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Ref. : Civic Events
Ref. : Arts & Education Events
Ref. : Public Service Notices
05.17 Why American Colleges Are Becoming a Force for Inequality
05.17 Why Private Schools Are Dying Out
Ref. : Letters to the editor
05.18 Four Examples from the Last Week Prove Obama Is Full of Hot Air on Climate Protection
05.17 New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation
05.17 Angelina Jolie has done something extraordinary
05.17 Obama must Make Fighting Climate Change National Project, or Die the death of a thousand Scandals
05.17 Study: Why Pot Smokers Are Skinnier
05.16 What Will It Take for Us to Recognize That the Way We Live Could Be Destroying Life as We Know It?
05.16 How Drug Companies Keep Medicine Out of Reach
05.15 Don't Look Now, but Our Medicare Spending Projections Are Plummeting
05.15 No Benefit Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet
05.15 Why the world faces climate chaos
05.14 US Supreme Court finds for Monsanto in seed patent battle (Update 2)
05.13 Austerity and the Unraveling of European Universal Health Care
05.13 Global Warming: Halfway to a Mass Extinction Event?
05.13 Coming Corporate Control of Medicine Will Throw Patients Under the Bus
05.12 The giants of the green world that profit from the planet's destruction
05.11 Psychiatrists under fire in mental health battle
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
05.11 Ongoing rule: Once a demon, always a demon!
05.11 FCC: Fronting For Corporations?
05.11 FCC: Fronting For Corporations?
05.11 The news media is even worse than you think
Daily FAIR Blog
The Daily Howler
05.18 Senator wants U.S. in oil price-fixing probe
05.18 Timothy Geithner Is Key To IRS Scandal
05.16 Why Won't the SEC Rein In the Firms That Tanked America's Economy?
05.16 Elizabeth Warren to Obama Administration: Take the Banks to Court, Already!
05.15 The IRS should do more, not less, scrutinizing of political groups
05.15 Did the IRS illegally target the Tea Party? Seven questions answered.
05.14 IRS kept shifting targets in tax-exempt groups scrutiny: report
05.12 Authorities Announce tax Haven Investigation
05.17 The Great American Descent into Plutocracy
05.17 The Real Benghazi Scandal
05.16 Take Politics Away From the I.R.S.
05.16 Should 501(c)(4)’s Be Eliminated?
05.16 What We Mean When We Say 'Race Is a Social Construct'
05.12 The Assault on Food Stamps Takes Legislative Form, and Jamie Dimon Profits!
05.11 The Military’s 40-Year Experiment
05.11 Student Debt Slows Growth as Young Spend Less
05.11 'Purity' culture: bad for women, worse for survivors of sexual assault
05.11 At Least 71 Kids Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown
05.11 Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Address [15:05 video]
05.11 The Good, the Bad and the Crazy [6:05 video]
05.18 Pope blames tyranny of capitalism for making people miserable[1:00 video]
05.18 A Simple Graph That Should Silence Austerians and Gold Bugs Forever [graph]
05.18 The Savings Heist
05.18 Sheila Krumholz and Danielle Brian on How Money Rules Washington [20:31 video]
05.14 10 Scenes From The Economic Collapse That Is Sweeping Across The Planet
05.14 The Vicious New Bank Shakedown That Could Seriously Ruin Your Life
05.14 Neo-liberalism – the antithesis to democracy [charts]
05.14 Bloomberg: "Coup d’Etat to Trade Seen in Billionaire Toxic Lead Fight"
05.13 Mel Watt, Nominee to Head FHFA, Opposes Administration by Voting to Deregulate Derivatives
05.12 IRS Blunder Gives Republicans Ammunition in Effort to Defund the Agency
05.12 Visualizing the World’s Tax Havens [Infographic]
05.11 A New Era for Worker Ownership, 5 Years in the Making
Ref. : Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair [25:35 video]
Ref. : Nurses vs. High-Speed Traders
Ref. : We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
05.18 Hans Rosling: the man who's making data cool [3:19 video]
05.18 Washington gets explicit: its 'war on terror' is permanent
05.17 Egypt 'suffering worst economic crisis since 1930s'
05.16 Catholic Church Finally Decides That Austerity is Bad
05.15 Retirement: How They Do It Elsewhere
05.15 Europeans disillusioned and divided by debt crisis, survey finds
05.14 Interview: NATO Supreme Allied Commander on Syria and Soft Power
05.14 Spain is officially insolvent: get your money out while you still can
05.14 Cayman Islands Spars With Sachs Over Hedge Fund Directorships
05.13 Cornel West: 'They say I'm un-American'
05.13 27% of Spaniards are out of work. Yet in one town everyone has a job
05.11 U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars ... That It Will Publicly Admit
05.11 Tax evasion still crippling Africa as rich countries fail to deliver support
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COMMENTARY:
