The key words in my original post are "potential" and (as Angela noted in this thread later) "nominally." There is no question that American politics has long been a sham. As Dave noted in another comment made later: "We don't need a third party. We need a second party." That said, the U.S. government is the only ruling body where there is at least a *provision* for me, as a citizen, to provide direct input through my vote; there is no equivalent mechanism for me to influence the WTO. As another later post (by Michael) notes, "the WTO offers new levers of power to global capital that it would not otherwise have" -- and those levers are much further from voter influence than the deliberations of the Republican or Democratic National Committees.
Angela asks: "isn't the character of labour laws and environmental regulations, especially of the kind you or i would like to see, a result of working class organisation and resistance and not national sovereignty?" As the world now exists, the only way that I can see workers being able to help shape policy is by using their sheer force of numbers, as voters. The appeal to do that should be coming from the left, not from people like Buchanan.
Carl
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