Be Part of the Solution

LPA: Today I toyed with the idea of trying to re-ignite the Liberal Party of America. So far I’ve had more hits than at anytime since the party was formed and had a blog. The party used to have a website that was absolutely stunning, but when we dissolved the party, we dissolved the website.

The number of hits today shows me that people are searching for anew party. In fact many of our hits were from search engines that had “Liberal Party” or “Liberal” in the field. I believe that this is indicative of the way that Americans are feeling. The Conservative right wing fundamentalists had their chance to live up to their “contract with America”. Like almost any organization, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The wishes of right wing conservatives became the wishes of politicians and their biggest supporters, and that is corporate America. In particular Big Oil, Defense Contractors, Insurance Companies and Medical Companies.

The corporations we need to focus on were the corporations that make up The Military Industrial Complex they talked about decades ago. The future is now, and we know who the enemy is. Recent statistics confirm that less than 10% of the population control more than 90% of it’s wealth. That is a statistic that Americans cannot live with. We have families where the primary breadwinner is working full time plus has a part-time job paying low wages, just to make ends meet. We have students attending college that statisticians say will be in debt until their 30's to pay for their education. Meanwhile the Republican government has cut student loans partly to finance this unnecessary war in Iraq.

We have spent over $410,000,000,000.00 (Billion) dollars on a war we are still not winning. The American people are tired of the war and feel that they were duped into supporting the war in the first place. The Democrats promised that they would raise the minimum wage and yet they have been outfoxed time and time again by the GOP. It doesn’t seem to matter who is in charge; the rich keep getting richer and the poor seem to lose more every year. Even healthcare has been put on the back burner in some families in order to buy food to put on the families dinner table. This isn’t just happening in Mississippi or Arkansas, it’s happening everywhere.

Education, Health Care, Job Growth (meaningful jobs, not minimum wage opportunities at Wal-Mart) and the Nation’s infrastructure have suffered under this administration. Even our rights guaranteed by the Constitution have been practically gutted. The Democrats promised action on these issues when they ran for seats in Congress in 2006. They have yet to make good on their lofty promises. What will the result of the peoples dissatisfaction be? Are they going to vote Republican next election and go from bad to worse? In reality the people have no real alternative. The only alternative is another political party to put the fear of the people back in government again. Both political parties know that with multi-million dollar House and Senate races and Billion dollar Presidential races, that a third party would have a hard time getting off the ground.

I want to say this; with the help of the internet and the tools available to politically minded people, it is no longer unfeasible to start a third major political party. People reading this might ask what it is that I am up too. What I am up to is to get a liberal/progressive political party started in the United States. Do I want to continue as chairman...no. I am recovering from open-heart surgery and I can’t devote the time and energy (I could be a good cheerleader). Do I think we can field candidates in political races in 2008? Maybe we can, if the office in question has such bad candidates that we have to run somebody, it’s not out of the question. We can however, control a voting bloc that could tip the balance in many elections. If a Democratic candidate is so unacceptable we could endorse a Republican Candidate, or a Green Party Candidate. The possibilities are endless.

This idea of starting a new political party should fill people with enthusiasm. This is a chance to start something pure and new. This is a chance to become a voice in government and possibly take the power away from the families and consortiums that now run our Federal government. This party is going to need leaders. It’s going to need a Party Chairman, a Vice Chairman a Secretary, State Chairmen. The list could go on for pages. What we need right now is an exploratory committee. We need people to get together and chart a path for this new party. I would be willing to join that committee in a limited capacity. It stands to reason that the people who volunteer for these posts would be the temporary leaders of this new party.

The time has really come. I know that Americans are disenchanted with what has been happening in politics. This is a chance to do something about it. Bemoaning the fact that the politicians in Washington are not working for the people won’t change the way things are. The only way to change things is by action. Just by signing up to be on the committee, or telling your friends about The Liberal Party of America will be some kind of action. The only thing these people in Washington understand is strength in numbers. We can do this if we have the will. We must do this, if not for ourselves then for the generations of Americans to come. It has to start somewhere, sometime. Let it start here and let it start now. Things won’t get better unless we make them better.

