Because of the moral meltdown in America, a law school dean reposts a seven month old blog analyzing the reasons why a new third party is necessary, what issues it should address, and some of the mechanics involved in creating it.
October 13, 2006
Re: Reposting A Blog On An American Third Party.
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com
Dear Colleagues:
Recently this writer posted a blog entitled Moral Meltdown. The post described the many reasons why this country appears to be in the midst of a moral breakdown, and it appeared to touch a chord. Far more people -- about 30 I would estimate -- emailed me about it than about other posts, which usually get only about three or five responses (at most). And only three of the 30 or so emailers called me a moron, which I would think a low number. The others were approbationary, sometimes very much so. And sometimes the approbationary emails were quite touching.
As some readers will know, the post said that this nation inevitably is experiencing a moral meltdown when you consider, among other things, that its leaders desire to kidnap people off the street, to torture people, to hold them in jail, incommunicado, for years, to try them by courts martial in order to introduce evidence obtained by torture; when it fights war after war and causes the deaths of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands (and over the decades millions) of people; when it refuses to terminate its horrid mistakes and doesn't punish the criminals who caused the disasters (e.g., Kissinger, McNamara, Bush, Cheney, etc.); when the Congress eagerly jumps aboard the bandwagons for war after war without seriously questioning the premises, is led by grafters and the otherwise corrupt, cares about nothing except pork and reelection, has jury-rigged the system to insure reelection of almost all members all of the time, and willingly votes to allow the President to continue his immoral conduct in one field after another; when our corporate and financial system support the grafting legislators and are themselves riddled with financial corruption; and when people vote by the tens of millions for grafters and warmongers.
The level and approbationary nature of the email response to the post on Moral Meltdown indicated, as poll after poll also does implicitly or explicitly, that there is great dissatisfaction with the way things have gone and are going in this country. Yet it is this writer's belief, based on over 45 years of observation, that the country is unlikely to significantly change course under either of the two major parties, and, correlatively, that the only way to obtain major change is for there to be a new third party. Given the high level of public dissatisfaction with the way things are going, and given my belief about the need for a third party, I have decided to repost a blog that was initially posted nearly seven months ago, on March 21, 2006. It is appended below. It discusses the many reasons why a third party is necessary, it presents issues such a party would have to address, and it mentions a few of the mechanics of creating and operating a new third party.
The posting is lengthy, as is perhaps inevitable if all these matters are to be discussed. It is sufficiently lengthy that, if the reader can do so, he or she might wish to print it out in hard copy for reading. The piece is not, I think, what would be called a written "political stemwinder." It is more, I hope, a considered analysis of an important long-term matter facing the country. As reprinted, it is almost exactly the same as it appeared on March 21st. Alterations are infrequent.
In my view, the moral meltdown in this country makes it imperative that, contrary to the long time view of what might be called the "smart money," serious consideration must be given by serious people to creating a third party. This must be done despite the many and major obstacles -- e.g., huge petition signing requirements -- that the two existing parties have put in the way of creating such party in order to perpetuate their own oligopoly and its associated immorality. I believe that, if there is a major third party movement, the obstacles will be overcome. I also believe that, unless there is a significant long-term third party movement, the country will long continue in a state of moral breakdown and will long continue to follow bad policies, sometimes policies that are historically proven to be bad but continue to be followed anyway.
Re: An American Third Party.
From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com
Dear Colleagues:
This blog will be one of the longer ones ever posted here. For it deals with a subject that this writer has been ruminating about for awhile, and about which some people have asked me of late. It deals with the question of what should now be done if, like so many Americans, one is unhappy with the warmongering, the extreme rightward thrust in both foreign and domestic affairs, and the rampant dishonesty which have come to extensively characterize much of American policies and politics, especially since the days of Nixon but also since the days of Johnson with regard to war and dishonesty.
In certain respects, with regard to certain principles and ideas, extensive autodidactic reading of history and more than forty-five years of observation seem to have yielded some answers as to what should be done. In other respects one is substantively at sea but feels it possible to set forth the process that should be followed to develop answers. And, as one bottom line, it seems to this writer that, as in the 1850s, when the Republican Party was created, it is now necessary to create a new political party. For the prevailing two parties suffer from a disease that could be called corrupt sclerosis of the intellectual and financial arteries. They are played out.
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