"In the four years since the Iraq war was planned, very few if any of us have had an opportunity to vote in a serious contest for a House candidate who opposed it."

1. Inside the Box

Linear or one-dimensional thinking considers the object thought of from only one perspective, thus failing to discern its essence because most things, like coins, can be looked and understood from at least two, usually more, dimensions. The narrow point of view if honest has value, but it's too limited. Politically, it can reinforce the status quo but not bring progressive change.

There's always a larger, broader dimension which encompasses or at least accounts for the limited ones. In the decision-making context, when the larger perspective becomes the base for the reasoning and decision, the solution appears and the problem disappears, that is, it is "transcended," and new problems arise. This is the way progress occurs.

In recent years in the supposed democracy of the US Empire, the major political problems never seem to get transcended. The same issues fester on, year after year. As time goes by, the differing sides may wax and wane but the dispute never really gets a resolution and we don't move on. Such as, for instance, campaign finance, social security, immigration, abortion rights, health care, tax-code change, gun control, privacy, wars.

We hear our national politicians talking about "triangulation" and "compromise," meaning they stake their positions within the present perspective between "left and right" on an issue, or "conservative and liberal," or "Republican and Democrat." This puts or keeps them in power because it helps fund their campaigns and projects. But progress does not occur because the perspective remains the same.

Of course, because they operate in secret (which they justify by national security) we don't know how our rulers think or even who makes the decisions for us. But we often hear from our national politicians in the media seeking to market the made decisions. What we hear from them is almost always one-dimensional.

For example, our President, apparently thinking of his devil Saddam in Kuwait years ago, recently said that democracies do not attack other countries. True. But what does this say about his claim of US democracy? Speaking from his entrepreneurial perspective, he's also fond of saying that people all over the world yearn for "democracy and freedom" True again, Mr. President. That's why almost everywhere in the Third World people are struggling for liberation against First World corporate exploitation as protected and enforced by the US military and intelligence services. From the nationalism perspective, he often claims that security, protecting the nation, trumps all other considerations. The larger dimension: Americans belong to several places - communities, family, neighborhood, town, state, nation, world. They don't need one of their communities to destroy the others. They need a mutual balance between their differing communal interests.

2. Avoiding a New Dark Age

We the people of the world now seem to be entering a new Dark Age, where relations between us will depend on our class and access to power rather than equality, mutual respect and the rule of law. The burning question is how to turn things around and start making progress rather than regress.

Most US progressives believe that any significant change will have to be sought by working within our present political system, because that's the purpose of a democratic system like ours and it's capable of allowing for change. That's why so much of the discussion concerns tactics within the present limits rather than expanding the parameters.

In this respect, an interesting article appeared in the Talk of the Town section of the March 27 New Yorker Magazine. It's by a respected progressive, Hendrik Hertzberg, an astute observer of the US political scene, who analyzes the situation from the usual "Democrat vs. Republican" perspective. In this essay he deals with the common complaints that the Democrats are in disarray because they have no unified position on key issues like the Feingold censure resolution for phone tapping and the Iraq war. He points out that such unity is not possible without a "federal power center" such as a presidential candidate running for office. (In fact, a unified position is impossible in any event in a non-value-based electoral party, which is what our two major parties have to be.) He concludes by referring to a recent poll which showed that although 70% of Democrats support censure, it:

" ...also showed independent voters narrowly opposing censure. The mid-term election will be decided in places where no Democrat candidate can prevail without overwhelming independent support. Tactical calculations like these are never pleasant. But they are not always sordid and sometimes they are necessary."

In other words, Hertzberg is saying that Democratic House candidates running in the very few seriously contested races (less than 5%) who are against invasive phone tapping and continuous preventative wars should keep quiet about these things in order to get elected. Then, if they "win" the Congress, in the unlikely event that (1) a 2008 Democratic presidential candidate would take a position on these issues, it was the progressive one, and it somehow became a Democratic Party "consensus" (impossible), or (2) in the very unlikely event a majority leader or speaker elected in 2006 would take such a position and somehow carried enough weight to command such a consensus, then we progressives might be able to use the Democratic Party to end illegal, unconstitutional wiretapping and wars.

3. The US Political System

While Hertzberg's analysis may not be sordid and may be necessary, it certainly demonstrates the futility of trying to change things by working within the system. What's the larger perspective? Our political system is dysfunctional. In a functional system people power exceeds or at least equals the power of capital. If our system were functional, we the majority could elect candidates who represent us and would actualize our values and policies. In the last 60 years we have increasingly learned that this won't happen. What working people want makes little difference. It's what business wants that counts.

It's the system, not just bad luck, which produces the kind of state and national politicians we've been getting. Because their seats bring them wealth and power, they pursue self interest in the prevailing Adam Smith "invisible hand" tradition. Which means looking out for themselves and the interests of those who fund their campaigns. Of course there are some, like the Black Caucus and others, who truly represent their constituents. These exceptions merely prove the rule.

