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w****n
发帖数: 25644 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: beijingren (to thine own self be true), 信区: Military
标 题: 美国两党制不是民主vs共和，而是政府vs人民
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Sat Aug 15 09:27:43 2015, 美东)
"The two-party system is not Democrats versus Republicans. It’s government
versus the people. And the government is a fascist system controlled by the
corporations on behalf of the corporations. The people’s voting just
provides the system with a sense of legitimacy."
Are we witnessing another collapse of the party system?
by Bob Livingston
I know it’s still early, but it’s beginning to appear this election cycle
that conventional wisdom may not hold.
The pundit class and the establishment politicians inhabiting the insular
bubble that is the District of Criminals are flummoxed. They can’t fathom
why the hoi polloi will not fall in line behind establishment-approved
candidates (and there are several, but particularly they are Jeb Bush and
Hillary Clinton). Some pundits are even offering to turn in their “pundit
license.”
For example, The Washington Post’s Charles Lane told Brett Baier on Fox
News’ Special Report last week: “I think I’m going to have to turn in my
pundit’s license because — or somebody is going to revoke it because I
really can’t analyze this phenomenon. We’re living through one of the
strangest, most — if not strange, one of the most puzzling moments in
politics that I can remember.”
For all the establishment’s machinations, The Donald will not go away. His
“impolitic,” but correct, observation that Sen. John McCain is only a “
war hero because he was captured” didn’t doom him, as they predicted. His
“impolitic,” but correct, observation that Mexico is sending rapists and
criminals across the border didn’t doom him, as they predicted. His debate
performance, in which the petulant establishment mouthpiece Megyn Kelly
attempted to take him out, backfired. Attempts to couch his statements about
Kelly coming at him with “fire coming out of her eyes … her whatever” as
a sexist reference to menstruation are mind-boggling sophistry. The rank
and file aren’t buying it, recognizing a straw man when they see one. And
Erick Erikson’s disinvitation of Trump from his Red State Jeb Bush praise-
fest revealed Erikson as the neocon elitist tool that he is and only served
to elevate Trump’s standing.
Americans in flyover country have long sensed that the politicians they
elect are not the politicians who end up inhabiting the District of
Criminals. And they have long sensed that the system is rigged against them
and in favor of the establishment and crony corporations. Though they have
sensed it, for the most part they still have played along in the hope that,
somehow, something will change.
But politics is nothing but an absurd theater. It’s a parlor trick. It’s
sleight of hand. The two-party system is not Democrats versus Republicans.
It’s government versus the people. And the government is a fascist system
controlled by the corporations on behalf of the corporations. The people’s
voting just provides the system with a sense of legitimacy.
Just think back for a moment and consider how long it has been since
electing a president has changed the direction of the country from empire
building, foreign wars, debt, money printing, and growing government to
smaller government and individual liberty. How long has it been since a
Congress controlled by one party or the other shut down unconstitutional
alphabet soup agencies, shrank government or passed a law that did not
benefit the elites and Wall Street and the establishment to the detriment of
the people? Is there a time?
America did not start out with a party system. While there were two
predominant factions during the Constitutional Convention– the Federalists
(a misnomer because they advocated for a strong centralized government and
British mercantilist system, and who supported the ratification of the new
Constitution) and the anti-Federalists (who advocated for a weak central
government with strong states, i.e., republicanism, and advocated against
the new Constitution) — they were not organized parties. Those developed
during George Washington’s term as government evolved.
They lined up into two predominate factions under national government — the
Federalist Party in the Alexander Hamilton, John Adams camp; and the
Democratic-Republican party (more commonly known as Republicans) in the
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison camp — and soon began organizing in the
states.
The Federalists were the party of big government, British mercantilism (
crony capitalism), and a national bank. They supported debt, tariffs, money
creation and strong ties to England. The Republicans opposed strong
executive power and standing armies, supported a strict reading of the
Constitution regarding government power, and advocated for strong ties to
France.
The Federalists were the predominant party until 1800. The Republicans were
predominant into the Era of Good Feelings (1816-1824).
The Federalist Party essentially died over its opposition to war with
England in 1812, but collapsed completely following the Hartford Convention
in 1814 — in which they discussed secession — and in the war’s aftermath,
as both the politicians and the people united in a sense of national
purpose under the presidency of James Monroe. The Democratic-Republican
Party remained in place but was largely inactive on the national level and
in most states.
