Write On: A Declaration For The Independents

By PETER S. FERRARA<br>Record Columnist

Political squabbling over health care is making me sick. The sorry spectacle of Senators and Congressional Representatives grandstanding on all sides of this issue has been ugly and demeaning to witness. I have come to a place where I feel like the Democrats can't govern and the Republicans won't.

Specifically, I have been disgusted by the health care "sausage making" presided over by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada facing a serious possibility of losing his office next time around. That might be a good thing. He and his House of Representatives counterpart Nancy Pelosi have let go of whatever principles and scruples they may have had in the name of "passing something" so the Democratic Party doesn't get completely hammered in the elections held later this year. The process has been so flawed, so nakedly unfair, so devoid of real principle, that it makes me ashamed to call myself a Democrat.

Before you can say: "It looks like old Pete is finally seeing the light about those Damnocrats," let me hasten to add that in my opinion the Republicans have been just as bad—maybe even worse! Watching Mitch McConnell and John Boehner lie and demagog this vital issue has underscored the reality that the Washington contingent of the Republican Party has become deceitful, arrogant, and destructive of our governing process. I have endured countless news shows and interviews where these two sorry officials have stood up and just plain lied as they cast slurs on their opponents. They count on the American people being uninformed, docile, and so prejudiced as to be blind. And too often they are right—we are.

The bottom line for me is naked disgust at both political parties. They seem to have given up on standing for anything except reelection. I wish we could throw them both out and start over the way the Founding Fathers intended, who for all their great wisdom never foresaw the immense power held by the Democratic and Republican parties today.

The sad fact is that our system of government, which was cleverly designed to use checks and balances to keep any one branch from getting too powerful, has been subverted and emasculated by the too-powerful major political parties. The only encouraging thing to me is the decline in their membership and the rise of the Independent voter.

What I like about the Independents is precisely their lack of organization. Can you name the head of the Independent bloc of voters? It's a trick question because there is no such person. Nobody speaks for them and that's the way I like it. It forces Independents to speak for themselves. Only our voting primary process keeps me from dropping party affiliation and becoming an Independent. If I do that, my vote in this county will count for even less than it does now.

I am only a Democrat today, having grown up as a conservative Republican, because my basic political instinct is to champion the poor and unrepresented. I admire Franklin Delano Roosevelt—the only U.S. President elected four times—for what he stood for and what he did as a Democrat and as a leader. FDR brought this country out of the Great Depression of the 1930's and on to victory in World War Two. But I know that if Roosevelt had to deal with the liars and cheats on both sides now running the show on Capitol Hill, we might all be speaking German or Japanese today.

Just to be clear, I still believe that somewhere deep in the Democratic Party's psyche there lurks a surviving inclination to stand up for the little guy. But what once made the party great has just about been lost to an endless struggle to hold on to power and to do whatever that takes. That includes compromising principles, making terrible trade-off's to buy votes, and throwing out the very thing you seek just to be able to pass something and not look impotent.

As an example, I support a system of national health care such as is enjoyed by the people of every other wealthy nation on this Earth. You think our elected leaders on both sides of the aisle are smarter than all the folks running all the governments in the rest of the free world combined? Well I sure don't. If you actually go to the other industrialized nations on this planet, you will find the overwhelming majority of their citizens wouldn't trade their health care system with ours for anything. That's the truth. I've seen and heard it myself.

For their part, almost all of the Democrats in power have jettisoned the one part of health care reform that matters most to me: single-payer, federally financed, universal health care coverage. They did this in the name of "expedience." What is being pushed now is nothing more than a boondoggle for the private insurance lobby and the drug companies who make untold billions from the miserable, ineffective, unsustainable system we have today. But the lawmakers need the fat cats' money and will do their bidding because that's what it takes to stay in office. The Democrats have completely failed to communicate the necessity of meaningful reform to the rest of us. Instead, they have given us empty platitudes to hide the sell-out package they're trying to push through. Shame on them.

What about the other party? Just as bad—maybe even worse. Forget the ongoing blarney coming out of Fox TV. Facts are routinely distorted to serve Rupert Murdoch's right wing agenda. The only thing "fair and balanced" about Fox is its slogan. Their silly and hollow drumbeat of self-interest disguised as dissent is sad at best and destructive of America's best interests at worst. Just because I feel betrayed by the Democrats doesn't mean I'm ready to jump into bed with the "disloyal opposition" made up of Washington, D.C., Republicans. Mom always told me that if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. No thanks.

So where should somebody with a shred of idealism turn? I think the best way to go may be to become an Independent. I would like to see the voting rules changed to allow Independents to vote in all the primaries for whomever they want. I want the destructive power of both major parties dramatically reduced. It's time to buy back our government by federally financing our elections. Until we do, nothing will change. Fat cat lobbyists will continue pulling the strings on our elected puppets. The squabbling will go on. Nothing of any real importance will be accomplished. Eventually, the voting public will become so fed up that just a few voters will determine who leads America. When that happens, this country will go down the drain for good.

I'm not ready to get on board with the Teabaggers, either. They have rallied around their hatred of big government but really only offer the alternative choice of sticking your head in the sand and pretending you've changed day into night. Sorry, neo-Conservatives, but we don't need to abolish government. We need to make government smaller, more efficient, less intrusive, and representative of the vast majority of us without representation today. But your anger is a poor substitute for a meaningful proposal. If and when you get serious I will take you seriously.

For now, I will try and muddle through with what few options I have. What I will do is look at ideas and solutions offered and consider them without regard to the party of whoever proposes them. If either major party is still occasionally capable of good and practical thought then I will listen. But all we are getting nowaday's is baloney. I like mine fried in a sandwich, not served up as leadership.

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