[ExI] The twists & turns of politics & idealism (was: The End of the Future)

[Adrian Tymes]

2011/10/5 Amon Zero <amon at doctrinezero.com>:
> Folks, some of us are agreed that although the intention was good, I got the
> tone and some content of this leaflet badly wrong, so we're not going ahead
> with it. I hope that people will respect (or at least acknowledge) that it's
> important that we call it when we (or in this case, I!) get something wrong
> - otherwise we are no better than those we would criticise.
> We will not be disseminating leaflets in Dallas, and would like to have an
> earnest conversation about this from people with multiple points of view.
> Let's take a little time, and get this right.

...it is surprising and very heartening to hear that you do take constructive
criticism into account.

This will be essential if you are to win.  After all, you are going
against people
who have been practicing these things for decades, and institutions that - in
many cases - have had over 100 years to refine their techniques.  You'll need
to adopt some of their methods to have a chance; the challenge is to do that
without becoming what you oppose.

However, I suspect you'll find a more basic disagreement among your groups,
as to what exactly is to be done.  There is a lot of unformed anger out there,
and politicians have already tarred the most basic methods of redress by
promising them and then failing to deliver.  ("Tax the rich"?  Okay, exactly
how much, and how are you going to get those taxes passed when enough
Congresspeople have been bought out to block such proposals?  Even the
President has run into enough Representatives with no actual agenda other
than to defeat his plans, that he can't get much done.)

If I might make a suggestion: one thing you can do, if you have a
geographically distributed group within the US, is simply to run candidates,
under already-registered third parties such as the Libertarians, for state &
federal legislatures.  Target races where one of the Democratic or
Republican parties simply aren't running anyone, no matter how non-viable,
so that you become the opposition by default.  Point out how the D/R
candidate has sold out - for instance, in most tea party districts, you can
point out how the major party candidate, while promising to represent the
people, has consistently voted to represent the rich and only the rich.
Then propose specific legislative measures - such as introducing bills
to repeal the capital gains tax as separate from ordinary income - that your
candidates can take that will obviously set them apart from this.  But
most importantly, just get your people on the ballot, in races where the
voters currently don't have a choice - and actively recruit people to run.

Lest you think I exaggerate, take a look at your ballot for last November.
At least in California, and I suspect in most other states, once you get
past the top few races (President, Senate, & Governor), you'll start
seeing races where the third parties literally aren't on the ballot, because
they simply didn't run a candidate.  You may even find some where one
of the major parties isn't there either, for the same reason.

If you really want to get crafty, you might look for 2012 races where
only one major party candidate will run, get someone on your list to
run in that district, and then ask the other major party for funding - not
in exchange for loyalty, but simply to tie up the opposition's resources
(an "unexpected" third party run).