2 Parties & 0 Choices or Why? Part 2 of ??
While catching up on my New Yorker reading this weekend, (why, oh, why does it have to be a weekly?), I found this nugget in a piece about post-presidency Bill Clinton (The New Yorker, Sept. 18, 2006, "The Wanderer," David Remnick, page 66):
Where is the investigation? The disgust and outrage? When Clinton was president, Congress spent years and years and dollars and dollars investigating "Whitewater," which turned up NOTHING. But that didn't matter because the Republicans got what they were after: to almost completely stall the Clinton presidency. Money, time, and effort that could have gone to solve very real problems were wasted. The Republicans also hardly allowed votes to approve or deny appointments for the federal judiciary. It didn't matter that the system was backed up and the courts were unable to do their job and all the sitting judges complained. Because it's all about power.
And when the Democrats were in power, they pulled crap, too.
I don't think either party, Democrats or Republicans, really care about making this a better country. Their job is to maintain or re-gain power, to be re-elected. And they're very good at it. Together, the two parties do everything in their power to shut out other voices, other parties. The Democrats and Republicans need each other because all they have to do is wrest power from the other, usually by showing how bad the other is. On any issue, they don't need to formulate a policy, they only have to position themselves in relation to the other party. They don't actually DO anything because they don't have to. In fact, it's often better to let a bad situation get worse, so that one party can use the issue in the next election. Do we wonder why we have such a horrible rate of voting in the United States? Our Congresspeople are office seekers and office holders, not representatives.
I do believe that the Democrats are the lesser of two evils, but I'm not excited about voting for an evil, even if is the "better" one. If we were allowed to have a multi-party system, other voices could be heard. It might force the parties to actually have to say and do something real. I don't see it happening any time soon. The ones in power like it this way.
Besides, they've gone around the whole "voting" issue anyway; do you feel confident that your vote is accurately counted? And the tricks are getting dirtier and more subtle for suppressing the vote.
This is a capitalist nation first and foremost. More money = more power and more power = more money.
I can't believe we have the nerve to call this country a democracy. True, on the whole, we enjoy more freedom and greater wealth than most of humankind throughout history has ever seen. I feel lucky for that. But the United States falls far, far short of the ideals that are espoused. And too often our freedom and wealth are built on the poverty and servitude of others in the world. Forgive me if I don't take pride in that.
... a recent report in the Chicago Tribune revealed that the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, began his career in Congress with a net worth of three hundred thousand dollars and now has assets of six million, owing largely to an almost fantastical increase in the value of land near a highway project that he helped push through Congress.
Where is the investigation? The disgust and outrage? When Clinton was president, Congress spent years and years and dollars and dollars investigating "Whitewater," which turned up NOTHING. But that didn't matter because the Republicans got what they were after: to almost completely stall the Clinton presidency. Money, time, and effort that could have gone to solve very real problems were wasted. The Republicans also hardly allowed votes to approve or deny appointments for the federal judiciary. It didn't matter that the system was backed up and the courts were unable to do their job and all the sitting judges complained. Because it's all about power.
And when the Democrats were in power, they pulled crap, too.
I don't think either party, Democrats or Republicans, really care about making this a better country. Their job is to maintain or re-gain power, to be re-elected. And they're very good at it. Together, the two parties do everything in their power to shut out other voices, other parties. The Democrats and Republicans need each other because all they have to do is wrest power from the other, usually by showing how bad the other is. On any issue, they don't need to formulate a policy, they only have to position themselves in relation to the other party. They don't actually DO anything because they don't have to. In fact, it's often better to let a bad situation get worse, so that one party can use the issue in the next election. Do we wonder why we have such a horrible rate of voting in the United States? Our Congresspeople are office seekers and office holders, not representatives.
I do believe that the Democrats are the lesser of two evils, but I'm not excited about voting for an evil, even if is the "better" one. If we were allowed to have a multi-party system, other voices could be heard. It might force the parties to actually have to say and do something real. I don't see it happening any time soon. The ones in power like it this way.
Besides, they've gone around the whole "voting" issue anyway; do you feel confident that your vote is accurately counted? And the tricks are getting dirtier and more subtle for suppressing the vote.
This is a capitalist nation first and foremost. More money = more power and more power = more money.
I can't believe we have the nerve to call this country a democracy. True, on the whole, we enjoy more freedom and greater wealth than most of humankind throughout history has ever seen. I feel lucky for that. But the United States falls far, far short of the ideals that are espoused. And too often our freedom and wealth are built on the poverty and servitude of others in the world. Forgive me if I don't take pride in that.
posted by Daniel wbc at 10:15 PM
2 Comments:
You Go, Daniel!! For both parties it is definitely a money = power thing and vice versa.
A huge part of it is the "Military - Industrial Complex" that Ike Eisenhower warned us about 'way back in the '50's . . . .
It would be great if a third and possibly 4th political party became viable in the US - that might make the other two at least attempt to "do the right thing" . . . .
Yup. I've always tended away from supporting 3rd party candidates bc of the sense of the "wasted vote." Then there's (what I would call) the Nader debacle of 2000.
This year, at least in our state races (e.g., governor) I will be supporting the Independent candidates and even though (unlike Jesse Ventura in '98) they are not likely to win, I will feel good about it.
The Dems (or DFL as they're known here) have pretty much lost me - and, I might add, Kerry and his marriage bs was large part of it... Grrrr.
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