The National Compromise Party

This groundbreaking idea has received little attention in Congress and the media. Before being dismissed, it should be thoroughly reviewed and debated throughout the nation. It’s time for hard-working, determined citizens to receive a much-deserved financial break that would in turn help America’s economy.

The editorial board for the student daily at the University of Minnesota has endorsed the Forgive Student Loan Debt campaign as a viable economic growth generator. Hopefully more student publications will pick this up as a viable way of protecting students against the 439% increase in tuition, Sallie Mae’s DC lobbyists. 

At the very least, this should be an opportunity for Congress to reform the lending community’s practices and reevaluate the cost (real and hidden) of higher education.

Andrew Breitbart makes money off of politics and fear. He’s a fish monger much like the Fox Newses and the MSNBCs of the world. He sells information with a slant. Call him an activist, a pundit, a tool of the right, whatever you want. He’s a mirror image of the ogres slinging mud on the left who also make a career out of destroying positive and thoughtful discourse in American politics.

Consider that when you read this diatribe condemning Fareed Zakaria, a CNN reporter and writer who has a reputation for being a forward-thinker and intellectual genius amongst the on-air cable personalities. He stands out because he doesn’t hold punches. He judges the system and not the politics while everyone else is sniping from their trenches on the left and right.

Breitbart even takes a not-so-subtle swipe at Zakaria’s Indian heritage by claiming Zakaria took shelter in America to seek refuge from India’s own political and economic strife. If you have read Zakaria’s latest book you will know that he is as unbiased as possible. His lens for America’s big problems is spot on and Brietbart only discredits himself by attacking the guy.

Is a parliamentary system a great idea? Sure, for some countries. Can America move forward with its Republic and solve our economic and budgetary problems? Yes, but it is need in radical changes to the political system. Is a moderate party that can force coalition-building and compromise in Congress in much the same way a multi-party parliamentary government forces compromise in other nations an extremely good idea for America’s future? Yes!

The problem with Congress today is that pundits shoot down good ideas before the public can really dive into the details and form their own opinions. Breitbart is a tool, and any self-respecting American should ignore the guy and his cohort on the left and right combined. We need a moderate third party that condemns extremism stirred up by guys like Breitbart. Who is with us?

Read Zakaria’s book, The Post-American World, instead.

Check out this great article detailing the American citizen’s outrage at government. Are we truly pre-revolutionary?

This conclusion follows Caddell’s observation last November that “a sea of anger is churning” amongst Americans who “want to take their country back” and that the nation stood on the brink of a “pre-revolutionary moment”.

Caddell’s conclusion that Americans are on the verge of rising up against a system in which they have lost all trust cannot be easily dismissed as partisan rhetoric. Despite working for numerous Democratic presidential candidates, including Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden, Caddell has been a vociferous critic of both Democrats and Republicans on several issues.

If we are on the verge of an uproar, let’s do it through political discourse and create a new system that works for the people…not fringe activists, lobbyists, or fat cat corporations.

While we are discussing the birth of a new, modern Compromise Party, here is a brief history lesson on the original Progressive Party. While many today are ignorant enough to pass off the word “progressive” as an extreme liberal Democrat, it was originally used to describe educated and moderate citizens who were both civic and socially minded. 

That is to say they believed in a strong central government to check special interest and corruption, but also a government that did the bidding of the average working and middle-class American citizen through a checks-and-balance system of direct democracy, transparency, and populist ideas.

With our economy in turmoil and our nation without strong-willed civic leaders, the time is right to establish a platform that answers the extreme ideologues in the Tea Party and far left as well as the elitist power brokers in Washington.

Here is an excerpt from the excellent Time Magazine article about the Progressives published back in 2006:

The Bull Moose Party got off to a thundering start. Within seven weeks, the Progressives had established the party in nearly every state and were back in Chicago for their first national convention. But who were the Progressives? Although Republicans of the day cast the Progressives as radicals, in truth they were teachers and lawyers, farmers and small-town folk, urban reformers of every ilk, crusaders for peace and women’s suffrage, champions of the little guy. They were less a movement than a catch basin for civic-minded men and women impatient with politics as usual but a bit frightened of Eugene V. Debs and his Socialist Party. While many Progressives could not see past their pet causes, T.R. managed to bring them together in a big tent held aloft by the idea that the government, which ought to serve the people, had been hijacked by special interests. “To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day,” the Progressive platform declared

Churchill understood the importance of banishing fear and steadying a country. The war rooms are the fortification where he, his ministers, military advisers and secretaries worked belowground, as German bombs rained down on London streets. In taped interviews, those who had duties there spoke of cramped quarters, short rations, long hours and claustrophobia — but to a person, they dismissed that as nothing. Churchill drove them hard and could be overbearing, but they loved him for his courage and resolve. (Stiff upper lips, chaps!)

On several walls hang posters from those days: “Keep Calm & Carry On.” That is very much the spirit that leaders of today need to instill in peoples across the Atlantic. They must replace fear with faith in the future.

In Europe and especially in the U.S., the public is disgusted with politics because their leaders squabble like kids in a sandbox. Churchill lived in a day when there were bitter fights too. But upon taking the reins, he immediately formed a coalition government.

Gergen’s assertion that strong leadership combined with a coalition of ideas is exactly what America needs right now. However, with our two party system controlled by lobbyists and activist fear mongers, what America really needs is a third voice: a moderate platform that promotes a strong but effective government bent on serving the needs of the working and middle classes. 

Until this happens, the outlook for progress in Washington is…negative.

As everyone knows, the global economy plunged into a great depression at the end of the 1920s. In the United States, the Great Depression hit bottom in early 1933. The years from 1933 through 1936 were years of economic recovery. Then — slam — the U.S. economy hit the wall again. In 1937, the U.S. economy tumbled back into a depression almost as severe as in 1929-33.  

This past week of bad economic news raises fears that history might repeat itself, with a second slide into recession after the terrible collapse of 2008-2009.

A great article by David Frum offering some historical perspective on our own Great Recession and its links to 1930s America’s unemployment nightmare.