s a nightmare come to life. A damn annoying three ring circus. Sad, frustrating, disheartening, frightening, insulting, and discouraging. A lot of hullaballoo over two ignoble men and an onslaught of non-issues and gossip abound. Anything BUT the issues. Even those with the noblest intentions in the media partake in the daily inanity of it all. We the people have been kidnapped. Hooked. Trapped. Imprisoned. Taken hostage. Thrown into a prisoner of war camp and left for dead. Helpless to do anything about it but write these worthless letters or sign endless petitions that go nowhere and do nothing. Voting against the big two that together act as one seems a noble act. At least theoretically. To make a statement. But how long until it actually accomplishes anything? Other than potentially making our captors even worse than the ones we have now? That’s the question.