The Purple Party
A great new article in New York magazine shouts from the rooftops what we’ve been talking about for a while now. “We’re moderate as hell, and we’re not gonna be silent anymore!”
Republicans used to brag that theirs was the party of fresh thinking, but who’s brain-dead now? All the big new ideas they have trotted out lately—privatizing Social Security, occupying a big country with only 160,000 troops, Middle Eastern democracy as a force-fed contagion—have given a bad name to new paradigms.As for the Democrats, the Republicans still have a point: Where are the brave, fresh, clear approaches passionately and convincingly laid out? When it comes to reforming entitlements, the Democrats have absolutely refused to step up. Because the teachers unions and their 4 million members are the most important organized faction of its political base, the party is wired to oppose any meaningful experimentation with charter schools or other new modes. Similarly, after beginning to embrace the inevitability of economic globalization in the nineties, and devising ways to minimize our local American pain, the Democrats’ scaredy-cat protectionist instincts seem to be returning with a vengeance. On so many issues, the ostensibly “progressive� party’s habits of mind seem anything but.
Seriously, read the whole thing.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
4 Responses to “The Purple Party”
A great read, however some of the author’s comments about the Democrats’ ties to the military industry imply that the majority of Democrats are anti-war, when I’m not sure that’s the “centrist” position. I’d argue the center of the two modern parties is a willingness to use force, but only when necessary–and certainly not involving an itch to go to war at any cost that’s been demonstrated of late. Only the extreme left is against war entirely. Or that’s how I view it.
Here’s an enthusiastic preview of the article. A centrist blogger can’t help but wonder, though, where the heck has he been?
The Purple party would never succeed-its founders make too much sense!
Seriously though, it would be awesome to vote for a candidate that not only campaigned as a moderate, but led as a moderate. You hear so much about the hard-line conservatives becoming disenchanted with the current administration, and the poor expecting more entitlements if the Democrats win Congress or the White House–( I read the core of their new platform is raising the federal minimum wage rate), but so little about the shrinking, moderate, middle class. As most are not alligned with powerful interest groups, they are taken for granted election after election. We need a third party movement in this country-one that represents reason and not some religion or ideology.
Builders for Purple Party required.
No pay, lousy conditions.
Must have own boots and hard hat.
Sign on here: http://www.purpleparty.com
peace, love and purple
the purple party