The Independent Message

While the debate goes on about political parties, I don't hear anyone talking about how we can reach our fellow Americans who have voted against their own self-interest. How do we reach these people among us who buy into the partisan messages? It's easy to criticize what we see as their gullibility or inability to think for themselves. It's frustrating when we gather and present facts, only to see those facts ignored. But these are the people we need to talk to, not the politicians. Those in office KNOW what's going on. The people put them there. It's up to the people to take them out of their position of control, one way or the other. The common folk who vote Republican despite the Republican history of favoring corporate interests over that of common folk, are passionate and patriotic Americans. They really do care about their country, but they have been misled about what to care about. The Republicans have become very skilled at developing and using language that speaks directly to these people. They have mastered the art of selling abstractions such as "values" and "morals" in place of concrete ideas. The 2004 election was a "red herring" showcase, where the issue of gays marrying trumped the issues of war, terrorism, and the economy. Recent events in Washington are proving to many "values and morals" voters that they were sold a bill of goods. On the flip side, many Democratic voters are not only unhappy with their party's performance in 2004, but the aimlessness and ineffectiveness of The Democratic Party in general. Many Democratic office holders take moderate or centrist positions that align them more with their opponents than their electorate. Democratic voters have become dismayed at their party's toothlessness, and its overall refusal to fight. The Democratic party has become an embarrassment to its own legacy, with many Democratic congressmen voting in favor of the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and the Bankruptcy Bill. Democratic voters are in a real bind as they believe they have nowhere else to turn. This situation of conflict within these people creates a distinct advantage for Independents. We ARE "these people," and "these people" are US. Just because someone votes Republican or Democrat does not mean they ARE a Republican or Democrat. In any election, there will always be a certain core of party loyalists who will vote strictly along those lines, but the majority of voters make up their mind according to which campaign has the better sales pitch. They are usually listed as "Undecided" in pre-election polls. We have been there ourselves, weighing our limited choices, agonizing whether to vote for the best candidate (usually an Independent or Third Party candidate) or the "lesser of two evils." We have felt the extreme disheartenment within ourselves of knowing that the best person for the job doesn't have a chance to win, and faced disdain from others for "wasting a vote." Supporting the major opposite political party because we don't care for the one in power fails at changing America for the better, because it perpetuates the very system that has created the situation we are in now. There are more people in the United States than there are in any current political party. We need to shake off the conditioned response that supporting a party opposite the one in office is the only way to change things. It isn't. The two-party system is essentially a one-party system designed to allow a nation to appear as though it is a Democracy. One party leans slightly one way, the other party leans slightly the opposite way, but both are beholden to the same big-money interests who contribute millions of dollars to their campaigns. How much money are we talking about? According to official figures obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the 2004 Presidential campaign was the most expensive in history.The Republican and Democratic candidates for president raised a total of $693,087,861 between them, or around $347 million each (In contrast, the Libertarian, Green, and other third party candidates raised a total of $6,846,576 between them, or around $1.7 million each). One party loses, but the other is guaranteed to win, and results in nothing really changing. Our freedom of choice is an illusion. With an election process so obviously corrupt, we can see the need for change as nothing less than an emergency. It starts with us. We must take our own misplaced faith in the current political system and put it into our neighbors, family, and friends, regardless of how they've voted in the past, regardless of their religion, regardless of any external factor. Together with those around us, WE ARE the People. We know each other, and we know how to talk to each other. We don't need scientific studies, or polls, or focus groups to know what's truly important. The best words in the Constitution are We the People, and this is exactly why - to remind us whose country this is. It is not the Republicans' country. It is not the Democrats' country. It is our country. All of ours. WE need to take it back. The current government is in place because WE have given it to them through our buy-in to the political system, in which THEY have defined the rules of our lives. It is time that WE tell them the game is over. As Kate Chopin wrote in The Awakening, "...the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!" It will not be easy, but the value of the effort will infinitely exceed the price we pay for it.