31 Flavors of Ice-cream, Yet only Two Parties!

31 Flavors of Ice-cream, Yet only Two Parties!

Edip Yuksel 

At Wal-Mart you may find half a dozen brands of bathroom tissues, at Home Depot a dozen brands of faucets, at Zappos several dozens of shoe models for just a single brand called Naughty Monkey, and at Baskin Robbins you may find 31 plus flavors of ice-cream, yet in America's political market you have only two choices. Only two parties in the land of liberty and diversity. How ironic: a country, whose political leaders have been leading her to numerous wars under the guise of defending or exporting democracy is herself democratically challenged! Perhaps, has no democracy at all. 

Why can't we vote a list of candidates in a preferred order so that when our top choices do not win sufficient votes they would count for the rest of the candidates in our list? Why can't we adopt the preferential voting and proportional representation methods? This way, by voting for our top choices we would not be worrying about helping worst of the two devils. This way, third parties and independent candidates could get the votes of many people whose political views are not represented in the current system. Americans, a mosaic of people, deserve more diversity in political representation.  As a result of a conspiracy of the two parties, which has become almost identical twins, we are forced to play a political sea-saw in the same mud-box every election cycle. They care less about people, and both are playing the tune of interest groups, big corporations, financial institutions, and of course, compete with each other to please AIPAC. Our political system is rigged, and our government has become the government of corporations, by corporations and for corporations. No wonder whether we have small or big government, it works for big and bigger corporations. 

So, as progressive intellectuals what else can we do? Yes, what else can we do besides writing and reading and repeating the same cycle over and over? I am not underestimating the importance of writing or reading, but I think we should have enough numbers of brains and hearts to start a revolution in the USA. If you look at the history of the world, many great revolutions or reformations have been accomplished by a small group of dedicated visionaries. 

For instance, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, started his radical reforms with just 19 people. I think we have more than that number. So, what is missing? Sure, none of us is a military commander, nor the USA is a sinking empire (well, perhaps it is). But, there are times in every nation's history where people need courageous and committed leaders who do not only talk, but also walk.