The American political consciousness of today suffers from a form of primal dualism just as simplistic as an old heresy called Manichaeism, which recognized only two principles: good/evil; off/on; 0/1; for/against. The Church tried for centuries to stamp out the heresy, but even the Inquisition couldn't quash it. Manichaeism is the philosophy of sheeple, of gutless droids disguised as humans, whose brains are unable to deal with any system more complicated than a dichotomy. In other words, they can't count past two. In this great country, a lot of folks think there are only two political parties - although some citizens, if pressed, can name a third.

But in actual fact, there are in America today more than 30 political parties with a national presence, and an additional 15 or so which, though they may have been around for a while, have never put up any candidates for national office. Then there's another whole group of parties that only operate in one state.

Plenty to Choose From

Nationally, the two largest third parties are the Greens and the Libertarians. Nobody seems to be sure which one boasts the most members, but both of them are big and growing. Many people learned of the Green Party of the United States when Ralph Nader accepted their nomination a few years back. The Greens stand for grassroots democracy, social justice, gender equality, equal opportunity, ecological wisdom and sustainability, non-violence, decentralization, and community-based economics. They respect diversity and would like to see more responsibility taken, on both personal and global levels.

For Libertarians, the civil rights and liberties of the individual come first, and what the government thinks it needs comes in a distant second. Libertarians consider government to be dangerous, and the less of it we have, the better. Taxes should be minimal, only enough to pay for the very few items enumerated by the Constitution. The first principle of libertarianism is to not initiate aggression, a rule which, had it been followed by the current administration, would have spared us the Iraq invasion and plenty of other grief. The Libertarian Party is divided into, as Ron Gunzburger of the "Politics1" website puts it, "a more purist/hardcore libertarian group and a more moderate 'reform' faction." The reform guys accuse the purist bunch of holding extreme ideas just for the sake of philosophical consistency, which doesn't win elections. In fact, one of their hardcore ideas is that if a person holds any form of public office, that is in itself an aggressive act.

Among the almost three dozen political parties who have actually presented candidates on a national level, at least five can be chiefly described as conservative religious. Eight have what you'd call a liberal bias. Some parties have a very narrow focus: for instance the Knights, which is the re-animated Ku Klux Klan, and another group, the Christian Falangist Party of America, whose first priorities include anti-Islamic sentiments.

One of the single-issue parties, the Prohibition Party, is also the oldest third party, founded in 1869. Its issue is, of course, no booze. Then there's the U.S. Marijuana Party, and the Pot Party, both of which want to legalize marijuana. It would be interesting if the three of them got together.

The Independence Party is also pro-medical marijuana, as well as pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun rights and pro-fiscal moderation. The Reform Party garnered a respectable 8% of the vote in 1996 with Ross Perot as their candidate. Since then, however, due to infighting and fragmentation, it's hard to tell what they're all about. The Revolution - yes, that's the party's name - is in favor of libertarianism and environmentalism, and aims to end the prosecution of victimless crimes. The Revolution also promises to repeal five laws for every one it passes. Since there are around five million federal laws, this sounds like a good place to start.

Among ordinary working people, there seems to be a consensus that both major parties have failed them dismally. Who could blame wage-earners for being attracted to the dozen or so parties that either have Communist in their names, or that are described as Communistic by their detractors? You've heard of union leader Eugene Debs? He started the Socialist Party USA, avowedly anti-Communist since the beginning, although self-appointed guardians of patriotism would not agree. Its goal is "a society in which the commanding value is the infinite preciousness of every woman, man, and child." What's not to like?

Part of the Greens splintered off into the G/GPUSA party, which its detractors describe as fringe and nearly communist. The Social Democrats USA is another bunch of anti-communist socialists, and so is the World Socialist Party of the USA.

Another socialist-but-not-communist entity is the Peace and Freedom Party, an energetic and feisty group which advocates just what its name says and plenty more besides: democracy, ecology, feminism, and racial equality. Its presidential nominees have included headline-making activists Eldridge Cleaver and Leonard Peltier. The tirelessly committed members contribute to the ambiance of quintessentially American Venice Beach, California, with innumerable peace vigils and marches.

