The two party system has been called many things by many people. In my own systems view of how things work it is what stabilizes the system we live under. Depending on how you view the world this can be the root of our democracy or the cause of an oppressive oligarchy.
We are being confronted with some difficult choices by people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The words they speak are usually music to my ears and we don't get such music from others in or out of the democratic party.
Such situations tend to be divisive. It takes some deeper thinking to shrug off defensive knee jerk responses and to turn the situation around and find unity in it. Read on below and let's look at what others we ought to respect highly have said throughout our history.
Skepticism started very early:
Much indeed to be regretted, party disputes are now carried to such a length, and truth is so enveloped in mist and false representation, that it is extremely difficult to know through what channel to seek it. This difficulty to one, who is of no party, and whose sole wish is to pursue with undeviating steps a path which would lead this country to respectability, wealth, and happiness, is exceedingly to be lamented. But such, for wise purposes, it is presumed, is the turbulence of human passions in party disputes, when victory more than truth is the palm contended for.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Timothy Pickering, Jul. 27, 1795
Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
GEORGE ORWELL, Politics and the English Language
The morality of a [political] party must grow out of the conscience and the participation of the voters.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Autobiography
Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, The American Democrat
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
JOHN ADAMS, letter to Jonathan Jackson, Oct. 2, 1789
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/...
Then there was the great socialist Helen Keller
Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.… You ask for votes for women. What good can votes do when ten-elevenths of the land of Great Britain belongs to 200,000 and only one-eleventh to the rest of the 40,000,000? Have your men with their millions of votes freed themselves from this injustice?
She has always been one of my favorites.
Then there was
Eugene Debs
These two capitalist parties relieve each other in support of the capitalist system, while the capitalist system relieves the working class of what they produce.
This brutal order of things must be overthrown. The human race was not born to degeneracy.
There is much more but there is no point in listing them.
What we need to do is ask ourselves some fundamental questions. The first is to ask whether our dedication to this system can be justified given what we know today. The Tea party saw early on that they had a better chance to gain their ends by getting control of the Republican Party. It has worked out well for them. They have blocked a great deal of Obama's programs and done a lot to castrate his presidency. Is this a fault of the two party system? How else do you explain gridlock and its effectiveness?
A really nasty question involves the notion of denial. We all seem to agree that those who deny man made global warming are fools. Is it possible that dedication to the two party system involves kinds of denial of the same order of magnitude? Is it possible that those quoted above saw the systemic role the two party system plays in making capitalist oligarchy possible? Were they wrong? If they were why does anyone point to them as having been leaders in our cause? These are hard questions. Knee jerk answers reflect the probability that a denial mechanism is indeed at work here. Serious thought can not just dismiss these questions as irrelevant or unimportant.
The simple old saw that insanity is simply doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to change has bearing on this issue.
So now for the knee jerk responses. Why am I writing this? Why am I writing this here? The answer should be obvious to anyone who bothers to find out who I am. I am a fighter and have been for a long time. I want to win. No, not elections, but the democracy I have dreamed about all my life. Winning that is important enough for me to bow to no authority that tries to outlaw this discussion. I am also a scholar and I refuse to leave important questions unasked because of orthodoxy.
Denial is a very strong component of addiction. We have strongly suggested that the denial of global warming is a form of mass addiction. Yes there are economic forces that drive the deniers but under it all is the addiction of the masses to a way of thinking about nature that is wrong. It is a way of thinking about life that is wrong. It is also a part of a larger system that includes the economic and political systems. Thus it is also a way of thinking about the political system that is wrong. It is a misguided worldview and it will be very destructive in the end.
I'll say it one more time as others have said it, the two party system stabilizes this system and is a big part of why we can do nothing to stop the system from continuing on its destructive course.
As we prepare for the November election it is good to step back and ask ourselves what we are doing. We want to keep the Senate out of the hands of the republicans among other things. It is out of their hands now. What has the Senate been able to do? Let's hope we succeed. Then maybe we can try to figure out how to get something done about the problems that face us. The Senate will be of little help I'm afraid.