Gary Johnson and the 2-party stranglehold on presidential debates - Lane Filler, Newsday:
October 4, 2012 - "We are a two-party system -- not by law, but because the Democrats and the Republicans have seized the mechanisms of government. They use their control to maintain power, and other parties can't compete. This causes a bunch of self-perpetuating, corrosive behaviors, like government-funded primaries for these major parties, which are really nothing but private organizations. Withholding the money for a Republican primary out of a libertarian's paycheck makes as much sense as taxing Jews to pay for KKK dance parties (now that's an idea for a reality show).
"Another, more pressing way the Republicans and Democrats control the process came about in the late 1980s when the two major parties created the \'nonpartisan' Commission on Presidential Debates, and crowded out the League of Women Voters, which had run the general election debates up until then....
"It feels like 'the establishment' -- the corporations and power players -- don't care which of the two major candidates wins. They just want to be sure a Ron Paul, a Gary Johnson, a Dennis Kucinich and a Ralph Nader can't win, or, really, that their often unconventional ideas can't be heard. And until enough people make noise about it, inside the voting booth and out, it won't change."
Read more: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/lane-filler/filler-gary-johnson-and-the-2-party-stranglehold-on-presidential-debates-1.4076943
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October 4, 2012 - "We are a two-party system -- not by law, but because the Democrats and the Republicans have seized the mechanisms of government. They use their control to maintain power, and other parties can't compete. This causes a bunch of self-perpetuating, corrosive behaviors, like government-funded primaries for these major parties, which are really nothing but private organizations. Withholding the money for a Republican primary out of a libertarian's paycheck makes as much sense as taxing Jews to pay for KKK dance parties (now that's an idea for a reality show).
"Another, more pressing way the Republicans and Democrats control the process came about in the late 1980s when the two major parties created the \'nonpartisan' Commission on Presidential Debates, and crowded out the League of Women Voters, which had run the general election debates up until then....
"It feels like 'the establishment' -- the corporations and power players -- don't care which of the two major candidates wins. They just want to be sure a Ron Paul, a Gary Johnson, a Dennis Kucinich and a Ralph Nader can't win, or, really, that their often unconventional ideas can't be heard. And until enough people make noise about it, inside the voting booth and out, it won't change."
Read more: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/lane-filler/filler-gary-johnson-and-the-2-party-stranglehold-on-presidential-debates-1.4076943
'via Blog this'
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