If you disagree I'd like to hear your solution. Ever since the heavy stuff we went through in the era of Vietnam and the MLK Civil Rights push, it has been clear to me that the government I dream about will never be possible in this system. Too many of us with substantive ideas about what is needed for real change in this country are swallowed by the election madness every other year and movement building is next to impossible in that situation. Third parties, if they were possible at all would simply rearrange the identity of the good guys vs the bad guys and we still would be nowhere. So what is the answer? I have an idea that many others have expressed here. Read on below and I'll say more about it.
I have lived in countries with a parliamentary system. There are many others I have read about. The parliamentary system can be very democratic if designed properly. One huge feature is the ability to bring down an unpopular, unresponsive government by a vote of no confidence. I think Bush could not have survived such a system. Another feature is that smaller groups can build into coalitions to make themselves heard and felt. often they can wield a lot of influence by threatening to dissolve a coalition and again thereby bring the government down.
These systems are far from perfect, but far superior to ours in my judgement. Real change comes when there is already a functioning changed structure or set of functioning institutions out there in the society. The idea that you can change a society by electing people to office is very naive at best. Only if the elected people are expressing an already viable set of social changes can this even hope to work.
The obvious question remains, namely how to bring about such a radical change here. I wish I had the answer. Back in the days of the radical movement to change this country there was talk of a form of non-violent revolution. It probably was very naive as I look back. Alexis de Tocqueville told us that American society could withstand any real threat to its form by simply absorbing that threat as part of the system. The idea of parallel institutions in the 1960s and 1970s was a way that such a change might be forced. It was electoral politics that took the energy from that movement and helped it die. I realize that I am oversimplifying, but there is truth in that statement regardless.
I am 74 now. I still want to leave with having done all I can to help heal this sick, dysfunctional country. So I will keep speaking out. We need to find a way.