Last updated on August 11th, 2014 at 12:01 am
The event may have been largely ignored by the mainstream media, but Ron Paul hosted a press conference today that featured all of the major third party candidates, with the exception of Bob Barr, who is still trying to get Paul’s endorsement. The point of today’s event was to promote third party unity and call on Americans to reject the closed two party system.
“Pretending that a true difference exists between the two major candidates is a charade of great proportion. Many who help to perpetuate this myth are frequently unaware of what they are doing and believe that significant differences actually do exist. Indeed, on small points there is the appearance of a difference. The real issues, however, are buried in a barrage of miscellaneous nonsense and endless pontifications by robotic pundits hired to perpetuate the myth of a campaign of substance. The truth is that our two-party system offers no real choice. The real goal of the campaign is to distract people from considering the real issues,” Paul said.
“Today’s coming together of third party candidates marks the beginning of the realignment of American politics. While Congressman Paul and I do not agree on all things — such as health and safety regulations and health insurance systems and how to handle areas where the market fails or is not up to the task of getting the best outcomes for the American people — on the overriding foreign policy, reckless waste financed by deficit spending, and civil liberties issues of the day, we stand together. He is a stalwart who has consistently stood up for what he believes in and never wavered when he is opposed by the legions of commercial interests and lobbyists that swarm the Capitol,” Ralph Nader said.
Paul talked about how our current system doesn’t represent most people, “The system we have today allows a President to be elected by as little as 32% of the American people, with half of those merely voting for the “lesser of two evils”. Therefore, as little as 16% actually vote for a president. No wonder when things go wrong, anger explodes. A recent poll shows that 60% of the American people are not happy with the two major candidates this year.”
Nader also made his pitch to Paul’s supporters, “Some unfairly paint the Nader/Gonzalez candidacy as being for big government. Nothing could be more untrue. Nader/Gonzalez supports a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We agree with Congressman Paul that government is rife with waste and corporate demands, and needs to be scaled back in many areas — most of all the bloated, wasteful US military budget, which is half of the government’s total operating budget. We are also against big government doling out hundreds of billions in corporate welfare, subsidies, and bailouts to companies.”
Dr. Paul called for a rejection of the two party system, and encouraged people to vote for anyone but the Big Two, “The strongest message can be sent by rejecting the two-party system, which in reality is a one-party system with no possible chance for the changes to occur which are necessary to solve our economic and foreign policy problems. This can be accomplished by voting for one of the non-establishment principled candidates – Baldwin, Barr, McKinney, Nader, and possibly others… For me, though, my advice – for what it’s worth – is to vote! Reject the two candidates who demand perpetuation of the status quo and pick one of the alternatives that you have the greatest affinity to, based on the other issues.”
If you look around this website you will see that we too have been caught up in writing articles about pigs in lipstick and other things that don’t matter, but that is what people are conditioned to read about. They love the horserace element of the campaign, not the issues. Our federal election system is broken. The Commission on Presidential Debates either has to be opened up to third parties or done away with.
I believe that true reform will come to our country when all ideas are heard equally, but the system will be changed only if the American people demand it. I may not totally agree with Ron Paul on the issues, but I completely support his efforts to open up our political process. One of the reasons that I support Obama is because he is the only viable option to get the nation away from neo-con rule. If a guy like Ralph Nader had a chance in a fair system, he would be able to seriously compete for my vote. This is the sad, but true, reality of our current electoral system.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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