If you’re like me and not inclined to be all that supportive of a two party system, you’ll be really interested in the most recent commentary by Democracy Now! hostess, Amy Goodman. In it, she takes on the reason that the presidential debates suck on so many levels (a debate only works if there is fundamental difference between those debating) and what is being left out of debates as a result of two party dominance (poverty, labor protections, military industrial complex, and as Mala noted, immigration).

Some of the good done by third party pressure:

George Farah directs Open Debates, a group that works “to ensure that the presidential debates serve the American people first.” He told me that “historically, it has been third parties, not the major parties, that have supported and are responsible for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, public schools, public power, unemployment compensation, minimum wage, child labor laws. The list goes on and on. The two parties fail to address a particular issue; a third party rises up, and it’s supported by tens of millions of Americans, forcing the Republican and Democratic parties to co-opt that issue, or the third party rises and succeeds, which is why the Republican Party jumped from being a third party to being a major party of the United States of America.

Many people have pointed out to me that voting green (or libertarian) could ultimately be a vote for the opposing team rather than a vote for an issue they believe in–and then of course they point frantically to Florida and Ohio as proof.

I wonder–could it be possible that if those voters were inclined in the slightest to stand up for the multitudes of homeless/people of color who voted and were actively disenfranchised, Florida and Ohio wouldn’t have happened?

Could blaming third parties be the easy way to avoid the messy realization that voter disenfranchisement is an essential part of a dirty rotten corrupt system that needs some serious cleaning up?