There are 58 political parties in America, believe it or not (at this time — it varies). Never heard of all those others? Not surprising. For one thing, the news media helps to keep the other 56 unknown, by rarely or even never reporting on them, certainly not during an actual election year.
(You can find a list of them here, if you want the names and brief data about each — Wikipedia article, not one of the predatory Adverzine articles either, a real one.)
I have noticed in several previous elections that there is a general news black out about the other parties until the day after the election. Oh, you might stumble across a brief article now and then on the Green Party or the Libertarians before election, but almost always if you go back to find that article later it’s gone, been replaced(1).
Day after election you can get a summary of how they all did. Gee, thanks.
Ok, let’s get to it. I was reading a press release from the Planetary Society, concerning the election and how there’s been no (or very little) rhetoric about space exploration brought to the table, and how maybe that was a good thing if NASA was to remain bipartisan.
Bipartisan: of or involving the agreement or cooperation of two political parties that usually oppose each other’s policies. (Oxford English dictionary)
Even among the brains of the Planetary Society (and that is not sarcastic, there are some very fine folks who make up that outfit) the other political parties are either ignored or unknown. I find that disturbing. “Bipartisan” here would actually mean affiliated with two parties, when I think the author meant neutral to all politics.
A two party system is inherently unstable in the long run. As, in fact, the American system has been demonstrating for the last 30 years or so [not that it’s really a two-party system, but in that it behaves like one, it inherits the pitfalls of one], with jerrymandering, stacking of the courts, highly biased or even fake news reporting, loaded insults and “hot” phrases, and other “conflict of interest” actions by Congress(2).
Last election the left-wing candidate won by over 4 million votes (the biggest margin in quite some time, too!), yet lost the election due to the illegal(3) jerrymandering Congress has been doing for many years, which forced the electoral college to vote the other way. By the way, at least two members of the electoral college resigned rather than vote against the people. Not that it did any good, really.
Ok… fluff and stuff, ’nuff of that. That’s not my point. My point is that being simply “bipartisan” when you mean to be neutral is not good enough. Even just using the word “bipartisan” continues to foster the illusion that this is a two party system, and is therefore a biased political statement in itself. To stay out of politics, which is what I *think* the writer from Planetary Society meant, NASA must remain neutral to all politics, certainly not “bipartisan.” For instance, when a NASA representative is asked a question about a candidate (any candidate) his only response should be something equivalent to “who?”
The American political system as it was originally set up (1797 more or less) was expecting many parties, not two. There’s a reason for that. Many parties strike a particular balance of power quite different from when it’s only two. In fact, when it’s only two parties, it’s unstable in the long run.
On the other hand, there’s what Winston Churchill(4) said of Democracy(5):
“Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others.”
On the other-other hand… he also said:
“The best argument against Democracy is five minutes spent with the average voter.”
I think at the bottom line governing large numbers of Humans has always been a problem, but let’s at least deal with the system we have, all of it, not just the selected bits and pieces the power brokers want you to only look at. (That’s how dictators get into power, folks! Misdirection of the Sheeple) 58 parties: deal with it.
By the way, America was never meant to be a Democracy. Truly! It was set up to be a Constitutional Republic, which is a very different critter. So whenever you hear a politician talk about “this democracy of ours” you know he’s ignorant, playing the crowd, or… or some such thing. He just gave away his hand. No matter why he said it, in my mind he just disqualified himself from holding any public office, at least until he can pass a test on the Constitution.
Read the Constitution(6) yourself while you’re at it, too. I don’t think too many of those who hold seats in Congress could actually pass a test on that document, which is, after all, the Law of the Land. Did you know that every public office in the country involves an oath to uphold the Constitution? (Or, at least, is supposed to.) But no office requires any knowledge of that document? How can you uphold a document you know nothing about? I’ll leave that one as an exercise for the student. (No wrong answers! But do think on it.)
Just some thoughts…
(1) One-time-only news reports are an interesting phenomenon and probably deserve another posting at some point. Not today.
(2) Just for reference, and I’ve said it else where in these articles, I am neither left nor right, neither Republican nor Democrat. I don’t like or care for party politics at all. I believe party politics inevitably leads to the decline of any governmental system. Sooner or later, but inevitably, it puts “the party” ahead of the people, yet at the bottom line a nation *is* its people, not its political parties. Therein lies Madness… and Dictatorships, both open and hidden. Also, when I say “conflict of interest” by Congress I usually mean those moments when Senators & Congress-folks are serving their party instead of the people they swore to represent. It’s representational government here, folks, so represent!
(3) Technically not illegal, but it should be. When Congress’ power is determined by which of the two parties [already we’re off the map here, right?] holds the most seats and that same Congress fiddles the voting districts in order to give a gross advantage of one party over the other (currently in most voting districts the Democrats would have to carry at least 55% of the vote to take that district, instead of a simple majority as is required by law), that is a conflict of interest and most definitely illegal to the Spirit of the Law if not to the letter. Similarly, appointing judges to the Supreme Court should NOT be done by either the White House or by Congress. Why not? Because it’s the Supreme Court’s primary job to watch dog those two. So letting them appoint those judges (maybe any Federal Judge) is like allowing prisoners to appoint the prison guards. Not really that great an idea, dig?
(4) I like to think of Winston Churchill as Britain’s War-Time Consigliere. He lead Britain to victory in WWII when they had almost nothing except words to throw at the enemy. Unfortunately, it was his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, who really has to take the lion’s share of blame for allowing WWII to get started in the first place. Oh well… 20/20 hindsight.
(5) By the way, please don’t confuse the terms Democracy and Democratic Party. They are unrelated to each other. Just as Republic and Republican Party are unrelated. You might also want to look up these terms as well: socialism, fascism, communism, and others of that sort, as they’ve been being grossly misused in the media for quite some years. Actually look them up; find real articles about them, not Adverzines or opinion pieces. Trust nothing from a “major news outlet,” any of them. Get the real data, and you’ll start seeing how slanted and even ignorant the typical news reporting has become. Educate yourself. Thomas Jefferson knew that the only hope for this system of government was an educated voter base, which is partly why he set up the Library of Congress and started systems for public education.
(6) Oh, you don’t have to slug through the original, which has become “rather thick language” for most people today. There are study notes and such, books about it that help to make it easier to grasp. But do study it, at least a little. Here, for instance: what’s the 15th Amendment, and is it in any actual danger today? Should any one in Florida’s chain of command, say, study that Amendment a bit more thoroughly? Should the Media study it, maybe a lot?
Blessings upon us all.