Reply #48: Speaking of the final "death throes" of 3rd Parties (any flavor), check this out?

[ShortnFiery]

No, I refuse don that "brownshit" even for The Clintonian DLC because they happen to claim membership to OUR PARTY. That element is NOT The Democratic Party whom I've volunteered and voted for my entire adult life. :shrug:


http://www.counterpunch.org/kuzminski08182004.html

The minority status of the Democratic Party was disguised by its lingering control of Congress (until 1994) and the fluke election (thanks to Ross Perot) of Bill Clinton. Social activists and progressives of various sorts remained the party's base, even as party leaders, embodied in the Democratic Leadership Council, sensing the limited electoral appeal of the progressive agenda, steadily drifted to the right. Their failure to rearticulate a compelling vision of social justice and democracy sealed the party's fate. Conservative attacks on 'big government,' and their promotion of 'deregulation' not only of much of the economy but of campaign financing, solidified the corruption of the political process. As early as the Carter years, conservatives captured the leadership of the Democratic as well as the Republican parties, and created the two-party, right-wing duopoly which now confronts us.

The right-wing duopoly is now virtrually impervious to challenge, as the careers of figures as diverse as Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean, and Denis Kucinich demonstrate. Kerry's right-wing campaign for president, echoing the exploitative domestic and aggressive foreign policies of Bush, confirms the end of meaningful political discourse in the United States. There are simply no remaining effective instruments of political action available to the restless masses, who are probably a majority of the country, and most of whom, as a result, no longer participate in the political process at all.

What is likely is the continued consolidation of the right-wing duopoly, most evident in the erosion of civil liberties and the war on terrorism. Somewhere along the line, America lost its political freedom without even realizing it. The last meaningful opposition to the duopoly was perhaps Ross Perot's presidential candidacy in 1992. His presence in the presidential debates and his subsequent garnering of almost twenty percent of the vote -- in spite of dropping out of the race and then reentering it -- may be the most underappreciated event in recent American political history. Perot was no social activist liberal, but he showed what an open political process might achieve. Afterward, the duopoly regrouped and created a rigged, 'bi-partisan,' corporate-sponsored debate commission dedicated to making sure that no third party candidate would ever again enjoy such exposure to the voters.