The second party system began in the 1820s, following the 1824 presidential
contest that elected John Quincy Adams. The Democratic-Republican party
split. One faction supported big government; a national bank; public funding
of internal improvement projects like roads, canals and harbors; and using
government power through public institutions like schools, hospitals and the
like to “moralize” the quality of life for Americans. The other faction
favored smaller national government and opposed a national bank and any
efforts of government that they perceived threatened their economic, social
or cultural freedoms.
The first faction became the Whig Party. Hailing primarily from the
northeast, Whigs were mostly big-business types who rallied around John
Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. The second faction became the
Democratic Party. Democrats were more agrarian, and they rallied around
Andrew Jackson.
The second party system lasted about 30 years but collapsed after the demise
of the Whig Party, due to its factionalism and internecine squabbles and
the rise of a number of minor parties largely dedicated to pursuing singular
or sectional issues.
From the Whigs’ ashes rose the Republican Party. The historian Bruce Catton
wrote in “The Civil War” that in 1860 Lincoln wanted to be the nominee of
the Republican Party — a party that consisted of an amalgam of former
members of the defunct Whig Party, free-soilers (those who believed all new
territories should be slave-free, largely in order to preserve white farm
jobs), business leaders who wanted a central government that would protect
industry and ordinary folk who wanted a homestead act that would provide
free farms in the West.
Catton wrote:
The Republicans nominated Lincoln partly because he was considered less of
an extremist than either (Senator William H.) Seward or (Salmon P.) Chase;
he was moderate on the slavery question, and agreed that the Federal
government lacked power to interfere with the peculiar institution in the
states. The Republican platform, however, did represent a threat to Southern
interests. It embodied the political and economic program of the North —
upward revision of the tariff, free farms in the West, railroad subsidies,
and all the rest.
The Democratic Party also split, largely along North and South lines.
Politicians have longed recognized that group conflict is endemic to
American society and that the vitality of political parties depends upon the
intensity of their competition with opposing parties, as Michael F. Holt
wrote in “The Political Crisis of the 1850s.”
In other words, political parties exist to create strife between opposing
factions; and, indeed, they thrive only when that strife is present. It is
when the people recognized that the parties represented their own interests
and were essentially one in the same that the party systems have collapsed
in America.
Holt describes how just prior to the U.S. war to prevent separation,
Americans, particularly Southern Americans, had lost all confidence in the
current political system because the existing parties did not represent the
people but instead represented the agricultural aristocracy, big business
and the banksters. There was also an influx of aliens (mostly Irish
Catholics and Germans) who Americans believed did not understand or
appreciate America’s “values.” The political parties agitated the people
over these immigrants, creating a constant state of strife in addition to
the already existing acrimony over the slavery issue, the addition of states
to the union and tariffs.
America’s current political system is very similar. Regardless of which “
party” holds power, government grows more oppressive and steals more wealth
from its people. It creates one crisis after the other, keeping the people
agitated against each other so they cannot focus on the real culprit behind
their lost liberties: fascist government.
Americans now recognize that the party elites and the candidates they push
no longer represent the American people in any fashion. This has led to the
rise of Donald Trump in the Republican Party and Bernie Sanders in the
Democratic Party presidential races. Both are opposed by the crony
capitalist, fascist-leaning, Council on Foreign Relations-dominated,
globalist-minded political establishment.
Trump has given a middle finger to the establishment and political
correctness. He has advocated for a border fence to keep out illegals and a
return of the American manufacturing sector. This has endeared him to a
broad swath of the American electorate tired of the establishment that not
only did not represent them, but actually governed in opposition to their
wishes despite public outcry.
We may be witnessing another collapse of the party system, which for
generations has been a faux two-party system. If it happens, it won’t be
missed outside of the establishment circles. But I’m not sure conservatives
will like what rises in its place if either The Donald or Bernie become
president.
I predict it will continue to be government versus the people. And,
conservatives: Despite what you may think, Donald Trump is no conservative.
And if conservative means smaller government, more liberties, constitutional
governance and an end to American empire building, none of the “choices”
currently available to you are either. |
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