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A Pox On Both Their Houses Just got back from seeing [1]Fahrenheit 9/11. Definitely recommend it, but that's not what I'm going to write about. Instead I would like to talk about this year's election, the insanity of voting for anyone but Kerry, and the importance of ridding the country of our political parties. I heard [2]Arianna Huffington give a speech at a Kerry fundraiser recently. She addressed the question of how people should deal with reservations they might have about Kerry with this line: 'when your house is on fire is not the time to be talking about remodeling.' I agree with that. Given our dysfunctional electoral system, it is simply fact that the only people who have a chance to be elected this year are Kerry and Bush. If you are thinking of casting a 'protest vote' for anyone else, do not be deceived, that vote can help no one but Bush. It may make no difference at all, but it will do no good. Sure, I agree that it would be great to have a complete overhaul of our political system, a rejection of our winner-take-all elections, and lots of other reforms to take power away from the political parties. But that's not going to happen this year. The truth is it is too late to talk about reform for this year. Nothing will change this election cycle. So sure, think about how to fix things, work to get the message to people you will vote for that you will hold them accountable for working for real reform, but accept our system for what it is today. And today that system lets us choose Bush or Kerry. I really hope that Kerry will run a great campaign, stand up for what is right, and make me feel happy to vote for him. But even if he doesn't I will go into the voting booth knowing that the strongest anti-Bush vote I can cast is for Kerry. Once we've gotten through this year, let's see if we can get some momentum going for attacking the parties. Today both parties seem to be more interested in serving corporate interest than human interest. Sure, we can start the long and laborious process of trying to create a new progressive party, but that is missing the point. A study of American electoral history clearly shows that the winner-take-all nature of our elections, coupled with the necessity of a party being able to elect a president in order for it to be considered viable, stacks the deck against that sort of reform. Most new parties have come out of splinter groups at the top of one of the existing two parties. After 1-3 elections cycles of three parties, one of the parties dies out. America has never sustained more than two viable parties in existence at the national level for any prolonged period of time. So maybe the problem isn't which parties we have, but the system in which they exist. We seem to have created a monstrous system in which the loyalty of our elected officials is more to their party than to either their constituents or their country. How wrong is that? And there are lots of simple reforms that could fix this. Imagine a system where you could rank the candidates in an election. That's right, pick more than one. That way you could say that you really want Nader, but if he isn't going to win you'll go with Kerry. I predict that that system would significantly increase how many votes third party candidates get. Another possiblity is to have 'None of The Above' as an option on all ballots. If 'None of The Above' wins, a new election must be held, but none of the candidates are eligible to run again. And how about making voting mandatory? There's lots of information out there about alternative ways to run elections. Just try this [3]google search. I have never once had the opportunity in a presidential election to vote for a candidate that I wanted to win. That may just be the nature of the beast. I personally think that anyone who wants to be President of the United States should be instantly disqualified from holding that office. Yet I keep hoping that someday I will be able to go to a polling place on the first Tuesday in November ([4]November 2nd this year), and wholeheartedly cast a vote for someone who not only deserves to win, but actually could. References: 1. http://www.fahrenheit911.com 2. http://www.ariannaonline.com 3. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=alternate+voting+system&btnG=Search 4. http://www.november2.org/