Hick Planet magazine
tryna find the grownups table on a hick planet
an unperiodical:
on arts, endeavors, musings, sites, sights, & other senses
Thursday, 2019 November 28th
issue 1

A Stranglehold on the Political Spectrum

a supplement to

A People Who Thought They Could Govern Themselves
Prescriptions for an Ailing Body Politic

by  Peter Coyote

Allowing the Gamut to Be Run from A to Z

A positive by-product of public funding of elections would be the ease of creating alternative political parties.   The current deadlock is a Republican/Democratic stranglehold on ideas, on dialogue, and on framing of issues so that it will run the gamut from A to B.   Compare and contrast this representation with parliamentary systems where every shade of the political spectrum is represented and the public can pick, choose, and meld to create adequate representation for their needs.   When the public loses confidence in the elected officials, they vote them out.   Parliamentary systems are refinements of democracy by people who took the opinions of our founding fathers more seriously than we do.

The Illusion of Choice in the “Political Shop”

In the old days when Dad had a shop that sold sunglasses, he sold nearly every brand.   The same thing is true of the “political shop” run by the 1/10 of 1%.

They say, in effect, “What do you want?

“An urbane Harvard-educated negro with great dignity?

“A folksy Ohio governor, whose brand is common-sense?

“A slick Cuban from Florida?

“A shrill blonde wife of an ex-president?

“Or a billionaire corporate thug and ‘reality’ TV huckster with an orange comb-over?”

home   cover   contents   archives   indices   masthead

Copyright 2019 The Cool Publication Company.