(Photo credits very special thanks to Elaine Meinel Supkis)
The Power of PISSED OFF People:
Third Party Candidates are the New Black
When it comes to making a compulsory selection between the “lesser of two evils” (McBama) on this hopeless and unappetizing pre-fixe menu of a two-party dictatorship for the upcoming presidential election, are you starting to feel a little like Jim Carrey in the scene from Liar Liar where he excuses himself from the courtroom to go beat himself up in the bathroom? Why do voters keep beating their heads against the wall by voting for candidates whose interests serve against them?
In an interview with Brian Lamb on C-Span yesterday, former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges announced his support for third-party candidate Ralph Nader. LWOH readers will recall The Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State: Chris Hedges on "America's Democratic Collapse" where Hedges summarized the broken two-party system and the need for voters to get it right this time around with this excerpt of his keynote address to Furman University graduates:
“We are being impoverished-legally, economically, spiritually and politically. And unless we soon reverse this tide, unless we wrest the state away from corporate hands, we will be sucked into the dark and turbulent world of globalization where there are only masters and serfs, where the American dream will be no more than that-a dream, where those who work hard for a living can no longer earn a decent wage to sustain themselves or their families, whether in sweat shops in China or the decaying rust belt of Ohio, where democratic dissent is condemned as treason and ruthlessly silenced. I single out no party. The Democratic Party has been as guilty as the Republicans. It was Bill Clinton who led the Democratic Party to the corporate watering trough. Clinton argued that the party had to ditch labor unions, no longer a source of votes or power, as a political ally. Workers, he insisted, would vote Democratic anyway. They had no choice. It was better, he argued, to take corporate money.”
Also yesterday, Andrew Kohut’s NY Times Op-Ed article The Power of the Protest Vote simultaneously and unarguably called out voters to finally abandon the doomed McBama choir as both candidates do NOT represent the interests of American voters but instead those of corporate global elites:
“Don’t be surprised if third or fourth party presidential candidates garner enough votes in November to make a difference in some of the hotly contested swing states. The polls show more than enough Republican disaffection with John McCain’s candidacy to make a case that Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, or another right-of-center candidate could take votes away from the G.O.P. standard bearer. And on the Democratic side, Barack Obama has to worry about defections of not only Hillary Clinton’s supporters, but also of liberals, who are beginning to grumble that he is moving too much toward the center.”
The groundbreaking Nader/Gonzalez campaign continues to gain support while a few blogger Democrats welcome support for Libertarian Bob Barr, “even if it is for the wrong reasons” to grab McCain votes.
“How about Nader, Barr, McKinney, not being characterized as “protest candidates” at all? When the two major party candidates do not represent majoritarian issues, those third party/independent candidates provide a viable choice.
I am so over the idea that we have to choose between Coke-D or Pepsi-R. What about Sprite, Dr. Pepper, root beer, or diet soda? For me, Nader is like filtered drinking water (i.e., good for ridding the body of toxins).
Why are we limiting ourselves to a broken two-party system that has left us in disrepair?”
— Posted by Jessica V. Cortez
And
“Unfortunately Barack Obama has lost my vote with his support of the FISA Bill. This incredibly fascist vote I feel will lose the election for him. I will now probably vote for Nader or McKinney of the Green Party.
Maybe the pendulum has not swung far enough too the right yet and progressives must wait some more for a true candidate of change. Obama did change something he changed my mind about voting for him after I supported and campaigned for him throughout 2008.”
The reason he won was because the people do not want politics as usual and he said he was going to be a peoples candidate. Well the FISA vote proved he is not what he claims and the votes that he got to beat Hillary came from the progressives, the alienated and the desperately hopeful.
He has thrown that away and feels that these supporters have no where else to go but they had no where to go before he became the NEW people’s candidate.
Obama has lost many many many more votes than he will ever gain with his dash for the center.
To think I had the audacity to hope!”
— Posted by Ron Meisels
While Elaine Meinel Supkis explains how and why this economy is drowning in a sea of red ink and we are going down with it, third party candidates are – make that have got to be --- the new black in 2008.
-2Truthy
2 comments:
The current state of affairs in US politics is referred to in the echo-sphere as the "two party system"--vaguely implying that it's somewhere in the constitution.
It's not. It is a side effect of the nutty electoral college, which is not present in any other democracy, not now, not ever.
Why did the "founding fathers" invented this nutty system? Was it to protect the land-owners? After all, the "electors," would most likely be literate (upper-class land-owners) and the constitution is clear that they are not bound by the results of the electorate (read: rable).
Proportion the electors by the popular votes (a movement seen in many states), and the "two party system" would collapse: these two parties only represent corporate interests and expect to carry the voters on the repugnant "lesser of two evils" argument.
"Proportion the electors by the popular votes (a movement seen in many states), and the "two party system" would collapse:"
anon, not that we would ever expect the faithful supporters of the two party candidate, McBama, to demand that movement be adopted by all fifty states or anything.
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