Political Parties

Political parties are supposed to represent the interests of the people, but now they represent the interests of the politicians and huge corporations.

How is it that politicians are among the highest paid individuals, when politicians are supposed to be servants of the people? Why is it that most of the politician’s income comes from outside sources, not their actual salary? How can a politician represent the interests of the people and also take hundreds of thousands of dollars from special interests groups?

The main justification for all the monetary abuse is that political elections are prohibitively expensive now. Politicians are between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t raise millions of dollars, they can’t run an effective campaign. If they raise millions of dollars, then they are beholden to many special interest groups. In this day, money buys political influence. The most honest politician hopes to resolve this conflict by favoring the interest of the people. A few survive and continue. The cynical politicians just learn to rationalize and pocket the millions (see Rationalization). Many are set for life with promised, high paying jobs when they leave office. All they have to do is vote the correct/corporate way.

The problem is that our “Two party” system used to be a competitive fight for votes, but now the Republikan side is treating it like a war, treating every one of their candidates like a soldier, and every loss as a party wound, which could potentially lead to a critical injury, or even death. The Republikan party is viewing every state as territory to be controlled, and certain areas need to be taken. Even illegal and unethical tactics are acceptable, if it leads to winning important battles, and every battle is important. Such thinking is delusional; yet, such thinking is rewarded because it obtains desired results. The problem is that such thinking is leading to the tactics that “the ends justify the means.” At stake are our civil rights: a free press, individual free speech, free association, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, due process, etc. Just realize that the Republikan government has already undermined all of these rights, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Also, contrary to popular belief, our rights are not being undermined in the interests of national security. Our rights are being undermined in the interests of power and greed. 

But how could the Republikan party do such a thing? It is actually a very clever plan, devised by conservative think tanks. The plan goes something like this:
1. It takes money to win elections.
2. Huge corporations have the money, but they want more money and power.
3. Think tanks get hundreds of millions from corporations, to create party propaganda.

4. The Republikan party promotes fear and war (saying they are acting in the public interest) and huge corporations (weapons manufacturers, oil companies, corporate media, financial corporations, etc) make billion of dollars.
5. The corporate owned media spreads fear and promote the Republikan party propaganda, to insure public support for their agenda.
5. The Republikan party assists the corporations by relaxing regulations on them, so they can make hundreds of millions.
6. The Republikan party gets so much in political contributions, and has the news media on their side, so that the Republikan party can become as dominant, politically, as the U.S. is dominant militarily.

But why would the Republikan party do such a thing? Each Republikan party member has come up with his or her own rationalization (see Rationalization). Unfortunately, they all seem too willing to sacrifice the country as a whole, in order to benefit a few Republikan politicians and corporate executives (see Power, Greed). Republikans have been surrounded with the propaganda for so long, that they fail to see the coming disaster (see United States).

Technically, the United States is a republic (see Constitution). The definition of republic is a constitutional system of government founded on division of power. A true republic is a constitutional order in which government is conducted according to rules and there is an apportionment and balance of powers to guard against their misuse, even by the people. 

The Republikan leadership does not want a democracy or a republic form of government, because they don’t want a “balance of power” (see Democracy). They want to control all the power (Executive, Legislative, Judicial branches, as well as the media). With total control, there is nothing to stop “their misuse” of power. Once that occurs, we no long have a democracy or republic, and our Constitution and Bill of Rights will no longer have any meaning. Some Republikans will think I am crazy, but we already have a puppet for a president, which effectively means that we are not electing our leaders (see Seeing Through the Image). Our government has been installing puppet leaders in other countries for decades. Neo-cons figured that they might as well do it here too.

    Let me mention that the Demokrats have also taken this nation down the wrong path (Korea, Vietnam, support for Hussein, support for dictatorship in Latin America, etc). In order to encourage a third political party, I would suggest that everyone is allowed to vote for two people for office, instead of just one person. In this way, third parties become a much more viable choice. I would also suggest publicly funded elections, or real campaign finance reform (see Campaign Finance Reform). I would also suggest removing greed from politics (see Greed).