The American Patriot Party sounds pretty good on paper. It would like to see the federal government rolled back to possess only the powers delineated in the Constitution, with everything else decided by the states. (The question we should be asking is: How did we let ourselves become so totally subjugated to centralized authority in the first place?) The Constitutionalist Party, described as "quasi-libertarian," has pretty much the same idea, but doesn't seem to be very active. Another group advocating states' rights is the Multicapitalist Party, whose plan is to let all social issues be decided by a plebiscite - a direct, democratic vote - with each state following the dictates of its own voters. This party hates capitalism and socialism equally, because both systems involve unfairness - either "the rich riding on the backs of the poor," or "the weak riding on the backs of the strong."

The Veterans Party of America is only three years old, and long overdue. The people who go out and do the dirty work to prop up the political fat cats and their zillionaire buddies, are being more thoroughly shafted every day. This is not your father's VFW. One of their positions is, "If you want to tell other people how to live their lives, how to think, how to dress or what they can and cannot do to their bodies, then become a prison warden, or a political party in some middle eastern country and rule there." They make the very excellent point that all veterans have sworn an oath to protect our country from both foreign and domestic enemies - "to keep free ALL American Citizens, not just some corporations or political elite." They also favor the concept of bringing every American out of poverty before shelling out any foreign aid. Again, what's not to like?

Problems with a Two-Party System

When two parties hold most of the power, a lot of bad things happen. Each candidate feels compelled to express more extreme views than she or he might personally hold, in order to cleave to the party line. On the other hand, each party might endorse ideas from the other's platform, trying to bring in new members - but the result, over time, is to make the two parties indistinguishable, leading to what we have now, the dreaded Republicrats.

Any two-party race lends itself to negative campaigning. Rather than put forth a feasible plan of how the candidate intends to improve life, the temptation to rely on character assassination is great. Another bad tendency is for either party to be obstructive for the sake of contrariness, to automatically and arbitrarily oppose any idea put forth by the other, just because they are the opposition, rather than on the merits or weaknesses of the idea itself. A two-party system is also easier to corrupt, because there are fewer bosses to bribe.

Allegedly, a two-party system brings stability, which is generally considered to be a good thing. But some say stability is just another word for stagnation. More significantly, having a stable government is not the same thing as having a stable democracy.

Does it Have to Be This Way?

Apparently not. Other countries have all kinds of multiple parties running their governments. In Switzerland, a loose coalition of the four strongest parties in parliament gets the work of governing done. In Belgium, where both French and Flemish (A Dutch dialect) are spoken, each of the many parties has its own language faction, and shifting coalitions of six parties working together on an issue are common. Finland has five active and influential political parties, and India has 14. Israel has dozens, though the multiplicity doesn't seem to make for a peaceful nation.

Jumping Through Hoops

In the US, third party candidates and independents sometimes are able to win local elections, but the voting system has built-in barriers, and the path to national influence is filled with tribulations.

Here's what a party has to do if it wants to field candidates in federal elections: Contact the Federal Elections Commission. Contact the State Elections Offices in every state where it plans to run candidates. Each one of these has its own registration requirements and its own candidate filing requirements to start with, and its own rules for financial reporting on a continuing basis. If it plans to raise and spend $25,000 or more, it had better file with the IRS as a 527 organization.

People who know about these things say, if you're thinking about starting a new political party, don't. There are already quite a few existing parties, and chances are one of them has a platform that suits you. Find the one that's closest to your concept, preferably one that has already done all the necessary scutwork to qualify for ballot status. Move in and take over that party - at least at the local level, then move up. If you want to be some party's presidential candidate, get hold of their rules, because they all have their own nominating procedures. If the rules in your first-choice party don't work for you, another party might have rules that suit you.

What Third Parties?

