Why do people put up with the bipartisan consensus.

[Ein]

The unofficial (as far as I know) agreement to control the people. Both major parties have thier serious downfalls, none of which support the common man. Why don't we just replace this bullshit? It isn't as big a deal as it sounds, we are the majority, conservative or liberal, an installation of a truthful and common government would benefit all. A view of history shows that we are pansies compared to what the public used to be. We need to take back the gov't for once and for all. The American people supposedly control the strongest nation in the world, and basically control the fate of this planet. Our anger is channeled into elections which haven't, in the last century, brought about real change. WHY DO WE PUT UP WITH IT. We are all rich via the wealth of our country, yet we have poor, uninsured people, WHY!

Why do we put up with it, here we ignore the downfalls of Democratic leadership in the 20th century and we don't do crap about it. Truth is we are ruining the earth, not b/c we need to, but b/c the upper class needs the profits. WTF IS THAT.

[redeye]

1. You're right...

...I mean, how many Democrats care for really liberal issues, e.g.:

Proportional representation in the House (the only one I can name is Cynthia McKinney and even she started caring only when her gerrymandered district was redistricted to become majority-white)?
Separation of church and state?
Ending the national security state, complete with disbanding the NSA, ditching Echelon project, and repealing all encryption restrictions?
Being harsh toward nations that deserve harshness (e.g. Singapore) and lenient toward nations that deserve lenience (e.g. Iran)?
Taking control of education away from school boards and giving it to professional academics?
Abolition of the Electoral College?
The USA taking a proactive role in helping people in the third world?

Note: this is not intended as a bash. Show me the tens of Democrats who champion the above positions and I'll change my position on most Democrats party being conservative and/or spineless.

[Ein]

2. We agree on very few ideological issues

from what I've seen, but I agree with you completely. No party has helped the people recently. And no election will IMO.

[redeye]

3. No party...

...some parties try to help the people, but they're so marginalized by the Republicratic party that they become very extreme. I trust that the Socialist party has good intentions, but if they win practically everyone on a 6-figure salary will flee in order to avoid becoming destitute from taxes. The Green party is also well-intentioned, but its fear of science and progress turns its positions about stem cell research, human cloning, etc., into crank positions. And that's without even thinking of the Reform, Libertarian, and Constitution parties.

[Ein]

4. I agree

I am a Green and I don't even have confidence in that party at all. I also support Socialism but belive America's party is underdeveloped.

I don't care what we would end up with in terms of an economic system, as long as it was fair, which this system has not been for a long while.

[MissMarple]

5. Good point. But bipartisanship has never been a pretty business.

It's just a reflection of the human condition. We, however, seem to have a constitution that protects us from the most egregious excesses of human nature. We lurch and fall and stumble, but over time, short as it has been, our constitution with the hesitant and sometimes doubtful will of the American people has managed to prevail.

So far we have made a great team. But it is a team effort. We have to get along to go along.... to survive.

We can do this.

[Kenneth ken]

6. several reasons

1. the corporate-controlled media do a very good job of keeping people
1a. distracted
1b. divided
1c. uninformed

2. the political leaders are most concerned with maintaining political power, not wielding it for the betterment of society, so they aid in the distracting and dividing of the majority.

3. we the people are not ready to die for the revolution. Either 'it isn't that bad'; or we don't trust that 'others' would join us in the streets; or we don't believe in violent revolution; or we don't have/believe we have the weaponry to defeat the governmental forces; or other reasons on the same theme.

[Lexingtonian]

7. Sigh....

I think I remember it being Hegel who said that the state (government) is Hell on Earth because everyone is trying to use it to implement their personal notion of Paradise on Earth.

This is a country with a colonial legacy, with a slowly decaying colonial division of classes and races and distribution of wealth and participation in governance. Our government does not work the way you want it to because it has to work with these things as they really are, fair and unfair, competent and incompetent, medieval or elite, enlightened or venal.

