Monday, October 27, 2008

alternatives

Last week I listened to a Presidential debate between Ralph Nader (Ecology Party) and Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party). The event was sponsored by Restore the Republic. I thought it was an interesting discussion of alternative, albeit unworkable, solutions to our collective problems.

Both men were intelligent and well spoken as they talked about the hot button issues of our times (and we all know what they are) with a refreshing absence of the dumbed down, rehearsed rhetoric we hear from the geezer (R) or the empty suit (D).
I don't know about you, but when I hear the major party candidates' slogans, "change we need" and "change is coming", before or after a mouthful of media designed sound bites, I remember the age old axiom, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Anyway, do I think Nader or Baldwin have a "snowball's chance" of winning the White House? Frankly, no. The political system is stacked against them as it is for the other nine minor party candidates legally running for the Presidency. The truth is that, including our two major party candidates, there are a total of thirteen Americans, both men and women, running for President in 2008.

After visiting each of their websites I had a pretty good feel for what each one of them were about and discovered that despite myopic mainstream media coverage of only two political points of view, there is a broad range of alternative ideas out there. Diversity has always been America's strong suit and although I'm not endorsing any of these folks, I do think that the more ideas we have to think about, the sooner we might find our solutions.

Each candidate's name is linked 

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