A disturbing wake-up article by Tom Friedman....

[kentuck]

Although Mr Friedman may be on to something, this is probably the wrong time to talk about such a topic? The President and the Democratic Party deserve at least two years to try and turn around the mess left by the last Administration. They will have to draw a sharp distinction between themselves and the Republicans or this scenario could come to pass. However, in my opinion, it is premature and discouraging to espouse such possibilities at this time.

=======================

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03friedman.html?ref=opinion

<snip>
There is a revolution brewing in the country, and it is not just on the right wing but in the radical center. I know of at least two serious groups, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, developing “third parties” to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation’s steady incremental decline.

<snip>
Obama probably did the best he could do, and that’s the point. The best our current two parties can produce today — in the wake of the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century — is suboptimal, even when one party had a huge majority. Suboptimal is O.K. for ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. We need to stop waiting for Superman and start building a superconsensus to do the superhard stuff we must do now. Pretty good is not even close to good enough today.

“We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country,” said the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond. Indeed, our two-party system is ossified; it lacks integrity and creativity and any sense of courage or high-aspiration in confronting our problems. We simply will not be able to do the things we need to do as a country to move forward “with all the vested interests that have accrued around these two parties,” added Diamond. “They cannot think about the overall public good and the longer term anymore because both parties are trapped in short-term, zero-sum calculations,” where each one’s gains are seen as the other’s losses.

We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform, without worrying about offending unions; financial reform, without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs, without worrying about offending the far left; energy and climate reform, without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats; and proper health care reform, without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies.

....more

[tabatha]

1. he makes some good points

especially

"Obama probably did the best he could do, and that’s the point."

[The Magistrate]

2. Sweet Georgia Brown, Sir! Mr. Friedman Wants A Revolution?

Then it must be too late by so far as to make mass sicide the best option....

"There's always some son of a bitch who's slow to get the word...."

[Fumesucker]

3. Until we have public financing of elections..

Any conceivable third party will just be captured by the same interests for the same reasons as the current two major parties are.

The Mustache of Understanding needs to study the problem for a few more Friedman Units.

ETA: I forgot to mention, this is a subtly mutated form of High Broderism.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=high%20broderism

The worship of bipartisanship for its own sake, combined with a fake "pox on both their houses" attitude. The main goal is the establishment of a permanent ruling class of Washington insiders, our betters who know better. It is their rough agenda which is sold as "centrism" even when it has no actual relationship with the political center in a meaningful way. The establishment of an aristocratic class in America. The belief that it all sides are equal and must compromise at all times. Regardless of the final outcome or the level of understanding or intelligence presented by each side.

Mark Foley had a bad relationship with pages; Sen. Vitter has visited Prositutes in New Orleans and Washington; Sen Craig tried to proposition an undercover officer; Newt Gingrich had multiple afairs; Duke Cunningham was bribed with Prostitutes; but William Jefferson had money in his fridge so both sides are clearly evil.

[postulater]

4. Third party won't work until there is a change in the election laws.

Instant run-off voting is the best way to allow alternate views to come to the front. Otherwise, with winner take all, the parties just try to attract the undecided middle by competing for the center.

[Hannah Bell]

5. friedman is a winger & a shill. everything he writes = propaganda.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. Friedman is a billionaire. He understands the plight of the Common Man.

:sarcasm:

[stopbush]

8. Yep. Has he ever been right on anything?

His whole MO seems to be taking some off-the-wall view in hopes of "being out in front" of some "emerging trend."

But just like astrology predictions, nobody remembers all the times he's wrong, while treating the few times he's right - which are never more than what the laws of probability allow for - like he's some genius.

[BurtWorm]

9. I'd like to see Tom Friedman gather a crowd at the Lincoln Memorial.

:eyes:

[BurtWorm]

7. Corporate tax reductions?

Bull-shit!

[Amonester]

10. Yeah, that one "jumped" at me too!

Corporate tax reductions, when they sit on a mountain of cash ($1.8 trillion)!

