Reply #39: I have often discussed the impossibility of third party wins in a winner-take-all voting system...

[arendt]

like we have in the U.S. (As opposed to proportional representation with national lists, like most European democracies have.) In fact, I talked about replacing the entire U.S. governmental structure, at length:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/arendt/75 (this is the first of two journal entries. The other is right after/before it.)

But, these threads sunk like a stone. Process is a huge yawn to most people. Witness how even DU has succumbed to horse race fever.

If you can't get people to act in the face of blatantly dictatorial (if process-y) actions, like retroactive immunity, corruption of the U.S. attorneys, illegal wiretaps, how are you going to move from the current broken system to a system powerful enough to get the corporations back under control, simply by saying the magic words "third party"? The third party has to have massive and innovative ORGANIZATIONAL capabilities, not just an ideologically acceptable platform. I don't see any third party with those capabilities. I see nothing but ideological splinter groups, fighting over party purity. Libertarians - what a dangerous, testosterone-poisoned, adolescent joke they are. Greens - totally self-sabotaged. Hell, Michael Bloomberg could get more votes from a standing start in October, 2008 than those two parties combined will get.

I think we have reached a level of political breakdown on par with 1856, when the system was obviously gridlocked; but everyone agreed to pretend it wasn't. The resulting four year standoff just gave both sides time to arm and recruit.

Fine, go ahead and vote third party. Let's assume McCain gets in. Then, he will let all these rotten GOP appointees continue to dismember the government, let the corporations sell off and rip off the rest of America's wealth, and increasingly turn the wiretapping, false arrest, political prosecution screws on dissent, and even effective opposition. When it gets to 2012, you every non-GOP candidate will get COINTELPROed into oblivion. It will be like a Civil War in which the South armed-up, while the North did nothing.

While I agree that the individual candidates are nothing but corporate lapdogs, the Democratic Party does have at least 30-40% true small-d democrats, mostly involved in the DNC and the local parties. The difference between GOP and Dem control is that, under Dems, at least some decent people will be appointed, and the GOP ideologues will have to orchestrate their sabotage from outside the WH. I think that is enough of a difference to vote for, as you so aptly put it, "our scum".

arendt

arendt