A Lesson For Americans from The British

by Dick Mac

I have become an advocate of third (and fourth and fifth) political parties.

Although I disagree with almost everything represented by teabaggers, especially the social contract that underlies their so-called tax revolt, it has been my sincerest hope that an actual Tea Party was formed. It has not.

People who believe the things espoused by teabaggers will never be represented by Republicans. In reality, though, teabaggers are just GOP activists and community organizers whipping white people into a frenzy about things they don't even understand (taxes, government and immigration, to start, reproductive rights, health care and civil rights, as well).

As long as teabaggers align themselves with Republicans, I will speak-out against their fraud. Until they form a real political party that has a real platform and candidates on the ballot, they have no credibility.

Yesterday was election day in Great Britain. Over 20% of Brits have voted for an alternative party: Liberal Democrats. This remarkable feat has set-up a situation where the right-leaning Conservatives and the left-leaning Liberal Democrats Party could theoretically form a coalition to wrest control from the Labour Party. Alternatively, the Lib Dems could align themselves with Labour and basically squeeze the Tories.

This is democracy at its most exciting!

Great Britain might need another election in six-months if a government cannot be formed; but this shake-up is the sort of thing that we can only fantasize in the United States.

Not only have 54 Lib Dems been elected, but 27 representatives have been elected from other parties: See, National Results.

Imagine if we had viable alternative parties in the United States! A Tea Party could elect their own and align themselves with Democrats when those policies suited them, and then with Republicans when those policies suited them. Teabaggers do tell me that they are neither Democrats nor Republicans, that they cross the entire spectrum, after all.

In reality, teabaggers appears to be uniformly encamped with the GOP, which completely diminishes any of their economic arguments, because it is Republicans that have created the inequity teabaggers claim to hate. They just don't want homosexuals to marry, or single parents to get financial assistance, or brown immigrants to get citizenship. They really aren't interested in reigning in spending that the GOP supports. They have no credibility (except with Fox News who created them in the first place).

We have credible options in the United States.

I now support the Green Party, because the GOP has never represented anything I cared about, and the Democrats have just become GOP-lite flailing around in some alleged moderation and getting little done.

I send five bucks a month to the Green Party to support their mission. I know it doesn't sound like much; but, it's what I can realistically afford. If a thousand people do this, it would be five thousand dollars a month into the Green coffers.

This does not necessarily mean that I will vote Green; but, I did in the last midterm elections in 2006. I voted the entire Green ticket during that election. I might do it again.

More important than my vote, though, is my support.

I challenge everyone to start supporting third parties. If you want to support the Greens, go here: Green Party of the United States donation page.