Today only about a half of eligibles vote in presidential elections and about 40% in our gerrymandered House districts. In the four years since the Iraq war was planned, very few if any of us have had an opportunity to vote in a serious contest for a House candidate who opposed it. What was originally meant to be the "People's House," with elections every two years to ensure responsiveness to constituent needs, has now become much more corporate-business friendly and reactionary than the Senate. The seats in our new "House of Lords" are essentially lifetime appointments if desired. About 27% of eligible US voters were responsible for our President's "landslide" victory in 2004.

The structure we're operating under, which we call "interest based politics," does not allow for change for the whole. It's irreversibly committed to the status quo, where it functions as an arena for competing businesses and special interests. But it has lost sight of the main project, the "common good”, meaning the good of "the people." Businesses are invariably the winners in the competition with people based groups because money is power and they are in the business of making money.

How many more years do we have to figure it out? Isn't it time we faced reality instead of looking for tortured ways to succeed within a corrupted system which disregards the public interest?

4. Non-value Based Electoral Parties

The major parties are not policy identical, nor are they unimportant. They determine procedures in Congress, such as committee chairmen and hearings, what and when issues will be debated and voted on, and they also serve as accounting firms, money raisers and "get out the vote" vehicles for the candidates. But they are not value-based. This prevents progressive (value) change based on people power.

Value-based electoral parties, such as the Populists, Socialists, Progressives, Libertarians, and Greens have been unsuccessfully attempted in the US. They used to operate in parliamentary systems with proportional representation where they were movement-parties representing fundamentally differing projects and approaches, such as conservatives, labor, liberals, social democrats, socialists. But here the two-party straitjacket was implicit in the original structure and has been institutionalized further for over two centuries. It might take as long to undo it.

Value-based electoral parties are groups of people with common values who come together to try to elect their chosen candidates to effectuate their values. They determine their own procedures, issues, approaches, policies and candidates.

There are many reasons for our "two non-value party only" system. One, winner-take-all elections, is fully sufficient in itself as a cause. Those who set up our system assumed that economic and political power would remain decentralized and hoped that accomplished men of great renown would be elected, capable of representing the interest of the whole. They feared that parties and special interests ("factions") would endanger this, because where parties serving special interests rule, the candidates will serve those who elected them rather than the common good.

As a practical matter where the representation is not proportional there can be only two parties on the national scale and they will have the same general perspective on values, projects and programs. Alternative value-based national parties can't grow or sustain themselves also because of the way editorial decisions are made in the media, inability of "nonwinners" to raise money, ballot access laws and many other reasons.

In the US, party nominations, actions, procedures, and operational matters are determined by laws rather than people. With our statutory majors, we see businesses contributing to both candidates where elections might be close. We see crossover primary voting and instant registration change, which allow members of one party to help choose the candidates of the other. The parties still have platforms, but no one knows or cares what they say. Less than one-third of eligible voters "belong to" (register with) the major parties. For most, their participation is limited to voting every couple of years, voting for candidates, not for fundamental values or projects.

In the US, it's the candidate's values that count, not the party's. The candidates are driven by self interest and their sponsors' needs. The candidates, not the parties, determine their own values, issues, programs, policies, priorities, raise their own money and hire their own campaign workers. There's not been a national party "consensus" since the Great Depression, if then. There could be one only in a value based movement-party in which policies derive from common values and projects of its participants which are communicated bottom up, rather than simply by someone who wants to get elected or elect someone else and have a good career.

The rules, standards and institutions for non-political fields of human endeavor are set and changed by those who control the political system. A democracy is a system controlled by the entire constituency rather than a class. The purpose of a people based system is to allow for an appropriate degree of change within an appropriate degree of stability. But a dysfunctional political system doesn't allow for substantial change and can't be used to reform itself for the very reason that it's dysfunctional.

Working within a corrupt, class based political system makes things worse. Those who do so presumably think it's functional and promote its unquestioned acceptance. This creates the fantasy among people that they are being "represented" and have some choice in the decisions that are made for them.

5. Thinking Outside the Box

All progressives of whatever stripe - workers, unions, peace, antiauthoritarian, civil liberties, human rights, privacy, antiracist, women's rights, sexual orientation, environmentalists, liberals, socialists, anarchists, health, education and retiree activists - all have one thing in common: the desperate need for a people-based political system. People based systems in late capitalism are always progressive because people always need to protect themselves from the ravages of unregulated capital.

The only way to achieve this in the US is to start a progressive people's movement outside the present system. As was started in Argentina a few years ago and is being done intensively in Venezuela and other countries right now. Such movements need have only one program: change the political system to permit people power to assert itself. It needs to propose specific changes and make its decisions inclusively and democratically. It will acquire power if, when, and to the extent that a sufficient number of progressive Americans become participants.

Tom Crumpacker is a retired lawyer and political activist who works with the Miami Antiwar Coalition and the Miami Coalition to End the US Embargo of Cuba.