Bipartisanship Is Not The Answer
There are inherent inconsistencies in the ideas of Unity08. It says that “neither of today’s major parties reflects the aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans.” Moreover, “both are dominated by money.” Nevertheless, Unity08 wants a ticket based on a Republican and a Democrat for president and vice-president, or vice-versa—politicians who have been loyal to their party but who presumably are too moderate to win the nomination from their own party and are willing to abandon their party (though Unity08 maintains that its candidates would not be asked to leave their party) and run against its candidate. Does this bipartisan ticket offer a real alternative? Even a poll by the group found that “a majority doubt that even a unity team would be able to clear out the corruption and favoritism in Washington.” As to what is really needed, the group explicitly says, “We are not looking to build a new and permanent party.” Never mind the practical aspects of Unity08 succeeding; what matters is their implicit acceptance of the two-party duopoly. Indeed, without challenging the intentions of the founders of Unity08, their effort is the height of destructive political distraction that can be tolerated and even welcomed by the two major parties.
The core problem is that bipartisanship is sheer nonsense. Bipartisanship is not a solution to bitter and destructive partisanship. Bipartisanship inherently accepts the dominance of the Democratic and Republican parties in American politics and protects the two-party duopoly. It’s as if blending two poisons offers a solution. In truth, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. observed, “The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt.” Any rational American who sees the longstanding defects of both major parties should reject bipartisanship in any form. What the nation needs is a new competitive third party.
A trap that too many people fall into is the belief that on many important issues there are critical differences between the two major parties and especially between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. The wisdom of Ralph Nader deserves attention: “The parties are polarized on certain social issues. But on the fundamental issues affecting the future of democracy, they’re on the same page. They sell elections to the highest bidder. They are unwilling to challenge John Corporation. To me that’s on the same page of hypocrisy, instead of democracy.”
Interestingly, while Unity08 has identified two tiers of issues—crucial and important, it has not taken any substantive positions on exactly how to address them. In googling for views similar to mine I found only one on the Hammer of Truth web site. Devious David said “This thing is probably financed by the majors in order to get the people to chase their tails and think that they are doing something. Nothing worthwhile would come from this. And that’s what the powers that be want!”
Getting two moderates from both parties to run on the Unity08 ticket cannot erase the greater truth about the loyalties those moderates have had to their parties and their complicity in the destructive actions by those parties. This is what must always be remembered: Republicans are more open than Democrats about being corporate whores—as they practice compassionate corporatism. At most, the two major parties offer near-term incremental change to tweak things, rather than more radical, systemic and status quo-busting change. And that is also the inevitable problem with the Unity08 approach to providing a safety valve for the high blood pressure of many millions of Americans who are angry as hell about the current political system.
We desperately need a new third party, and until a kosher competitive one is created to appeal to Americans across the entire left-right political spectrum, based primarily on restoring American democracy, the best action for angry Americans is to withdraw their votes and support from both Democrats and Republicans. What may do more to bring about necessary fundamental change in our system is reducing the fraction of eligible voters participating in elections in which clearly a Democrat or Republican will win. When a president of the United States wins with, say, just 20 percent of eligible voters, the legitimacy of America’s delusional democracy will finally vanish.
Now is not the time for frustrated Americans to compromise. The nation is increasingly ready for a new third party. Just say No! to both Democrats and Republicans—all of them, even the moderates. Yes, we need unity, but unity for restoring American democracy.
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This story was published on June 14, 2006.
