The time to support third parties is now!

I keep hearing people quoting, whether knowingly or unknowingly, a great Jimmy Dale Gilmore song about facing the inevitability of death: “And you might as well choose right now, it’s love or fear.” Who will you travel with? he asks. Politics is the context of those I’ve heard say that lately.

       Reading the news that Obama has relented on his reelection promises to increase taxes on all Americans who earn over $250,000.00 a year AND to leave Social Security alone was a shock. Listening to one of my favorite radio shows, the Stephanie Miller Show, I heard her say once again that “Obama plays chess, the Republicans play checkers.” I too have been an Obama apologist, but no more, even if he is playing some kind of chess. I can’t support a chess game that involves lying to me. And if he wins, for whom has he won? The Democratic Party, I assume. I am 62, so what does the Democratic Party mean to me now? It is the party that actively encouraged and participated in the cover-up of JFK’s assassination, and that, I now think, was the end of America-as-we-thought-it-was. It is the party that supported two hugely expensive and wrong-headed (in blood and treasure) wars: Viet Nam and Iraq. Those are just the biggest examples of misguided military actions supported by Democrats. It is also the party that gave me Social Security and, soon maybe, Medicare. I say gave me, but of course, I paid in to these insurance policies. Thank God, it was the party that eventually cooperated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. It is the party that has capitulated on environmental progress, the party that cooperated with Republicans to establish a fascist world-wide “free trade” umbrella. It is the party that lost, temporarily, Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat! Ok, it’s too depressing to go on. The hope offered by Obama is now proven to be a change too far – too far to prove real.

       I will not go off on the Republican Party in this blog. I am not and never was a Republican although I once thought John McCain offered hope and voted to reelect him as a Senator in the 1980s.

       So, here’s where I am at: I could never be a Republican and now, I won’t be a Democrat either unless an almost impossible thing happens. That would be that the Democrats in Congress, en mass, oppose Obama’s stance and force him back to his campaign promises. He would thank you for it as would all of us who voted him in. The continued growth of Presidential power in America must end. The Congress must take back its Constitutional powers. No more wars without a Congressional declaration of War. No more compromises on core Democratic values such as Social Security. The Military/Industrial and now, /Secrecy Complex must be confronted and unfunded, leaving a true civilian-led military that is lean and mean, and then TAKES PROPER CARE of its soldiers. The dangerous Supreme Court decision that corporations are people must be debunked.

       Oh yeah, there’s more, but on to my main point. George Carlin was right. America is a club and you and I don’t belong. So, what to do? Well, the radical idea that Americans are going to overthrow the government by force is so ludicrous I won’t even go there. That is the sick underpinning of the Republican Party! The complacent idea that ONE person, the President, has the power to fix America’s ills is actually a plea for dictatorship which will never be benign. It is un-American to the core. The thought that you go vote and things will be made right your way is delusional unless you have contributed somewhere around $100,000.00 dollars to one of the two parties. I disagree with George Carlin on refusing to vote. That’s the ONLY thing we have, and that only when we overwhelm voter suppression and fraud with huge numbers.

       So, I’m going to vote, but with a big difference. I’m going to ALWAYS vote third party in elections. In primaries where there is no third party on the ballot I will vote for the Democrat I like best and if I don’t like any, I’ll, I'll...hell I'll decide in the voting booth. I could vote for Ron Paul in the same way I have voted for Democrats - on balance, if his policies were implemented in a way undiluted by Republicans (big if) America and the world would be better off than having a Republican in office.  To be specific, we'd shrink the Pentagon and Secrecy organizations and keep our military ready, but at home. Peace might be allowed to break out! But I won’t vote, as one young man I know, for Mickey Mouse. It's not a joke, it's the fate of our species! Our vote is our last best hope and continuing to vote for a Democratic Party that will not become as liberal as its base is a losing proposition. Most have either been bought out or scared out, and I don’t doubt that, for some, the fear is reality-based. For others, it’s merely a fear of losing elections. Let’s make ‘em shiver. You’re too old to be in our nest, we’re pushing you out. Straighten up and fly right. (No pun intended.)

 postscript: I can think of lot's of counter arguments and expansion and explanations, but I'll do that only if there are comments made.