You look at what they call ‘The Industrialized world’ and you can get a feel for how they run their democracies. Canada, France, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Scotland, to name a few, all have at least FIVE viable political parties. Germany and Italy have SIX. The UK has SEVEN. Japan and Sweden have EIGHT. Norway has NINE. Turkey has TEN. Switzerland has TWELVE. The Netherlands and Poland have THIRTEEN. Spain tops the list with FOURTEEN. Now, we know that in most of those nations there are one or two, perhaps three or four prominent parties. Yet, in many instances coalitions are needed to run their governments. Not so in the good ole USA.
Historically, many times in our nation there have been popular third party movements. What happened in most cases? Duh, the empire, through its powerful leverage using this Two Party system, has either Co-opted third parties by overwhelming them by outspending them severely, or using the controlled media to disenfranchise them in the eyes of the ‘Sucker Public’.
Recently, we have seen how the Sanders’ Democratic Socialist campaign was vilified by both the Republican and Democratic run news stations as being ‘Far Left wing radicals and Marxists’. If you wish to scare the ‘Sucker Public’ just label someone as a Marxist AKA Communist. This has been successfully done for as long as this writer can remember.
What the movers and shakers of this empire want is a Compliant Voter/Citizen.
The Chinese restaurant joke still resonates well: Just choose from Column A or Column B… either way you LOSE… with no ice cream dessert!
Thus, the Two Party/One Party scam has allowed our republic to move more and more to the Right politically. If Richard Nixon was a politician today he would be labeled as a ‘Moderate Republican’.. or perhaps even a Democrat!
They labeled Bill and Hillary Clinton as Marxists, ditto with Obama, and now his chosen successor Biden. Today, Senator Lindsay Graham warned of the Biden administration coming in as having a ‘Far Left wing agenda’. Did Graham see how many Neo Liberal appointees Biden has named?
The ‘War Hawks’ will fill the halls of our Capitol!
We won’t see any Medicare for All under Biden.
We won’t see large corporate America being taxed along with the super rich.
No Universal Basic Income to save hundreds of millions of us.
Just a few band-aids to stop some of the bleeding.
Why, he won’t even institute Sanders’ idea of a $2000 per person stimulus check (one time only by the way). He plans to deduct the $600 we already got from that total.
If we had a viable multi party system here in the ‘Land of the Free’ perhaps there would be more adjustments. Instead, we stay with this phony Two Party/One Party fantasyland. Sure, they joined together to get rid of the craziness of Trump.
Imagine if there was more than just the Chinese menu, Trump may have never been elected in the first place… or Biden now.
If there was a viable Libertarian Party, along with ditto for a Green Party, or Socialist Party, the obscene military spending (accounting for 50% of our federal taxes) would have never been allowed to surge to such high numbers. Same for those nearly 1000 overseas military bases our taxes throw down the rabbit hole.
We would still have major problems inside of this empire. As the Jack Nicholson character said in the film ‘ One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ after he failed to win a bet by lifting the stone water fountain: “At least I tried. That’s more than I can say for you guys!”
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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].
