Article: Reposting A Blog On An American Third Party.

In trying to create a new party, one can use the already existing, and the soon-to-be-existing, features of the internet in ways that may as yet be undreamed, that are certainly not yet the subject of discussion, and that in some respects would likely be anathema to current pols and officials because of their oft prevalent mania for as much secrecy as possible, not just in governmental policies, but also in regard to what they do to advance themselves, i.e., in regard to the unseemly, often immoral and sometimes illegal actions they take for personal advancement.

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Lincoln once said that the battle of today is not for today alone, but also for a vast future. Those of us who take issue with much of what has occurred in this nation for many years confront a similar situation. Whether left wingers, liberals, or even sometimes middle of the roaders, those who are unhappy about American politics and policies face a battle whose outcome will affect generations yet unborn, generations that perhaps will not even be born for the better part of a century or longer.

And just as Lincoln said of his own generation, we cannot escape history. Indeed, history has worked on us longer than it had on Lincoln=s generation. The history they faced began in 1787 and ran to 1861. As will be discussed here, the history we face began in 1787, ran to 1861, then resumed in 1876 and has run until the present day.

But this is not all. To change American politics and policies, to disenthrall the nation from elements of its history that have led to terrible policies in the present, we must exercise idealism and pursue the moral. Use of the very word idealism, or being tagged with its variant (idealist), causes one to be derided, scoffed at, treated as not a serious person and certainly not a person fit for politics. Likewise, to say that one pursues the moral causes one to be derided as impractical, as heedless of realities. America, a land that knows little or no history -- most Americans seem to know virtually none -- forgets that the abolitionists and the civil righters were idealistic and pursued the moral, forgets that Martin Luther King pursued the moral though he understood realities, forgets that Eugene McCarthy, the dethroner of Lyndon Johnson, said that sometimes morality is the only practical politics.

Nor is this all. For to turn around this aircraft carrier of a nation will likely take years, decades, maybe scores of years. It took the abolitionists 30 years to win the day. It took the civil righters somewhere between 20 years and 85 years, depending on how one dates the beginning of the movement and why. It took the women=s righters about 75 years. It took the old labor movement anywhere from 40 years to 120 years, again depending on how one dates the beginning of the movement and why. So great speed, though a boon to be wished, cannot be expected.

It is a plain fact that those who seek fundamental reform must be long term thinkers, whether the long term be considered ten years or twenty or fifty. They cannot be, as our current politicians always are, seekers of the quick fix, the kind of fix that fails, is even counterproductive, in the long run.

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What, then, are we to do? Well, let me first state some of the things we must stand for. Some of them are not in and of themselves substantive policies. They are, rather, basic principles, long flouted in this country, without which no substantive policies are likely to work, except perhaps as short term fixes doomed to long run failure.

The fundamental principles in mind are ones elaborated here many times (as well as in books I=ve written). Therefore they will only be quickly cited now, not lengthily elaborated yet again.

The principles predominantly include honesty -- the most important of all principles because nothing good, nothing competent, can come from dishonesty and associated misinformation, at least not in the long run. Viet Nam, Iraq, and economic disasters aplenty are macrocosmic proof enough of that.

None of us being perfect, none of us is completely honest all the time even though we should strive for the maximum amount of honesty -- and, at minimum, should eschew deliberate dishonesty (and should say nothing rather than lie or mislead when telling the complete truth is foreclosed for one reason or another).

In our current society it will in many people induce skepticism and rolled eyes, not to mention charges of naivete', to say that honesty must always be sought. (Although one does think that people increasingly are coming to realize what its absence is costing us in many ways.) So be it. Let the supposed sophisticates scorn if they wish. Their sophistication will not alter the fact that, unless we are to be further and further mired in disaster, this society must change from a significantly dishonest one to one where honesty is sought in fact, and is not just the subject of empty, hortatory oratory. Those who want to change the society must understand this.

They must also understand a related point. If one is to be honest, one must be willing to lose, no matter how desperately he wants to win. In the short run, it is often, even usually, easier to succeed by dishonesty and lying than by the truth, to succeed by saying what sounds good and what people want to hear rather than the unconventional. But in the long run dishonesty and lies are seen for the disaster they are and cause. Again, do we really need examples aside from macrocosmic ones like Viet Nam, the inflation occurring because of policies based on the lies associated with that war, the war in Iraq, and the economic disasters which have occurred because of dishonest statements of earnings by corporations?

There are other basic principles to which reformers need be committed. Fundamentally, they include competence; its closely associated handmaidens -- hard work and diligence; concern for others as well as oneself; and modesty. That competence is needed should be obvious, and not less so after the Bush administration. Hard work and diligence are verities -- though increasingly disrespected. The increasing disparity between rich and poor, the fact that CEOs of large corporations make about 450 times the amounts made by their average workers, and the increasing squeeze on the middle class are in major part the result of a lack of concern for others arising from greed spurred ever higher by the tax policies of Reagan and Bush II. AGreed is good@ is a horridly selfish, devil-take-all-but-me idea that turns capitalism from a desirable economic structure into an engine of oppression. We need capitalism because socialism, Communism, and related systems and entities are incompetent, but it must be tempered by at least some concern for others a well as oneself.

As for modesty, well, it simply is an old fashioned idea that people grew up with for perhaps the first 150 or 160 years of the country=s existence, and which prevailed in the Midwest when I was a kid, but which has become a farce because in this self-horn-blowing, celebrification worshiping society the modest inherent not the earth, but nothing, while the self promoters forge ahead. This is a recipe for an obnoxious society from show business to politics, to business, to the professions. No surprise, then, that such an obnoxious society is pretty much what we have and that, as part of blowing their own horns, people learn to lie on a regular basis from lying on resumes to lying about almost anything you can think of. Even people who believe modesty is desirable, who grew up where modesty was practiced and had it inculcated into them, find that survival sometimes -- even often -- requires immodesty. This is terrible. The society needs to change.

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