It drives me absolutely nuts that they’re even discussing immunity for Telcoms when it’s very clear that Bush knowingly violated the Constitution and the law. The Constitution is there to PROTECT US. It isn’t there to allow secret spying on US just cuz Bus wants to! Read the Goddamn thing! It prevents the government from spying on us and every thing else related to this hearing is just Bullshit and dryhumping. It’s simple: enforce or rights under the Constitution or get out.

thanks for the history lesson – much appreciated!

my knowledge of our history is quite limited (especially compared to yours!)…. but i’m not aware of a time that progressive (as we now use the term) policies were implemented by one or both of the two parties from within – am i wrong to think it has always taken political “threats” (not referring specifically to threats of violence) from the outside – from social movements and/or third parties?

cinnamonape @ 103

History suggest that unless there is schism in both parties one of the splinters will not succeed initially, and usually only after it has been a contending party and captured Congressional seats.

but what if success doesn’t mean electoral success, but instead policy success – ie their best ideas become mainstream and are taken up by one of the main 2 parties?

how often do you think third parties have been successful in getting their ideas accepted?

That’s a more complicated question. I don’t think the “Mugwumps” had much impact at all. The Free Soil party eventually became the Republican part…they favored abolition in the newly admitted territories that were becoming states. That had a great amount of influence as an idea, became law, and was the trigger that led to the Civil War.

Can’t think Anderson or Perot had lasting influence. Hard to say if the Greens have yet to have an impact on getting their ideas accepted. I lack the historical perspective…not enough time has passed.

The Progressive and Bullmoose parties likely drove other parties to embrace reforms of the corrupt political system of the early 1900’s.

And it’s argued that FDR embraced many of the ideas of the 1930’s Soc*al*sts and Communists in moderated form to create the “New Deal”. He wanted to undercut the potential of an actual right- or left-wing revolution during the Depression.

The AIP/Dixiecrats didn’t preserve segregation but much of their heritage is alive and well in the Republican party…but that was after they were absorbed INTO the Pugs. They’ve since become the “base”.

**Edited and realed by MOD.

Steve-AR @ 87
I am not familiar with that work. Thanks for the link.

There are many things that could be done to make U.S. system more democratic, which a 2 party system is not. For example, start with electoral college. Then there’s winner-take-all. An a whole other list. Remember Lani Guinier? She was working on ways that voting could be changed to give minorities more rights, instead of having a cockamamie gerrymandering.

But because Rs & Ds benefit so much from status quo, change will probably never happen.

Some communities are moving to a “proportionate” voting system in which voters select choices from 1-10. Once a candidate reaches a target number of 1st place votes his second choices are allocated (proportionate to his remaining unnecessary 1st place votes). Those are added to the remaining candidates until they cross the threshhold, and so on. That way a persons votes aren’t “wasted” if they happen to support a really popular candidate. This presumably prevents “fringe candidates” from being elected, while more popular individuals are shut out.

But something like a proportionate system in Congress would require a Constitutional Amendment.

And I thought a revision of the campaign finance laws to forbid lobbyists and corporations from donating to candidates would also require one. But then I found just how flimsy the legal argument for treating corporations as “individuals” actually was. I now believe that, properly framed, a legislative act could clearly state that only citizens could make campaign contributions and define corporations as NON-CITIZENS since they cannot vote, are not born or naturalized as citizens, etc. Citizens are PERSONS…human beings in the Constitution…not “property” or an “association”.

eCAHNomics @ 85

Again, I’m not defending Nader or his tactics. Just trying to point out some realities about power politics.

As a matter of fact, I agree with you. Political movements must be grown organizally from the population. And though a good leader speeds the process,* Nader has done nothing that I’m aware of on the grass roots level. If you watched him when he did the book tour on his memoir, he reeked of sanctimony.

*Even if the movement had a good leader, and strong grass routes, Rs & Ds would do their utmost to destroy it. And thus we have a 2 party system.

With movements such as Blue America I believe we are on the road to another party. By supporting identified progressive candidates in many races and with the active support of Toobers I believe we can slowly turn the tide from the Rs & Ds (RDs?) owning all. Of course it would help if we could get the vast amount of money out of the picture.

