Third party politics

In third party politics, there is often internal conflict between preserving the purity of party ideology versus compromising for the sake of electoral success. Without taking a firm line on the debate (it depends on the probability of candidate actually winning and their visibility), it is important to emphasize the unstated mission of third party politics is to goad and challenge the major party with the closest ideology to adopt positions closer to that of the third party. With this in mind, the most important elements of third party politicking is clarity of message and transparency of organization.

First and foremost, outside parties are engaged in educating voters about overlooked issues. Effective education requires clear and concisely precise communication of party and/or candidate issues and positions. This information should include descriptions of the office each candidate is running for, especially the responsibilities of those offices; how each candidate would carry out the responsibilities of office (would they consider constituency opinions in office or are they free of constituency opinions because voters elected them knowing their positions on the ‘important’ issues) and how candidate political positions will affect their decision making and conduct in office.

Transparency functions to void issues of trust. Consider how Congress is ranked lower than lice. It’s understandable because we can see and know what lice are up to; politicians can and do hide their true constituents and interests. A third party candidate with little hope of winning office can set a high standard of transparency by doing the following: (1) respectfully answer relevant questions from reporters and voters (intrusive personal questions should be ignored); (2) make campaign donations publicly available (properly coded for donor privacy); (3) make schedule of campaign & fundraising events and meetings with persons with interests associated with the office publicly available (with appropriate regard for security). It would also be nice to know how candidates would have addressed some of the issues actually faced by the current office holder. Transparency would serve to diffuse opponent attacks and contrast the differences between candidates. The hope is that opponent transparency would increase scrutiny of major party candidates and force them to be more responsive to the interests of voters and improve the quality of political discourse. Third parties should lead by example by taking the high ground.

Ban profiting from warmongering

I just saw a news clip about how the Israeli military industrial complex has, for all intents and purposes, designated the Gaza strip as the testing site for their products of warfare. I have previously written “…economies exists to advance the survival, well-being and growth of all its participants.” An economic sector whose products do the opposite and who very coldly sets aside a densely populated geographical area as grounds to test the effectiveness of their killing machines runs completely counter to the purpose of an economy. Because self-defense is occasionally necessary, arms production cannot be banned but profit should not be made from widgets which kill en mass. It is immoral and anti-economic.

Not Carbon Tax, Extracted Materials Tax

With the upcoming People’s Climate March and the U.N. climate summit in New York City, more attention has been focused on the carbon tax in recent weeks. While the carbon tax addresses the most pressing environmental issue, climate change, there are many others including pollution of all sorts and land degradation. A number of instances of these stem directly from various extractive industries; think mountain top coal mining, drilling and transport of crude and refined oil products, hydraulic fracture mining of natural gas, mercury in gold mining and mining and refining other industrial minerals/metals. Some of these effects could be mitigated by switching to renewable energy and recycling. But current cost structure favors virgin extracted raw materials over renewable energy and recycled material. This is why expanding the carbon tax into an extracted materials tax would be a positive move. Considering that extractive industries consume immense amounts of energy, this would increase the cost of virgin materials and provide incentive for entrepreneurs to develop more efficient recycling capacity… renewable energy and material stream; reduction in landfill use; less extractive industry pollution… many positive outcomes for one tax.