Re: [sixties-l] To Nader or not to Nader

From: Sorrento95@aol.com
Date: 10/30/00

  • Next message: Sdsrebels@aol.com: "[sixties-l] Bernardine Dohrn"

    In 1976 I remember a liberal friend getting drunk and
    yelling at me because I was voting for the independent
    McCarthy as a protest against two-party politics. Of
    course he wanted me to vote for Carter.
    
    Reflecting over that, I came to understand that what
    this country really needed was a parliamentary system,
    with proportional representation and multi-member 
    districts, so we wouldn't always have to face the "lesser
    of two evils" dilemma.
    
    Freidrich Engels, in an 1893 letter to Friedrich 
    Sorge (Lewis Feuer, ed., Marx & Engels, Doubleday)
    offered an explanation of why there was no large 
    socialist party in America.  He presented three
    reasons:
    
    1. the Constitution, which favors the two-party
    system; "the American," he wrote, "...does not 
    want to throw away his vote [on minor parties
    with no chance of winning]";
    
    2. immigration, which introduces numerous ethnic
    conflicts within the working class [my rephrasing
    of Engels' writing];
    
    3. the prosperity associated with the domestic
    tariff system and the steadily growing domestic
    market.  
    
    Too bad some of that energy spent in the 60s wasn't
    used campaigning for an Constitutional amendment
    to change the electoral system so that some real
    choices could emerge.
    
     ~ Michael Wright
        Norman, Oklahoma
    



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