Maybe he doesn't know...

[BurtWorm]

11. It's probably hard for him to see anything from his falt little world.

[kentuck]

12. I thought the same, BurtWorm...

Clever how he worked that in there, huh?

[Cowpunk]

13. The "radical center" is a crock.

Friedman is just doing what he always does and what all of the Village pundits do-projecting onto the electorate his own fantasy of a bipartisan majority singing Kumbaya and bucking the entrenched interests for the good of the nation. Remember the talk of a "Unity Party" back in '08? That really took off, didn't it?

[Jim Sagle]

14. Education deform is anti-union garbage, and corporate tax cuts is supply side garbage.

Those are the poison pills in an otherwise useful if way overdue rant.

[Confusious]

15. Waste of time

The third party becomes the second party and the whole cycle continues.

Real change is needed to open up the system to third parties. Amending the constitution type of change.

[Vinnie From Indy]

16. Friedman is an idiot par excellence

He is Chauncy Gardner.

Tom Friedman is pretty much a blithering moron that has been given a huge platform by other morons to spew his idiocy into the ether. If Friedman were a regular at a horse track, you can be sure that there would be mucho dollars to be made by betting AGAINST any horse he recommended.

[Vinnie From Indy]

17. dupe

[jaxx]

18. The author is obviously pushing third parties right before a major election.

Divisive? Well, yeah it is. And the subtle put downs of Obama, par for the course.

[Orlandodem]

19. Obama/Duncan aren't worried about the teachers unions. I am a teacher. I won't vote for Obama.

He has already pissed enough of us off. Democrats everywhere need to understand that Obama has angered a major bloc of Dem voters. Only a Dem who stands FOR public schools, not against them, will get my vote. Obama's test-and-punish policy is the reason he doesn't get my vote in 2012. So in that respect Friedman is wrong.

[B Calm]

20. So you think a republican president will care about you more?

[Orlandodem]

21. No. I guess I just don't vote, unless the R actually stands FOR public schools.

Obama has taken the R position on education. He has taken Bush's NCLB and given it steroids.

I spend my day at school. I spend my evenings grading and doing lesson plans as well as working with my own kids on their homework. School is the most important thing to me. It's my number one issue. Obama/Duncan have left me and millions of other teachers behind. They have scapegoated me after I worked to get them in office. They stabbed me in the back and smiled while twisting the knife. FUCK OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys want me to vote for a Dem? Well get the Dems to change their policy. Otherwise the Dems are going to be out of the WH for a LONG LONG TIME. I voted for Clinton twice, Gore, Kerry, and Obama. I won't vote for a Dem in 2012 if the Dem education policy doesn't change.

[Efilroft Sul]

24. You rock.

[Orlandodem]

26. When Obama loses in 2012 he can look directly at his attack on his base.

In response to a request for $$ I returned the envelope to Obama For America with a note that says I won't give money to Obama again until he dumps Duncan and rethinks education policy. Hell, Vanderbilt U just released a study a couple weeks ago that says merit pay DOESN'T increase test scores! But Obama is marching forward with his plan which will destroy our schools rather than lift them up. The majority of charter schools don't work either, but he'll keep going with that plan as well. I, as a teacher, feel like I'm under attack from both the right and left. It used to be just the right so I voted Dem. Now I guess I won't vote at all.

Democrats can thank Obama for being the minority party for years without support from teachers like me.

[n2doc]

22. Give it another 6 months tom n/t

[KG]

23. thank you, Capt Obvious.

:eyes:

[JamesA1102]

25. Friedman was wrong about the war and wrong about the Financial crisis

Why would anyone thing he was right about this?

Plus he is pulling the old trick that conservative do when they can't defend their side anymore and say that both sides are just as bad. Pathetic.

[Warren Stupidity]

27. "radical center" == "total bullshit"

Freidman: wrong then, wrong now, wrong forever.