It's no wonder Americans are so ignorant of our political options, when the mainstream media hardly admit the existence of anyone other than the Republicrats. But here's something even more disgraceful. When presidential debate time rolls around, no candidates other than Republicrats are allowed to take part!

In 2000, We the People party candidate Jeffrey Peters hosted a media event called the "Boston TV Party" where supporters dumped televisions into the harbor to protest the exclusion of so-called "fringe" candidates from presidential debates. (This was in homage to the long-ago action taken by American patriots protesting British rule - remember the Boston Tea Party we learned about in grade school?)

But that's nothing compared to what happened in October of 2004, when two legitimate presidential candidates, from the two largest third parties, were arrested and physically assaulted by police. Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik and Green nominee David Cobb were not only barred from participating in the debate, they were not even allowed to attend. Don't miss their exclusive accounts of this incredible affront to liberty, here on Earthblog.net
Michael Badnarik http://earthblog.net/eb-articles/badnarik1.html
David Cobb http://earthblog.net/eb-articles/cobb1.html

A 1934 law required any station that broadcasted presidential debates to include any candidate who wanted to participate, but this was changed in 1960 so Nixon and Kennedy could have the stage to themselves. From 1976 to 1984 the debates were run by the truly non-partisan League of Women Voters. In 1987 the Commission of Presidential Debates, a private nonprofit run by former chairmen of the two dominant parties, decreed that only candidates who scored 15% in polls could take part. This changed the debates from non-partisan to bi-partisan. The debates are sponsored by corporations involved in the alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical and gambling industries.

The first question we should be asking is, why are the presidential debates corporately sponsored? If the government must collect taxes, I can't think of a better use for that money than a fair, open debate that includes all presidential aspirants. Well okay, maybe not all - but any who could be considered electable, on the basis of appearing on enough state ballots that they might have a chance to win. The group Reclaim Democracy figures this would be between four and seven individuals in any given election. How much could it cost, anyway? Less than one minute of the Iraq invasion, probably. Why not let everybody talk? Don't tell me there's not a big enough hall. And there are hundreds of TV networks that need content to fill up their airwaves. Let all the candidates talk, let it take as long as it needs to, and let anybody hear them who cares to listen.

Siphoned and Wasted Votes

So, on paper at least, we have lots of parties. But not really. With a de facto two-party system, far too many voters end up voting for the "lesser of two evils" when actually they would prefer to vote for somebody else entirely. The trouble is, they have the perception that their vote would be wasted.

Even the strongest advocates of third parties are prone to this thinking. Gus Hall, who led the Communist Party USA, recommended in 1998 that members of his party all vote for Democratic congressional candidates, in an attempt to end Republican control. In 2000, liberal Democrats begged Ralph Nader to drop out because his candidacy would "siphon off" votes from the Democratic candidate Al Gore. The presumption here is that all votes belong by divine right to one of the two dominant parties, and any third party candidate is not just a nuisance and a liability, but actually stealing votes.

Even David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party nominee, campaigned with a "safe states" strategy, designed to get him a strong turnout only in states where that wouldn't hurt the Democratic candidate's chances. This kind of gamesmanship, while legal and possibly useful to demonstrate something or other, is not what a Presidential election should be about.

Some high-profile libertarians urge followers to enlist in the Republican party, on the grounds that it will be easier to wield some clout under that aegis, than to strengthen the Libertarian party. The received wisdom is that to have any effect at all, and to avoid damaging the very causes they embrace, third parties should not engage in futile presidential contests, but should confine their efforts to races and ballot initiatives on the state and local levels, and congressional races.

There is, aside from principle, one very good reason to go ahead and vote for your third-party candidate in a national election. If the party can garner 5% of the vote, then federal matching funds come into play in the next national election. There's another very good reason, expressed by Marc Madow: "If you vote for a third party, you might throw away your vote. But if you vote for the Republicrats, you throw away the world."

  For more information:
A comprehensive list of all U.S. political parties and descriptions of their beliefs;
http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm
Up-to-date news about what's going on with various contenders;
http://thirdpartywatch.com