Posted by Media Release

Dear Editor,

As an American historian teaching in the local university, I write to remind you of what I’m sure you already actually know: third parties and “minor” candidates have always provided the electoral system with new ideas that would otherwise not be on the agenda.  This was the case with the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, farmer’s rights and worker’s protests.

Do not be fooled by short-sightedness about who can or can’t win the present election.  (That’s not really your decision anyway, is it?) While the Republicans provide a case where the third party did displace one of the “major” existing parties, the Greenbackers and Populists produced the ideas and people who made the Progressive reforms at the turn of the century.  The New Deal, in part, took the form it did to head off the million Socialist voters of 1932 and the legion of American citizens joining the Communist Party during that decade.  Things began to change with the decision to redbait and purge consideration of Vice President Henry Wallace’s Progressive ticket in 1948.  Aside from some non-electoral independent movements for civil rights, peace and women’s rights in the 1960s and 1970s--and notwithstanding some intentionally one-shot protest campaigns--our politics have not permitted the rise of any serious third party movements.

The two-party system has responded to this virtual free pass by becoming increasingly inbred...and even stupifying.  Despite some notable qualitative drops in the quality of American politics over the past thirty years, the current election has, thus far, marked an all time low.

This election is being conducted in a way that simply denies the right of the American people to cast their ballot as a mandate for they want.  Most of us do not want further war in Iraq or anywhere in the region.  Most want health care to be a human right here, as it is through the entire industrial world beyond the US.  Most do not want continued giveaways and bailouts to companies and individuals whose primary qualifications for such benevolence has been their contributions to our elected officials.  And let’s not forget environmental considerations and global warming, on which the people are far ahead of the two-party politicians Voters in the U.S. have every right to hear Ralph Nader and other candidates that agree with them on these, the real issues of 2008.  And they have every right to cast their ballots as a mandate for action on these issues

It is fortunate for the U.S. that we are not in eastern Europe seeking admission to the European Union, because we do not meet its standards of representative democracy.  Under the standards of representative democracy of the European Parliamentary Union, it is a basic human right for citizens to have the right to form their own parties, have equality of access to the electoral process, and have their votes freely and fairly counted.  The de facto disenfranchisemehnt of political dissidents in the U.S. has the potential of becoming something of an international scandal, particularly as this country asserts its authority to be the arbiter of what is and is not democracy anywhere in the world.

In closing, I urge you to live up to your responsibility and tell the American people about their alternatives. Report on the campaigns of Nader, Cynthia McKinney and other third-party candidates. Give them a fair hearing. Please also urge the Commission on Presidential Debates to include other voices in the debates.

For the health of an ailing democracy, please do your job.

Sincerely,
Mark Lause

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.