1
Political repression exists in the United States. We are trained to call our country "the land of the free," and "the home of the brave." Well, the first slogan is just plain false. The second slogan remains to be proven.
The masses in Tunisia and Egypt recently proved their bravery. They stood up to their repressive rulers, and forced them out of office. But in America, we lack any conception of who our repressive rulers are, and of how they are repressing us. We would welcome the opportunity to prove our bravery, but we can neither understand nor agree about whom we should rebel against.
Who are our repressors? And, how are they repressing us? Isn't it true that we freely elect our government officials? If so, how can we claim that they are repressing us? It would seem that our bravery goes unproven not because we are afraid to act, but because we simply know of no repressors against whom to rebel. What is there to rebel against?
Indeed, these very questions ARE the obstacles to our rebellion -- and to proving our bravery. Because these questions, and others like them, stymie us, we cannot decide or plan on how to act. We lack the conceptual framework needed to define our repressive situation. Yet our repression takes two forms. One is conceptual. The other is institutional. The ignorance these questions reveal constitutes the conceptual part of our repression. I will discuss the institutional part in a moment.
Fortunately, there is reason for hope. Independents are organizing. That is not easy for them to do. It's not in their nature. But on February 12, 2011, in New York City, the momentum began picking up speed.
That is when some 500 independent activists from all around the country converged on the campus of NYU to share notes and experiences, and to piece together some answers to the questions about who is repressing us, and how they are doing it. The event was hosted by Independentvoting.org.
Several participants shared their experiences of repression. Kathleen Curry , from Colorado, told her story. She was twice elected as a Dem to the state legislature. Through hard work, she rose to the second highest spot, the Colorado House Speaker Pro Tem. She was also Chair of the Agriculture Committee.
But she felt uncomfortable with some of the self-serving tactics the Dems were employing in the legislature. When she spoke up, she was instructed repeatedly that to get along in your career, you must go along with the party leadership. After she voted for a bill introduced by Repubs, because she thought it would benefit the people of her state, she became a pariah to her fellow Dems. Heroically, she kept her moral integrity and followed her own judgment, against the will of her party leadership. In response to the offensive treatment she received from angry Dems, she turned "independent."
But when she sought re-election as an independent, she couldn't get her name on the ballot. The two parties had passed a law requiring anyone who changed party affiliation to wait 18 months before running for office again. A loophole allowed her to run as a write-in candidate, which she did. But she lost.
Since then, she and Joelle Riddle have filed a law suit challenging a state law that allows Dems and Repubs to collect twice as much in contributions as unaffiliated candidates; yet another way to repress outsiders.
One of the other speakers was Wayne Griffin, a long time African American independent and chair of the South Carolina Independence Party. With the help of Independentvoting.org he sued the South Carolina legislature to make them stop their efforts to pass a law that would have instated a closed primary system. He argued that the measure was reminiscent of the old South Carolina, when similar laws were used to discriminate against Black voters.
BTW, as another example of institutional repression, who can forget the film of Ralph Nader being forbidden entrance into the 2000 presidential debates by the police in Boston? Polls showed that the public wanted to give Nader a chance to intellectually confront Dem Gore and Repub Bush, but the two-party system's Commission on Presidential Debates put its own interests above the public interest.
These are three examples of institutional political repression in the USA. The two-party system has a lock on the supposedly democratic process of election -- both state and federal. For the people this means that we do not get to hear the voices of those who care about the country, but who don't care to be a cog in the two-party machinery. Voices outside that system are silenced all over the country. We are told by the sycophants of the two-party system that the two parties are the proof of our freedom. Since we learn to think that way, we cannot conceptualize the two-party system as our very repressor -- but in fact it is.
Here are some more examples of how the American people are repressed by the two-party system. Closed primaries bar non-party voters from taking part in the selection of candidates for office. While nearly 40% of the voters in this country identify themselves as "independent," in states with closed primaries none of them can vote for the Dem or Repub -- although either a Dem or Repub will govern them. In these states, independents are only allowed to vote in the general election, which presents them with a choice from the "left overs" of the primary election. These independents are only "free" to chomp on the bones the two-party system tosses them.
For independent minded folks to vote in a closed primary process they would have to betray their moral integrity and lie when they register to vote by claiming to be a "Dem" or a "Repub." Because they refuse to do this, they are barred from voting in the primary election. Punished for their personal integrity? That is repression.
In June of 2010, the voters in California rebelled against this form of repression. Roughly 3.5 million voters with personal integrity were barred from voting in that state's closed primary system. But when Proposition 14 offered them a chance at liberation, they took it. Independentvoting.org was one of the main advocates of this law. (For more on Prop 14, see my articles on OpEdNews.)
1 | 2
