Thom Friedman introduces AmericansElect in today’s New York Times.

I have no idea whether this “national referendum” kind of thing has or could have any legs whatsoever–if nothing else, it’s an extremely unwieldy way of identifying a “candidate,” much less getting into campaign mode, and probably just reflects dismay with all the parties currently  in existence. The two major parties are clearly not delivering–leastways not to their consitutents, and not in the way voters would like; and existing alterna-parties are far too radical in their own right to ever attract the kind of plurality needed to have any real influence on their own (otherwise, by now, they would have; but they shed at the same rate they attact. Or in the case of of some state organizations, at far higher clip.)

But as I’ve suggested before, the age of traditional parties in the US (which would include Green, Libertarian, Reform, etc) may be drawing to a close. Sloowly, to be sure, but my guess is that defections from the two mainstream Parties are likely to land most exiles in the ranks of Independents, not simply different ideologically-driven organizations. And up-and-coming generations are bored with the endless parade of white-guys-in-suits (struck again looking at the team assembled behind John Boehner when he gave his latest statement; it might as well have been 1950) spewing canned rhetoric, and turned off by the equally dated sixties-style rhetoric and identity politics blame-casting emanating from the further reaches of the left.

As the curtain comes down on “The American Century” and the electorate is forced to change not their simply their lifestyles but their aspirations and consciousness of what it means to be an “American,” politics is likely to be more volatile than ever. The alternative proferred by Friedman in this peace sounds attracive at first glance, but also seems to open a very wide door to populist demagogues of the scary variety.    

Continue reading Not a Third Party … But a Third Candidate?

Chapter 2

Keystone Cops Strike Again

A Luta Continua

By Chuck Turner

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

A) Narrative:

On November 21, 2008, at 6:16 a.m. I was confronted in my office at City Hall by 10 white men and women, some in police uniforms. One of them barked at me, “Hang up the phone”. I had been talking with my wife, Terri, who had called me 10 minutes earlier, saying that the FBI had just come to our house to arrest me. My first response was “Well it finally happened” and we both laughed since Terri had been saying for years that my political work would result in my being killed or put in jail.

My second response was “Why are they going to arrest me.” She said she didn’t know and went on to say that they forced their way into the house when she told them that I had left for work. She was still relating her experience with them when the FBI accompanied by Boston Police burst into my office and ordered me to hang up the phone.

The large officer at the edge of my desk who had told me to hang up the phone, then ordered me to stand up and put my hands behind my back. As I followed his instructions, I started to laugh which infuriated him. “What are you laughing at?”, he shouted. I replied, “You would never understand”.

The situation was obviously a serious one. At the same time these ten “public safety officers” standing around me in my small office getting ready to handcuff a 68 year old, black, 9 year City Councilor, and lifelong activist seemed so ludicrous that I couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed that somehow I was playing a part in a grade C detective movie or perhaps even a Keystone Cops movie.  

Continue reading Chapter 2 Keystone Cops Strike Again By Chuck Turner

So: a Green Party Local is promoting a  fundraising event (if I’m not mistaken) for Cynthia McKinney to allow her to go on another “fact-finding” junket to Libya.

This is disheartening to say the least. Was a time when Greens would have been PROTESTING outside a hall where a speaker was defending a dictator. Seems it’s okay to be a dictator, a thug, and a sadist when s/he opposes US imperialism. Or to suggest that the jaw-dropping words Ms McKinney recently spake were not her own (Cynthia’s long history of anti-semitic remarks and associations, along with other zaniness, should suggest that any crackpot statements are MORE than likely to have come from her own mouth! For example, she is also quite smitten with Mugabe:

Continue reading Cynthia McKinney’s Love-Letter to Muammar: A Reason to Boycott her Appearance

Reflections from Behind the Wall

Anatomy of a Frame Up – Chapter 1

A Lifetime of Service

A Luta Continua

By Chuck Turner

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

This is the first of eight chapters  in which I discuss my two and a half year experience with the Justice Department that has led to my being a convicted felon at the work camp at USP Hazelton, Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.

My first reaction was that I was dreaming; no, I was having a nightmare but I couldn’t wake up. After a lifetime of fighting for justice, I was in handcuffs being led out of City Hall. I didn’t even know what I was being accused of. Later, it became all too clear, not only from the prosecutor describing me as a corrupt politician but also from the newspaper headlines the next morning screaming that I had been indicted for conspiracy to extort money from a local community business man and lying about it to the FBI.

How could this happen? I knew I hadn’t done what they said but there were the camera trucks in front of our house. Reporters knocking at the door, urging me to talk to them as if it was my responsibility to answer their questions. Sure, they were just doing their job but they were part of an establishment that I had been fighting for decades. Yet, here they were ridiculing me, mocking me, gloating over my alleged hypocrisy. I felt like Alice in Wonderful and I had no idea how to get out of the rabbit hole.  

Continue reading Chuck Turner’s Story–Chapter 1: A Lifetime of Service