Superstorm Sandy...Devestating Everything But The Politics

Most readers to Beyond The Political Spectrum know that I am critical of both political parties for different reasons. I find the Democrats to be too incompetent, and in many ways enabling when it comes to crafting policies are which meant to help those who need it the most…and too liberal when it comes to social policies. Republicans I find to be too self-righteous, too ideologically-rigid and in denial about their ideological double-standards (that’s not to say that Democrats don’t have their own double-standards).
However, I must say that I have gained a newfound respect for Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie. In the past few days since the destruction wrought on his state as well as other neighboring states in the Northeast, he along with Independent New York mayor Michael Bloomberg put aside political partisanship (Bloomberg to a lesser degree) to address the effects of “superstorm” Sandy on their respective communities.

My respect for them is not based on Christie’s complementing President Obama for his administration’s take-charge approach in securing federal assistance for those residents most affected by the storm. Neither is my newfound respect for Mayor Bloomberg based on his endorsement of President Obama this week for president in next week’s elections. No, my respect of them comes from their pushing aside their ideological beliefs and any animus they might hold toward their ideological foils and engage in political pragmatism rather than political partisanship. Christie has been seen multiple times with Obama since the storm ravaged many areas of his state, coordinating the efforts of recovery…a mere 2 months after giving a keynote speech at the 2012 Republican Convention blasting Obama's policies (See: "Transcript of Chris Christie's speech at the Republican National Convention"). Bloomberg, for his part gave Obama (a lukewarm) endorsement on the strength of the issue of climate change/global warming, and how the phenomenon can adversely affect weather patterns, resulting in the damage we saw this week in the Northeast (See: "New York Mayor Bloomberg endorses Obama"). It truly is a nice change-of-pace to see that there are some in the nation’s political quarters who can not only look, but see beyond partisanship and ideological allegiances to create opportunities for the American people rather than their political parties. But all is not joy in political Mudville.
 The haters have come out to play. The extreme right-wing of the Republican Party has begun slamming both Christie and Bloomberg for their embracing of independent thinking and daring to challenge sacred conservative orthodoxy. Christie has been panned for daring to break ranks and actually cooperating with Obama, even for the sake of securing federal assistance in helping the people of his own state. Perennial microphone meathead Rush Limbaugh has called for listeners on his inexplicably popular radio show “Don’t listen to Governor Christie. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” adding that Christie is “fat and a fool.” Conservative writer Matt Lewis has gone so far as to call Christie “a prop for Obama’s re-election” (See: “Conservatives Bash Christie For Cooperating With Obama Post-Sandy”). Such a practice of intolerance for independent thinking and/or actions among Republicans (and Democrats) is indicative of why our country’s political landscape has become more polarized in recent years that at any time since the Civil War. In extreme cases, extreme right-wing Republicans reserve the moniker of “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) for those who they have a particular disdain for when it comes to adherence and promotion of conservative mantra; Democrats have “DINOs.”
This criticism reflects a major cause of government gridlock we have been witnessing and experiencing in Washington over the last 10 years; individuals putting political party allegiance over initiating effective policy benefitting the American people—and yes, Democrats are guilty of this too. When I think of examples of such political intransigence and intolerance for dissent—even in the interest of the people who elect them—all I can think of are those episodes of “Star Trek” featuring the alien species known as The Borg. Similar to bees, he Borg conquer and take over other species and force them into their collective “hive mind," where they are forced to share thoughts, ideas, and feelings (or lack thereof). The Borg preface every act of assimilation of other species into their collective by prefacing every conquest with the ominous phrase, “We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

Superstorm Sandy’s arrival apparently blew apart more than sandy beaches, boardwalks, and homes of New Jersey, New York, and the Northeast. It blew away the camouflage of what’s masking the reason as to why anything resembling cooperation can’t occur among and between the Republican and Democratic Parties.  Extreme right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats basing their actions on (their) adherence to ideology and party allegiance rather than pragmatism of need is the problem. Surprisingly, there are still one or two politicians still around who prove that resistance is not futile.

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What You Might Have Missed...The Third-Party Presidential Debate

 One of the biggest complaints anyone has with almost any aspect of the sociopolitical status quo in America is that the powers-that-be—namely those with controlling interests in the way things are—tend to silence the voices of dissent…or at least those voices in the wilderness we tend not to pay attention to. And one of the reasons I began this blog is to give an airing to items and issues in the news that are either overlooked, or not even considered within the context of critical (as opposed to ideological) thinking.
As an example, I cite the presidential debate from this past Tuesday. No, I’m not talking about the presidential debate between Democratic and Republican nominees President Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. What I refer to is the lesser-known, barely-covered in the media debate between the third party candidates for the White House in Chicago earlier this week. The Chicago-based Free and Equal Elections Foundation sponsored the event, which was moderated by former
 Click on the video to watch the third party debate in its entirety

CNN talk-show host Larry King (See, "Third-Party Debate" for the background to this debate)
The event was arranged to counter the rules of the Democratic and Republican-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates that exclude political parties which do not fall within the parameters of their rules, which include:

Rule 1: The candidate must be constitutionally eligible to hold the office of the President of the United States. Rule 2: The candidate must “have achieved ballot access in a sufficient number of states to win a theoretical Electoral College majority in the general election.” 

Rule 3: The candidate must have achieved “a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate, as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations.” 

In regards to Tuesday's debate, the rule that only parties with at least 15% of popular support was used to exclude the third party candidates. What’s more, it seems that many of us ordinary citizens are complacent with the way the two major political parties dominate the political voting process. The Green Party candidate for the White House, Jill Stein was arrested outside the venue of this week’s major political party debate when she showed up with her running mate, Cheri Honkala, to protest the Democratic and Republican virtual monopoly on the debate and election process in America. Stein was taken away to a detention center and handcuffed to a chair for several hours as the Republican-Democratic debate carried on without her…or any third party candidate (See: "Our handcuffed politics: What The Arrest of Jill Stein, The Green Party Candidate, Tells You About America").  And then we wonder why we have legislative gridlock at both the federal and state levels across the country…!
And if such efforts to limit the level of participation of those who would bring a different political view to issues, there is a call from some within established circles to streamline the process even more. Many conservatives during this year’s primaries complained that “that entirely too many candidates were invited to take part, including hopefuls who were consistently polling around 2 or 3 percent.”
What most defenders of the current electoral system don’t know is that some of our nation’s Founding Fathers were not only against the notion of organized political parties, but warned Americans against their control of the political process. Consider their words:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

- GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."

  --John Adams

Even activist the Tea Party Movement, which might have sprang from noble intents, was a cause (or series of causes) that eventually became co-opted by right-wing neoconservatives, and has become representative of the very type of candidates that they were trying to keep from being elected…purveyors of a big corporate government!
And despite the reality that some of our most revered Founding Fathers’ thinking on political parties assert the opposite, many political party activists make attempts clothe their contribution to the gridlock of our current political process in the notion that they are “the party of…,” implying some level of legitimacy or being representative of the idea of a real America!
When I think of the current two-party political system and the resulting political polarization it has influenced, I think of the of Thomas Jefferson:

Men are naturally divided into two parties,'' he wrote, "those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all power from them into the hands of the higher classes [and] those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise, depository of the public interests.''

Ask yourself, "Where do you stand?"

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