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Corporate duopoly

Cornel West And The Campaign To End Political Apartheid

The Republican and Democratic parties have no intention of allowing independents and third parties into their exclusive club. A series of arcane laws and rules governing elections make it extremely difficult for outsiders to get on the ballot, receive exposure, raise money, comply with regulations that are designed to advance the interests of Republicans and Democrats or participate in public debates. Third parties and independents are effectively disenfranchised, although 44 percent of the voting public identify as independent. This discrimination is euphemistically labeled “bipartisanship,” but the correct term, as Theresa Amato writes, is “political apartheid.”

Third Parties In The US Are More Important Than You Think

Donald Trump put the kibosh on the idea of a new right-wing party at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Trump’s followers will remain in the Republican Party, where they’ve established themselves as the biggest and most influential faction. Even so, the mere fact that the possibility of a new “MAGA” or “Patriot Party” was discussed reflects the ongoing desire for more clearly defined political parties in the United States. Americans across a range of political persuasions yearn for three or more parties. Recent polls showed 63 percent of Republicans think a third party is necessary, which is up 10 percent since 2018, and 68 percent want Trump to lead it. A poll of Republicans taken in mid-February registered a double-digit majority — 46 to 27 percent — ready to abandon the GOP and join a Trump party.

How The Two-Party System Fails Voters

While it is now abundantly clear that Joe Biden has won the electoral college by a hefty margin, many questions remain about who voted in the election and why. As we begin to analyze this information we have to keep in mind the ways in which the bipartisan two-party system influences and shapes the choices of the U.S. electorate and distorts the way that information is interpreted. The similarities between the two parties and the broad consensus on many of the most fundamental questions of capitalist exploitation and imperialism means that most voters have no option...

Chris Hedges: American Requiem

Well, it’s over. Not the election. The capitalist democracy. However biased it was towards the interests of the rich and however hostile it was to the poor and minorities, the capitalist democracy at least offered the possibility of incremental and piecemeal reform. Now it is a corpse. The iconography and rhetoric remain the same. But it is an elaborate and empty reality show funded by the ruling oligarchs — $1.51 billion for the Biden campaign and $1.57 billion for the Trump campaign — to make us think there are choices. There are not.

Leveraging The Ruling Class’s Loss Of Legitimacy

The polls closed with “no winner yet in cliffhanger presidential election,” as of Wednesday evening. Despite a period of uncertainty, which is typically the nemesis of Wall Street, the Dow climbed 0.9%, the S&P 500 opened 1.5% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.6%. The explanation is that the financial elites know that they win regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, which is something that some leftists, who had advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate, did not firmly grasp.

Deception 2020: One Party, Two Flavors

In this second installment of the Deception 2020 Series, we dig into the so-called Two Party System in order to highlight the stark similarities that drive both the red and blue — namely, corporate power. Interestingly enough, Mussolini had a good quote on just this form of government… Then, we sit down with Nick Braña, National Coordinator for The Movement for a People’s Party, to talk about one alternative to the blue and red dumpster fires.

Missile Defense Has Bipartisan Support Even Though It Wastes Money

The program to develop a missile defense system to protect the United States mainland has existed in one form or another for nearly six decades. Though it was controversial from the beginning and faced nearly unsurmountable technical challenges, it has enjoyed bipartisan support and continued funding in Congress for more than 20 years. In July, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed their own versions of a defense authorization bill for 2021. By a wide majority, both chambers authorized more than $740 billion for defense spending next year.

The Politics That Led To The ‘Worst Debate’

The rich man’s media are calling it “the worst debate in modern American history,” but that’s because the truth is often painful to watch. The Biden-Trump confrontation revealed, with crystalline clarity, that the real “genius” of the American electoral process is its total imperviousness to popular demands for a healthier, more just and less economically precarious society and a peaceful, ecologically stable world. Instead, the Democratic alternative to the white supremacist Republican in the White House is — another lifelong racist, mass-incarcerating, corporate-serving, warmongering old white man. 

