I’m with the Keep the “b” Out of “Dumass” Party.
We’re thinking of consolidating with the Dammits before the next election.
But when you vote Democrat, you also elect Republicans because the Democrats have moved so far to the right. Neither of the major parties cares about anything other than “am I re-elected yet?” and “Where is my next bag of money coming from?”
It is time for the American voter to think outside the Republicrat box, and vote for the Greens.
Whoohoo! You spelled all of those words correctly! I’m so pleased!
FWIW, I am a member of the Green Party, too, and actually pretty much for the reasons Jerrybear states. Although I don’t think all Americans should vote Green. I think they should vote Green, and Liberterian, and Reform, and Socialist, and maybe Republican and Democrat, too. The lack of political choices in this country is sickening. If we had some valid alternatives to the Demos and Repubs, I think we’d see a huge jump in voter turnout.
Don’t blame me. I voted Libertarian.
America will be a two-party system until some major changes are made, Kyla. Like how elections are set up and getting rid of all the damn polarity. It sucks I agree.
Kyla: I am also in Michigan (work in Flint, live in Gaines). I have not been as active as I’d like to be in the Greens lately, because I am working two jobs. I may have met you at a meeting or two in the past, though.
::: Derleth wonders if he’s at Slashdot. :::
Page-widening posts aren’t very bright, you know. Unless your spacebar is broken and you have degenerative nerve disease, lay off the freaking punctuation.
Now for something utterly pointless: The topic.
Parties aren’t the problem. Never have been. Individual politicians are sometimes the problem, but thus far our system has kept out the Caesars and the Quislings alike, leaving only the occasional Johnson or Carter or Adams. The problem is public apathy: Healthy human beings by nature don’t look for fights. This is a good thing, generally, (Can you imagine a race of sentient wolverines? They’d make the Nazis look like Melvil Milquetoast’s maiden aunt.) but it can be taken to extremes when nobody individually feels disgruntled enough to change much of anything even when the system as a whole needs change.
The good is the enemy of the best.
The best is the enemy of the good.
Both of those statements are perfectly true, but describe systems with different stability points:
The first statement describes America in the early 21st century, where social activism is all but dead in the mainstream and people feel that nothing is really worth upsetting the apple cart for. This enrages activists of all stripes, because the populace begins to resemble nothing more than a herd of sedated cattle. Even if one points to the greener grass on the other side of the paddock, nobody can muster enough energy to actually go anywhere. This is well and good, and is a great way to avoid infighting, as long as the herd isn’t standing in quicksand.
The second statement describes France during the Reign of Terror. Or, it also describes the American Colonies a few decades prior. It can be applied to both the Russian Revolution (1917) and the Jeffersonian Revolution (1800). Get the idea? A highly unstable system where the revolutionaries are able to lead a massively pissed public in radical directions because, goddamn, that grass is green! This grass is shitty compared to that grass! Of course, nobody can quite decide on which grass is the greenist. A system so unstable naturally provokes wars of the worst kind: Holy wars, even if both parties are strictly atheistic. The original goals of any revolution get trampled into the ground when both extremes try to grab as much of the good grass as they can, herds of insane cattle destroying the paddock in an effort to find and defend the absolute greenest grass possible. The best can kill the good.
It isn’t the fault of the parties or the politicans: Both can be swept aside like so many broken toys once the masses are angry. It’s just that the masses aren’t angry, and perhaps we should be grateful for a few years of domestic tranquility.