The Two-Party Charade Continues

Now that the mind-numbing Democratic Party nominating process is apparently over, we now begin the long march toward the November elections. Already my email in box is awash with exposes on Obama and McCain. The party faithful are being mobilized with apocalyptic visions of a world in which the opposing party’s demon wins the Presidency. This will be “the most important election in our lifetime,” just as it was in 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, etc.

In his recent essay, The Political Cartel of Republicans and Democrats, Phillip Collins comments: “Whenever the religious adherent of partisan affiliations attempts to “convert” me to their creed, I direct him or her to a quote from an obscure book entitled Tragedy and Hope. In this book, Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley writes, ‘the argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy…It should be able to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which … will still pursue with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.’”

Others echo this theme that Americans are offered no real choices in their candidates this year. Progressive Timothy Gatto laments this condition: Obama and McCain: Two Sides of the Same Coin. Conservative Chuck Baldwin, Presidential candidate for the Constitution Party, calls it: “Three Peas in a Pod”. Edwin Vierra calls it “Birds of a Feather”.

Justin Raimondo at www.Antiwar.com continually calls the Demopublicans “The War Party,” because the thing the candidates seem to agree on is the continuing need to force “democracy” on other countries and to do the bidding of the State of Israel. Jon Stewart recently humorously and insightfully covered the groveling of McCain, Obama and Clinton before the American Jewish Lobby, AIPAC.

I often apply the Marxian concept of “false consciousness” to this situation. The party faithful mobilize against each other, while not realizing the true Powers That Be control the agenda and are rarely brought up as a subject of the debates. Dwight Eisenhower in warned us about the influence of the Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell address. Others refer to it as the Military-Corporate-Banking-Media complex. With most major media outlets being controlled by mega-corporations that also have armaments companies, it is no wonder that no real debate on the Iraq invasion has taken place.

Those who believe in the American concept of individual liberty under a limited government shackled by the US Constitution look at this election season with great distress. With the major candidates offering two sides of the same statist coin, freedom seekers can only hope we somehow navigate through the Scylla and Charybdis monsters which would destroy us and make it through to a resurrection of liberty in the future.

In other states, most people will have other choices on the ballot. I recommend looking at Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party or Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. Reject the pleas of the party faithful that you’re “throwing away your vote.” On the contrary, show them that you are still free and refuse to vote for the evil candidate over the more evil candidate.

In Oklahoma the state legislature, alarmed by the large turnout for George Wallace’s independent bid for the Presidency in 1968, changed the laws to make it extremely difficult and costly for a third party to get and keep ballot status. It seems that Oklahomans should be satisfied with two choices and not have to clutter their minds with bothersome alternatives.

In future postings, I’ll try to post some of the many problems I see with both Obama and McCain. Since I am a delegate to the national Republican Convention in September, I am particularly conflicted. Despite its rhetoric, the Republican Party, at least nationally, has abandoned any pretense of supporting Constitutionally limited government.