(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

"Libertarians are now serving, in effect, as Democratic Party operatives."

from A Third Party on the Right

This is just as infuriating to read as the argument that Greens are Republican operatives. One reason people turn to the Green Party or the Libertarian Party is that they feel they've been failed by and excluded from the status quo. Another reason is that the mainstream voice does not speak for them. If a conservative cannot, in good conscience, vote for the Republican candidate, this does NOT mean his or her vote for a Libertarian or Reform candidate is "as good as" a vote for the Democrats. Saying that because your favorite candidate lost on election day is simply cynical.

People who are social liberals and fiscal conservatives have no political home in America, even though a party carving out this position might well win a majority.

Comments

[soulsong.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I vote Green, and if that meant that the UK Conservatives got in instead of the Labour party, what would I care? The mainstream parties are identical in every way that matters.

When the revolution comes etc...

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The mainstream parties are identical in every way that matters.

I feel the same way. Democrats might be a little more forceful about creating social programs, but Republicans aren't really against social programs, they're just against paying for them.

In the last two years, the Democrats tried to act like an opposition party, even though they had control of the Senate. They made no major economic or fiscal proposals, prefering instead to hope that voters would get angry at Bush about the return to deficit spending. They also offered very little in the way of social programs, and kowtowed to Bush on every major foreign policy decision he's made so far.

I no longer trust them to speak for me.

[papilleau.livejournal.com]

Nader cost Gore the election. Simple as that, no debate is possible on that simple statement of fact. The Republicans in the last days of the 2000 campaign even ran pro-Nader ads in states where the race was close, it's a matter of public record. Why Nader chose to remain in the race when he knew there was a chance he would throw the election is the real question. Is there other Republican or right-wing money we don't know about, was it plain ego, or simple self-delusion on Mr. Nader's part? The Greens blitzed the college campuses like ideological Pied Pipers, siphoning off progressive votes and assuring the coming to power of the friendly fascist regime that now threatens to plunge us into full bore war, at the same time it pushes its intolerant social agenda at home. What infuriates me is not the progressive attitudes that form a large part of the Green platform. I'm down with that. What ticks me off is that by corraling progressives to their banner they marginalize the very attitudes that need to be moving to the heart of the political agenda instead. You think we will be seeing a Green member of Congress anytime soon, a Green governor, a Green president? Statistics show that people with views sympathetic to the Green agenda constitute 25 percent of U.S. voters. Yet the Greens actual political power consists of a few city assemblypersons, and maybe a mayor in some university town. Somehow I don't think that therein lies the road to real power.

[mlfoley.livejournal.com]

I think most Democrats vote or turn Green (as I may yet do) because of the wimpy nature of Democrats nowadays. I see your point, but I think the Republicans have been engaging in dirty politics like that for a long while. It's high time the Democrats publically ripped the Republicans to shreds for it.

Nader, incidentally, put out a notice that the Green party was NOT running those ads when he heard about them, as far as I can recall.

[papilleau.livejournal.com]

That's right, Nader didn't put out the ads, the Republican Leadership Council paid for them. Yes, dirty tricks. Very effective dirty tricks.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

For the most part I'd rather see a Democrat in a given office than a Republican, but given the Democrats' record over the last two years, I can honestly say I'm not sure what difference it would make anymore. They are playing along with the inner cabal's plan to rule the world, afraid I suppose of being completely marginalized. I'm also not sure that they would have handled things differently post-Sept. 11.

The plan to invade Iraq as a prelude to creating a global empire has nothing to do with "conservative" or "liberal." It has to do with power hunger, pure and simple. Liberals are just as capable of being seduced by the dark side as conservatives.

Frankly, I'd rather see the two-party system topple completely, because of the wasted energy and resources that go along with getting things done when you have to navigate through partisan politics, and now that we've seen what can happen when a particularly vocal and motivated minority can do once it hijacks one of the two parties.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Nader cost Gore the election? So what? HE IS JUST AS BAD AS THE REST OF THEM.
When Gore came to New Orleans for his presidential debate, he threw all the street performers out of work so he could have his little show where he wanted it. No one with any non-approved of political signs was allowed anywhere near the podium. They were kept away, in the dark, by armed guards.
They're all scum.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Anyway, Gore did not lose the election. Bush took over the U.S. Governemnet in a coup, assisted by his scum brother, Jeb Bush of Florida. (Doesn't anyone else find it at all suspiscious that the state in which the election results were questionable was governed by the losing candidate's brother, and the election was turned by an overwhelmingly Democratic district inexplicably voting Republican?)

[ktl.livejournal.com]

100 years ago, it was the formation of the Populist party that convinced the Democrats to move back to the left. I don't see why the Greens can't play the same role now; or the Libertarians, for that matter. Creative ideas always come from the margins.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Creative ideas always come from the margins.

This is an excellent point, and it is the role that third parties have traditionally played in American politics. Generally third parties manage to raise awareness of an issue, and the major party that looses votes over the issue gobbles it up. This usually spells death for the third party, but if the issue is the important thing, its job is done.

[ktl.livejournal.com]

"How can you drink water, you're supporting Pepsi! If Coke loses, it's all your fault..."