Time to liven up the parties
Most people today will likely tell you they don’t really feel well represented by our current two-party-oligarchy-owned quasi-democratic quagmire. I think that, unless you’re a billionaire, a racist, a misogynist, a pedophile, or a murderer, that’s probably pretty true.
Even in our little village you can always count on a certain elephantine party always supporting further development despite the wishes of the actual voting public.
So, in order to fix this lingering hemorrhoid of a problem, I would like to suggest a few ideas for new parties. Maybe we could end up with a system like the folks in Canada, Great Britain, or most other actual western democracies where various parties actually work to represent actual voters.
First up would be the Food Party. This party would focus on the idea of providing a steady, affordable diet of clean, healthy quality food produced by small family farms as opposed to the polluted, overpriced and substandard food we currently get from big Ag.
The Food Party would also focus on expanding SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] to help the needy and doing away with the current onerous system. Nowadays, a family must fill out copious paperwork on a yearly basis that proves they qualify as well as supplying enough personal information to set them up for identity theft for life.
The next new party would be the Sisterhood or Women’s Party. It would focus on women’s issues, but would be open to both men and women who support things such as a right to access reproductive healthcare.
They would support equal rights for women, equal pay, equal educational opportunities and maintain the right for women to vote, despite the efforts of Peter Thiel, who feels women should not have that right. The party would also focus on the rights of women to not be raped, murdered, abused, and exploited since the current two parties seem quite content to let that continue.
Another new party would be the anti-organized religion party. Their focus would be on keeping organized religion out of politics and public life in all ways. They would also focus on firmly establishing the principle of having no official religion in this country.
They would work to outlaw the concept that our country was founded as a nation aligned with any religion, when, in point of fact, the founding fathers were quite specific in not aligning with any church. Another part of the party’s platform would be to tax all religious orders, churches, temples, mosques, and satanic worship circles as is done in many other western nations. And finally, the use of any religion to hurt, denigrate, demean or unfairly target any group would be strictly outlawed.
The Dog and Cat Party would be a welcome addition to the group. The focus here would be on protecting the rights of animals, outlawing the practice of animal testing and setting national laws for such things as animal abuse, puppy mills, and reining in the out-of-control pet industry. There would be controls on veterinary care just like there should be for human medical care.
At this moment in time, having a pet is becoming untenable for more and more people simply because vet care is getting unaffordable. The only problem is that, in this party, the cat people and the dog people need to work to find common ground. At the last meeting, the cat people knocked all the proposed legal documents on the floor while the dog people were crowded around an iPad looking at puppy videos.
My final suggestion would be the Human Party. This party would focus on preserving the dignity, safety, health, and happiness of all human beings. They would work for laws that outlawed the unchecked accumulation of wealth by individuals past the $10 million level. They would establish standards for wages that allowed anyone working a full-time job to earn enough to live a safe and decent life.
They would help establish universal healthcare so nobody would ever go bankrupt from simply becoming sick. They would work to outlaw the ownership of housing by corporations and hedge funds. And finally, they would enact laws that would prohibit all convicted criminals from ever holding public office. Lobbying would become illegal as would all political contributions over $100. Ironic that we’d need a specific party to do the job that should be at the center of all decent, honest political parties. Wait, is that an oxymoron?
As you can see, there’s lots of room for new parties since the current two only address the needs of rich old white men. Both parties hate people of color, women, and the poor since both parties have worked tirelessly to maintain the status quo for decades.
Oh, I know what you’re thinking: “He’s just a cynic.” Very true. I am. But I’ve also been a registered Democrat and voter for my entire adult life. While I do believe the Democrats are far better than the current iteration of the GOP or American Nazi Party as it now operates, they’re still far from where they should be.
Politics has always been called a dirty, corrupt business and that’s more a reflection on our dying late-stage capitalist hellscape. When I was younger, the two parties were capable of working in a bipartisan fashion to help the common man.
Once Citizens United opened the floodgates of dark money, all politics became dirtier than the pile of adult diapers outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We can fix our badly broken system, but it requires much higher levels of voter turnout and a new generation of candidates who truly understand the concept of public service as opposed to private enrichment. Of course, the midterm elections would provide a great opportunity to turn a corner.
The only problem is that the regime in Washington has its eye on making sure those elections don’t happen. Not a very democratic attitude coming from the “law and order” party.
Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg describes himself as an ex-journalist, professional cynic, and enraged American citizen looking for change so his grandchildren will have a chance at a decent life.