Americans don't get real choice in elections

[mqbush]

Of the 30% of the electorate that voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election, only 4% of them did so because he was a staunch conservative. Four percent of 30% yields a miniscule 1% of the voters wanting a conservative government. One in one hundred voters! Surveys at the time (and for decades before and since), showed that 80% of the public favored more public spending, with cuts in military spending favored by two-to-one. (Noam Chomsky, Failed States)

But Reagan won this election by a landslide because there was no socialist or labor party in America, so 80% of Americans didn’t have a party that stood for what they wanted. When that happens, lobbyists, ideologues and special interests win the election.

Since the values of the people stay the same over the years, as shown by surveys, and presidential candidates rarely stray far from their party’s narrow dictates, this phenomenon continues, that of the vast majority not getting what they want. And all because of the intense and unyielding rhetoric poisoning the ides of a socialist party in America. Call it the Child Molester Party, and it couldn’t provoke as much intense, knee-jerk hatred in people.

In America. Only here is there such a predictable, unthought-out clamping of hands over ears and a high-pitched “na-na-na-na-na” to drown out the possibility of even hearing the words “socialist party.” In nearly all countries with elections, there is a socialist party putting up candidates. Sometimes it wins elections, sometimes it loses. And at no time does the country with a socialist government suffer a plague of locusts or any other such calamity. America’s frantic terror of socialism comes purely from propaganda. The drummed-in hatred of socialism/communism comes from efforts to turn Americans against the Soviet and Chinese regimes that blocked the spread of capitalism to those vast areas of the world. Plus, the US has to always have an enemy, or else the public wouldn’t so lavishly fund the military. With Big Business and the Pentagon needing the public to be manipulated, the, by golly, the public is going to be manipulated.

Of course, there’s nothing unique about that; all governments lie. But wouldn’t it be better to be aware, to know what’s going on? IS ignorance REALLY bliss?

[Benhurst]

1. We are run by two business parties, a conservative, mildly progressive

business party and a reactionary, neo-fascist business party.

The position we Democrats are likely to be taking on national health would be considered laughable and reactionary in most of the industrial world, where better programs were in place half a century ago. As the Dollar continues to fall, I fear we will become the laughingstock of the world, if we aren't already.

[Dreamer Tatum]

2. Um, WHAT?

But Reagan won this election by a landslide because there was no socialist or labor party in America

You're joking, right? People voted for an anti-socialist because there was no Socialist alternative?

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

3. Seems a bit off does it not?

Mondale doomed himself when he mentioned higher taxes, if there was a socialist groundswell waiting to happen that would not have killed himm

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. If I'm a Socialist, I'm not seduced by Reagan because Mondale threatened higher taxes

Great googly-moogly.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

5. Im agreeing with you..

Socialist would not have voted for regan because the lack of party (even though there was a socialst party in 1984:


Bob Richards Maureen Salaman Populist 66,324 0.07% 0 0.0%
Gus Hall Angela Davis Communist 36,386 0.04% 0 0.0%
Melvin Mason Matilde Zimme. Solst.Workers 24,699 0.03% 0 0.0%
Larry Holmes Gloria LaRiva Workers World 17,985 0.02% 0 0.0%