Do the Liberals Need A Party?

LPA: The recent victory of the Democrats in the last election should have been the death knell of The Liberal Party of America. Instead of being the death knell however, it seems as if the call for a third party has become more pressing than ever. It seems that no matter what we say to the Democrats (by we I’m talking about the Liberal/Progressives) , they don’t seem to be listening. There is a Progressive Democrat caucus in Congress, but they are small in number compared to the mainstream Democrats. The mainstream Democrats are hardly discernible from the mainstream Republicans.

What is a liberal? That question has been asked and answered by John F. Kennedy when he accepted the Liberal Party of New York’s nomination for President. Liberal was not such a polarizing word back in those times. Lately the word liberal has lost some of it’s negative charge because of the failings of the conservative right, that have shown people in this country how close to fascism they can get. During the Rights “glory days” they have managed to gut our rights under the Constitution, invade a sovereign nation and foment a civil war there that we are still involved in four year later, and set up a “unitary power of the executive branch” that considers itself to be above the law.

You would think that the election of a Democratic Congress would pave the way for impeachment, but before Congress was even seated in Washington the leaders of the Democrats sat with this President and then declared that “impeachment is off the table” to the consternation of the people that helped vote the Democrats into power. Many people thought this was a clever ruse by Democrats that would surely lead to investigations of people in the administration that would lead to impeachment. This has not happened either. What will it take for the Democrats to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of this administration? Now we are involved in a scandal that involves the Attorney Generals office. Unbelievably, The White House is being tied to the dismissal of eight Federal Prosecutors that seem to have been fired for political reasons.

How long will it take to convince Pelosi and Company that we need a stronger system of checks against this “Unitary Power” of this executive branch? Many Americans are wary of our own government and even the relationship between Democrats and Republicans is suspect. After a Republican Congress has enacted The Military Commissions Act of 2006 that takes away Habeas Corpus and leaves the use of torture open for discussion, The Patriot Act that allows the government to search your house without a warrant and many other laws and “signing statements” that cloud the issue of where your civil rights end and where the governments jurisdiction begins goes directly to the heart of The Bill of Rights that have almost been rescinded.

Maybe the idea of a third party that has political clout is called for. Maybe The Liberal Party IS just what the doctor ordered or maybe another party could carry the message that the American people are fed up with politics as usual in Washington. The corporate PAC’s that donate to political campaigns have just about become the “deciders” of who gets to run for office, and who doesn’t. Most American have become disgusted with the way Corporate politics are played in Washington and many States have voted for “Clean Money Elections”. This is something that Congress should be doing on the national level. We can’t afford another George W. Bush sitting in the White House. Right now I believe that we will be lucky to get him out of Washington when his term is up. With so many of the peoples rights usurped by all the laws passed in the last six years, we will be fortunate to keep our Republic intact.

Is it time for a third party? This is something that the people must decide. As an American you must ask yourselves if you are willing to sacrifice your freedom for the idea of security? Is this security real or is it imaginary? Are these terrorists that hate us around the world so powerful and omnipotent that we must give up our privacy? Do you want your government engaging in torture? Do you believe that we need to spend 350% more than our nearest competitor on military spending? Do you believe we need military bases in over one hundred countries? Do you want to spend you children’s inheritance on controlling the middle east?

Both political parties are saying yes to the questions that I just asked. Make no mistake of the fact that many of the goals the Republicans have are the same as the Democrats. The time of the two party system has long been at an end. The biggest question you must ask yourself is if you are happy with whom you get to vote for when you go to the polls and vote. For too many years we have had the lessor of two evils. All of the candidates that have won in the primaries have been well connected with corporate funding. How long do you want this to go on? Are you satisfied that we have people running that have “The Right Stuff”?

The choice is yours to make. You can either beg for a place at the table with the Democrats, or you can be a part of something bigger. The Liberal Party needs leaders. The Liberal Party needs voices. Even if we could represent a bloc of voters, we still would be more effective than trying to make our voices heard independently. I believe that it’s time for change. I believe you think it’s time for a change. Together we can make that change. Why wait?