Your notion of what the country's public life used to be like is pretty nostalgic. Don't forget the unquestioning obedience, the conformity, of those Happier Times and the way economic life was arguable more prostitution, even more about fighting for the morsels and crumbs the elite would drop than it is now. You didn't get the chance to question your betters and there were lots of social glass ceilings.

And you obviously haven't actually held much managerial responsibility or government office. Americans pretend to hold government in high esteem but in practice the mass of 'em really only cares about what it has done for them lately and formed their bizarre assumptions about it and the world from events mostly decades ago. Politicians these days are cynical about the population because it has no patience, no evident seriousness in its ethic, and then it treats government officials like toilet paper when they've served their purpose. There is no gratitude at the moment- look at all the stupid crap being said around here about Clinton, about Daschle, about Davis, or Lieberman by people who really have no idea what these people have actually done for them, made possible, what they've suffered for us and what they're understandably unwilling to suffer. The masses are being clueless and selfish and anchorless at the moment, demanding that their leaders provide them everything that they can't figure out for themselves. The leaders are just as frustrated and understandably have developed countermeasures.

This would then be the moment for you to assert that just more idealism will do the trick. Implying that the politicians who win elections really have no idea whatsoever of what the people want or what can be done. Claiming between the lines that the common people somehow has attained political and governmental wisdom while its elected representatives win elections by sheer accident and vote rigging and are completely subverted. Yeah, right.

In short, we'd all like if government did the right thing by us personally. But there are lots of larger problems handed the society as a whole by history and the bunglings of sectors of the society, the many incompetents and invalids of many kinds that have to be dealt with first. It ends up looking the way it does. Ugly as it is, it reflects our true condition and what the mass of people consider important and/or necessary. It's not good, it's not right, it's not pretty, it's embarrassing and petty, it's always on the margin of ethical standards. But we have to become a better people for that to change for the better. Remember how Jimmy Carter got hounded because his moral standards were too high for most people in Washington at that time to bear? We live as an unredeemed people in an unredeemed world and our government reflects it, because it must. I'm all for improving on the grotesqueness that presently dominates it, of course. But I find it unwise to want to merely change the aesthetic appearances, or to want to raise small issues above larger ones. And that is where your proposal would lead us.

[Booberdawg]

8. Very well stated

I never know quite how to put it into words myself. If it were not for some degree of bipartisan consensus nothing would ever get accomplished. They don't call it the GAME of politics for nothing. There are tradeoffs, and sometimes you have to give on some issues so you can gain some ground on others. It's not an easy game.

[loyalsister]

9. Pragmatism!!

Thank you very much for the insight!

I talked to a former legislator recently who gave a very enlightening reason for something she did during her tenure. Many people might have been critical of it without knowing the whole story. She sort of voted against her own personal preference on an issue. Guns. Her reasoning was that there was a ballot issue, and her district voted 77% in favor of a law that would allow conceal and carry. She was a state rep, and felt obligated to support that position. That is sound logic IMO. When criticizing these guys, why don't you go look at what their cities and states have done on their ballots that may have served as indicators.


"There is no gratitude at the moment- look at all the stupid crap being said around here about Clinton, about Daschle, about Davis, or Lieberman by people who really have no idea what these people have actually done for them, made possible, what they've suffered for us and what they're understandably unwilling to suffer."

You might also review the history of voting rights. The earliest women's suffrage movement was picking up steam at the same time as abolition. Originally, the women's movement tried to connect women's sufferage to that of the recently freed slaves. Turned out, the U.S. wasn't ready for women to vote, before it was ready for Black men to aquire voting rights. The more radical women in the women's movement divorced themselves from their natural allies in order to pursue legislation that had no chance of passing. Another more moderate group maintained it's allies and pursued an alternate course of action. Some have suggested that if they had ALL stuck together on the moderate course, they might have accomplished their goal earlier.

I am a practical person and can see where many times, getting something done is the point. There doesn't seem to be much sense in wasting our money and time on grandstanding on issues with no viable goal.