"As things stand, our corrupt two-party duopoly makes a credible third party virtually inconceivable."
I wish you would have written more about that - because many of us are now looking to pour time energy and money into a viable third party effort. If it's not possible, why bother? Indeed, if it's not possible, what can we do to make it possible? THIS is what we need. The D's and R's are quickly becoming obsolete in the real world, and certainly both are obsolete for the working class.
Let me say this about that (in my best Nixonian). We do not have two parties, we have one party, aided and abetted by a servile media, who have slightly different views of how to screw the serfs. The Democrats (or, as I think of them, the paternalistic liberals) have, indeed abandoned the working class. This happened after George McGovern was defeated in his run for President and was sealed when St. Ronnie was elected head dog catcher and chased all the moderate Republicans out of the Republican party whence they infested the Democratic party. They might have been moderate but they were still Republicans. The Republicans (or, as I have always thought of them, the authoritarian liberals) have always been up front that there objective was to screw the serfs and they had the money to make it happen. So that's the first thing that has to come out of our politics. Money. Citizen's United has to be written out of the constitution. The next thing is that it isn't "our corrupt two-party duopoly makes a credible third party virtually inconceivable." Our corrupt two party charade is the result of two things: one, every state has minimum requirements to get on the ballot. Either they have to get so many signatures on a petition or they have to get some percentage of the last vote. In "authoritarian" Russia all you need is the filing fee to get on the ballot. Two, at least for President, the measure is first past the post get all the electors. If the electors were divvied up by the percentage of votes their respective Presidential candidate got, Presidential elections would be so much more interesting. For the income inequality, there is an incredibly simple solution. Bring back the 91% top marginal tax rate. Whatever your top marginal tax bracket is becomes your effective max pay.
This is the minimum we must do. As the Economist said, we are a flawed democracy. And I would add.... at best.
"As things stand, our corrupt two-party duopoly makes a credible third party virtually inconceivable."
I wish you would have written more about that - because many of us are now looking to pour time energy and money into a viable third party effort. If it's not possible, why bother? Indeed, if it's not possible, what can we do to make it possible? THIS is what we need. The D's and R's are quickly becoming obsolete in the real world, and certainly both are obsolete for the working class.
Let me say this about that (in my best Nixonian). We do not have two parties, we have one party, aided and abetted by a servile media, who have slightly different views of how to screw the serfs. The Democrats (or, as I think of them, the paternalistic liberals) have, indeed abandoned the working class. This happened after George McGovern was defeated in his run for President and was sealed when St. Ronnie was elected head dog catcher and chased all the moderate Republicans out of the Republican party whence they infested the Democratic party. They might have been moderate but they were still Republicans. The Republicans (or, as I have always thought of them, the authoritarian liberals) have always been up front that there objective was to screw the serfs and they had the money to make it happen. So that's the first thing that has to come out of our politics. Money. Citizen's United has to be written out of the constitution. The next thing is that it isn't "our corrupt two-party duopoly makes a credible third party virtually inconceivable." Our corrupt two party charade is the result of two things: one, every state has minimum requirements to get on the ballot. Either they have to get so many signatures on a petition or they have to get some percentage of the last vote. In "authoritarian" Russia all you need is the filing fee to get on the ballot. Two, at least for President, the measure is first past the post get all the electors. If the electors were divvied up by the percentage of votes their respective Presidential candidate got, Presidential elections would be so much more interesting. For the income inequality, there is an incredibly simple solution. Bring back the 91% top marginal tax rate. Whatever your top marginal tax bracket is becomes your effective max pay.
This is the minimum we must do. As the Economist said, we are a flawed democracy. And I would add.... at best.