The Two Parties Have Failed Us, But The People Can Succeed

The Republican and Democratic Party conventions showed that both major parties are failing to control the pandemic and protect people, address the climate crisis and clean up the environment, support families and businesses during the economic collapse, prevent police violence or deal with any of the other major problems we face. These were two substance-less conventions. The Democrats focused on criticizing Trump without putting forward an agenda while the Republicans claimed Biden was a front for socialism when he is a deeply embedded corporate Democrat.

Democrats Are Officially Republicans

The Democratic Party has ended any debate or dispute about its true nature. It is a party representing neo-liberal interests and international gangsterism, just like their putative opposition, the Republican party. Even a cursory observation of the recent Democratic National Convention proves that this assessment is correct. There were paeans of love to the late warmonger John McCain and even an appearance from his widow. A special segment was set aside for Republicans like John Kasich whose speech was used in part to beat down progressives and make clear that Joe Biden wants nothing to do with them. Not to be outdone with Kasich and McCain’s ghost, war criminal Colin Powell was dragged out to put the bipartisan imperialist seal of approval on Biden. The slogan is He’s Not Trump because that is all the Democrats had to say.

America’s Terminal Decline

President Trump’s U-turn admission on the coronavirus pandemic, acknowledging that it’s going to get worse before it gets better, could be applied to the general condition of American politics. It can only get worse under present circumstances. That’s because there is no way to solve deep-seated problems in the US system under the prevailing bipartisan framework. It is delusional for Democrats to blame Trump and the Republicans for all the woes of that nation. The notion that America can be returned to some kind of presumed normality if Joe Biden is elected to the White House in November is a fantasy.

US Continues Its War On The Rest Of The World

It isn’t clear who the next president of the United States will be but the terrible handiwork of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are creating terrible suffering for millions of people around the world.  Donald Trump is making a big show of a phony peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban were given life by Jimmy Carter, who sought to undermine the sovereign government of that country. We were told that the Soviets had invaded when in fact the government of president Najibullah had invited them, an act he had every right to undertake. What followed was years of civil war, billions of dollars funneled to the mujahadeen, including the likes of Osama bin Laden, who subsequently turned against his sponsors and killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.

Curtains Up!

Welcome, everyone to the longest-running play in U.S. history: “Voting for the Lesser Evil.” The play’s strength, as you well know, is its easy-to-memorize script, combined with its superb ability to change the essential characters—all while keeping the same dialogue! Our set design also remains largely the same, although recently we’ve had to highlight red and blue colors and build a swing to denote the characterizations of “states.” Throughout the decades, our show has been labeled a melodrama, a tragicomedy, and even science fiction. The beauty of ““Voting for the Lesser Evil” is that it’s all above the above! Some people have lobbied for the play being renamed “The Greatest Show on Earth.” It does remind one of a circus, doesn’t it?

The End Of Sanders, And Maybe The Beginning Of A Mass Independent Left

The COVID-19 epidemic has exposed the privatized US healthcare structure’s woeful incapacity to cope with a general health emergency, as well as the failings of Europe’s austerity-shrunken public health care systems. Although Donald Trump’s actions, inactions and idiotic blatherings have added immeasurably to the death toll, a major medical and economic catastrophe was inevitable once the virus was loosed on a defenseless U.S. public. Trump didn’t create the conditions that made the United States so vulnerable to a killer virus. That’s one of the many crimes of capitalism, which at its late stage is methodically starving what’s left of the public sphere and privatizing every conceivable human enterprise for the ultimate benefit of the Lords of Capital – the ruling oligarchy. 

Midterm Congressional Elections: You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had

The buzz is that “we” have to “take back” the House and Senate in the November midterm elections. Legendary bluesman Muddy Waters said it best: “you can’t lose what you ain’t never had.” What the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is really telling us to do is to give them Congress, which is a whole other story. The truth is “We” never had Congress. Trump has an abysmal 38% approval rating. The Democratic Party in the same independent national poll is even deeper in the abyss with only a 31% approval rating…for at least a dozen reasons:

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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