This is much more likely a successful strategy. If one can increase the number of progressives they can at least influence legislation or block it. At about 20% they become a critical bloc. And at that point they may even attract others who WERE moderates to shift toward the progressive position. The history of the “progressive parties” that followed the days of the Tammany Hall, robber barons and laissez-faire economics. These factions were ascendant until WW1…although there was certainly some pretty strong counterattacks, particular on Debs and the Labor Movements. But there were a lot of progressive reforms introduced (the initiative, recall, child labor laws, 8-hour work days, womans vote, etc).

Steve-AR @ 77

It seems as if two parties is the “stable state” for our non-parliamentary form of government. Political parties come and go but two seems to be the steady state number. I wonder if this is a tradition based on “psychology” or if it is intrinsic to our form of government?

Your stable state is not a state of nature but stems from strong efforts by both parties to keep others’ out.

But what political party would not do that? No party wants additional competition. They do want schisms within the other party, however. That’s why you often find opposing parties trying to encourage dissent within the opposing party. And once the splinter is formed, they even lend it financial support. Go look at Naders campaign contribors, particular on the eve of the election and you’ll find a deluge of people who are well known Republican donors. That’s the irony of the situation. These donors knew they wouldn’t successfully influence Nader with their cash…but they also knew it hurt Gore by having Nader sap votes away from him.

And a two-party system is facilitated by the allocation of Congressional and Senate seats by a winner take all system by district. In Europe Parliamentary seats are often allocated by vote % in a common slate. Thus if a party wins 10% of the vote, they get 10% of the seats.

History suggest that unless there is schism in both parties one of the splinters will not succeed initially, and usually only after it has been a contending party and captured Congressional seats.

but what if success doesn’t mean electoral success, but instead policy success – ie their best ideas become mainstream and are taken up by one of the main 2 parties?

how often do you think third parties have been successful in getting their ideas accepted?

It seems as if two parties is the “stable state” for our non-parliamentary form of government. Political parties come and go but two seems to be the steady state number. I wonder if this is a tradition based on “psychology” or if it is intrinsic to our form of government?

If you look at the history of political parties, third parties actually split from one competitive party…and then that party almost always loses the general election. There are only a couple of cases where third parties actually ascended into the second party after the schism. The best case of that was in 1856-60, when the Whigs split off the Republicans. But then the Democrats also split. Making four parties. Lincoln won with a bare plurality, but the Civil War created wholesale transformations of the political landscape, allowing the “Party of Lincoln” to become the next ascendant party. Whigs were no more.

But more usual is the short term split, based upon a charismatic figure. Even when the “Bullmoose” Progressives split from the Republicans, and Populists from the Democrats…the splitters failed to win. Woodrow Wilson of the Democrats came out ahead.

The Dixiecrat split (they later began to slowly become Republicans)led to Eisenhower winning easily. Some argue that George Wallace finalized this when he created the American Independant Party. That led to the final shift of many segregationist Democrats to the Republicans~ Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”. That, of course, led to the Rockefeller Republicans being marginalized and Reagan being elected despite John Anderson’s creation of a new party. The influx of AIP’s into the party balanced off the loss to the centrist National Unity Party.

Then there was Ross Perot ( zapping Bush I far more than Clinton); and Nader, who joined up with the nascent Green Party.

History suggest that unless there is schism in both parties one of the splinters will not succeed initially, and usually only after it has been a contending party and captured Congressional seats.

Valerie Plame, on Daily Show last night (a rerun, I think) said that she was concerned about Iraq WMD’s and that there had been no WMD inspectors in Iraq since 1998.

IIRC, U N Inspector Hans Blix was in Iraq in 2001 and he was claiming to have made some progress re: cooperation relative to WMD inspections. In fact, Blix said that inspections were well under way and no weapons were being found. I heard this with my own ears. (This was before the attack on Iraq, but concurrent with the Persian Gulf build up of American Military Forces.)

Are you sure she was talking about Iraq and not IRAN? IIRC correctly her own husband, Joe Wilson, argued that the Inspections regime in IRAQ were going well and that the US should withhold any declaration of war until they were completed and evidence of WMD’s actually detected. That’s why he was so p.o.’d when they Bush Administration declared war and pulled the IAEA inspection teams OUT. I’m sure either Plame misspoke…or you mis-heard.