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OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 11/8/12

There Couldn't be a Better Time to Challenge the Corporate Parties

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George Wallace said in 1968, "There ain't a dime's worth of difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party".   I've been saying the same thing for quite some time.   I wasn't a big George Wallace fan in 1968.   I don't think I've ever been as afraid of the color of someone's skin as he was.   We know that, after he was shot, his entire outlook on life changed.   It's too bad it takes such drastic measures for Americans to begin to care about one another.  

Then came the crazy talk about women's bodies naturally repelling pregnancy if they were "legitimately" raped or pregnancy resulting from a rape being "god's will".   I suddenly saw a dime's worth of difference.   I knew that Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, or even Stewart Alexander, one of the many Socialist Parties' candidates, weren't going to be elected.   I also knew that, if either of them were elected, they'd never get anything done with the bought and paid for politicians in Congress.   I mean Obama, a bought and paid for politician himself can't receive the support of Congress.   I'm as certain as I can be that racism is the underlying reason for this.   So think about what would happen if Stewart Alexander, an African American, was elected president.   He has at least one thing in common with Obama, right?   As I previously wrote, I think that "thing" is the reason Republicans hate Obama so much.   How much of Alexander's socialist agenda would even be entertained by that House of Representatives?

Don't get me wrong.   If we could put together a socialist government within the system that now exists, I'd be right there.   I am a socialist.   However, I'm not stupid.   I'm not handing our government over to people who are going to wait for "god" to fix things.

Here's what has to be done for sure:

1. All of the different varieties of socialist parties have to combine with the Green Party and truly become one large organized party.   The time for this couldn't be better.   The Republican Party is driving itself into extinction and the Democratic Party has become comfortable as the party of old time "moderate" Republicans.   I don't know who the best Republican president of my life time has been, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.   The Democrats are losing their competition from the right and need to be challenged from the left.   However, we have far too many socialist parties in The FUSA (The Formerly United States of America).   There's got to be one, and only one, Socialist Party of The United States of America.   The name of The Green Party still makes it sound like a party which is solely interested in the environment.   People won't even go to their site to read their platform because of this.   We need to stop dicking around with multiple versions of The Socialist Party and create one Socialist Party.   Can you imagine how large and powerful that would be?

We also need to get money from people who truly believe in Democratic Socialism.   There has to be someone out there with millions of dollars who's tired of the unfair capitalist system.   Would that be too much of a paradox?   I bet there's more than just one person, too.

2. We need to start today!   We need to start collecting money to run people in 2014 and then in 2016.   But, first, we need to join together.

3.   Suddenly American socialism is all about feminism?   Why?   I'm a straight, White man.   So this automatically means that I'm a conservative who hates minorities?   You know what they call that?   They call that prejudice.   I'm being prejudged because of my race, ethnicity, sexual preference and gender.   The socialist parties, all of them, as well as the Green Party, have fallen into the trap which has guided America forever.   

Blacks were slaves.   Then they were freed, but their freedom was still hampered.   Then, in 1965, the Civil Rights Act was passed.  

I'll use a personal experience to make the point.   After the Civil Rights Act was passed, I went to the telephone company looking for a job.   I was told, "I'm sorry, we're only hiring Negroes at this time." ("Negro" is what they called Black African-Americans at that time)   They, ultimately, realized that they had to stop being so blunt, but they still hired Blacks over Whites and women over men to make up for the previous unfairness to Blacks and women.   They replaced one unfair system with another.   I fully agree that employers, both in the so called private sector and public sector,   had to be forced by the government to hire Blacks, women and Latinos, but there had to be a better way than to punish White sons for the sins of their fathers.   We're a nation of extremes.   We seem to always fix one extreme by creating another.

Suddenly the Socialist Parties are driven by feminism and gay rights.   I support feminism and gay rights.   However, is going to an extreme to make up for the other extreme a good idea?   I think not.   But that's what America does.   It feels as if somebody has to be treated "less than" at all times.   It appears to me that all of the many socialist parties in The FUSA, as well as the Green Party, have fallen right in step with that American tradition.

We need to fight for equality for all Americans.   We can't have a country where gay people are on the top rung or women are on the top rung or African Americans are on the top rung or where people of Hispanic descent are on the top rung or where White men are on the top rung.   Socialism is about equality, not about choosing one group of people to be on the top rung to make up for all of the years that group was oppressed.   I would think that having been oppressed would teach people that oppression hurts, no matter who the victims are.

I know that, if Americans really look at a system that protects and respects life for everyone, they could conceivably be drawn to that system.   

4. There's got to be a concerted effort to rid ourselves of The Electoral College.   

We mustn't forget, though, that one of the top TV shows in this country is a show called "Honey Boo Boo".   It's a so called "reality show" about a spoiled 8 or 10 year old little girl and her fat, brainless mother.   And that's it.   People watch to see this little girl behave badly and to watch her mother do nothing about it.   I can go next door to see that.   And it stereotypes people from the south as being stupid and that's just plain wrong.   However, Americans have become partial to stereotyping people.

So how do we work with a populace which is psychologically regressing?   We know that the Corporatocracy is behind this regression.   It started with the first "reality TV show" and continues to spiral downward.   How do we get such creatures interested enough in their own well being to even care about the kind of change a socialist society would make?   I try to answer that question later on in this piece.

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Michael Bonanno is an associate editor for OpEdNews.

He is also a published poet, essayist and musician who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bonanno is a political progressive, not a Democratic Party apologist. He believes it's (more...)
 

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