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You actually have zero understanding of the US government and political structure. For one thing, both parties have been converging towards socialism for the last 15 years.

I hear a lot of ignorance spouted off these days regarding the way the US should work or does work from people who do not even live here and/or do not have any concept of how a democratic republic should work. Of course there's corruption. There's corruption in every form of government, from top to bottom, in every case.

However, I think you'll find (if you take the time to read) that the US government's structure has the most checks and balances built in to do ultimately what is in the best interest of the people. You won't find that happens in communism or socialism, and you won't see it in one or two terms of a US President's administration. You have to take the long view to see it.

Please don't tell me you're serious.
How many countries has the US Army invaded or the CIA messed with that those magical "checks and balances" apparently failed to rescue? There are dozens of them.



Well, it may surprise you but communist/socialist states do have parliaments, courts, constitutions, etc. If you say they are often a joke, well so they are in capitalist states. There has been more corruption and lawlessness in Russia from the early nineties up to now than there was in the 1970s and 1980s. Homeless people did not have to freeze to death in the streets of Moscow under communism.
People often get heart attack when they learn that not *everything* was bad under communism.. :-)



Sure, there are democratic victories over plutocratic government in the United States. But it's exactly those that the reactionaries are trying to roll back, often successfully, all the time.
Perhaps some Americans still feel good about their political system. The victims of American imperial policies beg to differ.

What American citizens ought to do now is to rise up against the kleptocrats who are taking over the country more openly than ever. They are waging a war against the people, you know.

Just a note: the USA is a Representative Republic, not a Democracy.

I hesitate to reply, simply because I am not an expert on European governments. But I think I can make an imperfect analogy that might help explain the two party system a little: The two parties are like permanent coalitions. There are, for instance, hard-left socialists in the Democratic party, and there are also old line Southern Democrats who opposed the civil rights movement. There are neoconservative Republicans who think government is benevolent and a useful tool for acheiving policy goals, and there are old-line conservatives who believe that government is always the problem. Both parties have a big business base, (last season Wall Street donated several times as much money to the Democrats than the Republicans, yet people generally think of the Republicans as the business party) and both parties contain a lot of "regular people" who are only mildly ideological.

Both parties, then, contain a lot of difference in opinion, which is probably why they can start to look similar - lots of competing agendas average out. People generally remember Nixon as a conservative villain these days, but in his time, he imposed wage and price controls (not very conservative), and yet also disagreed with Eisenhower because he thought Eisenhower was too close to business interests to the expense of ideology and that made him not conservative enough. Point is, there can be a lot of serious difference within a party.

And by the way, we did not condemn the USSR for a 1 party system alone: that it killed tens of millions of people in the last century via labor camps and forced famines was also a factor. The fact that anybody thinks the comparison is a reasonable one to make shows that we have it pretty easy these days.

"In the US, there is no such distinction - both major parties are right-wing"

Are you kidding me? The current Democratic party is very far left (borderline socialism). The current Republican party is fairly centric, as they are far left in their financial spending sprees, and far right in their social beliefs.

You obviously have no clue what you're talking about.

The OP probably is speaking from his own political paradigm. From a Dutch perspective, both of your parties are far-right, for instance.

Obama very very far left wing? what bloody planet are you on!

Compare Obama to the policies of the very far left in New Zealand, Australia, German, the UK - Obama is a centre left policitian and most certainly isn't sitting on the fringe.

Maybe you Americans should wake up, realise that the cold war has ended, and the centre left or centre right is in power in most countries. It is you the American's who have this obsession of labelling anything you don't like as apparently 'very very left' or 'very very right' when in reality it is neither of them.

Edited 2009-03-25 12:13 UTC