>What your're calling for is what the rest of the world
>would consider a party, but what in America is
>considered a club or a pressure group. Thanks to a
>number of reforms in the past century, political
>"parties" in the US are public institutions that
>anyone can join, not membership organizations.
So "anyone can join", but there is no actual point in joining. Because political parties are unable to choose which candidates will represent their party in an election and therefor political parties cannot nominate a platform and policies for which it stands. Basically, all political parties in the US are banned from participating in elections. But of course you don't mean join in the usual sense, you mean publicly register as a supporter. And of course the right to do this is actually only nominal, except for the economically privileged.
>(Public institutions that are dominated by private --
>mostly corporate -- interests, but hardy unique in
>that respect.)
Well not unique, except in the systematic method. As I understand it, "political parties" do not choose their candidates, this is a privilege granted exclusively to registered supporters. (That is to say anyone, including those who do not support the party, who is publicly registered.) However this public registration process tends to negate the principle of the secret ballot, since anyone registered as a supporter of a particular political party leaves themselves open to being blacklisted by employers.
So the US electoral system openly discriminates against those in the electorate who are most vulnerable to economic discrimination. The employing class, obviously, are in a position to punish any employees who register as supporters of a political party that they don't approve of, which is why the secret ballot was invented. I imagine a worker who registered as a supporter of the Communist Party would find employment hard to get, in fact I understand this was until recently official policy. People who depend on selling their labour might be understandably reticent about publicly declaring themselves a member of any political party in the US.
>Whether or not working class organizations should be
>politically active in Democratic caucuses or primaries
>is a matter that should be decided by circumstances.
>But the Democrats shouldn't be ruled out just because
>they let anyone "join" them -- that's true of any
>"party" with ballot status.
Well clearly there is a problem with an electoral system that systematically prevents any political parties from being able to designate a electoral platform.
As you say, this is unique in the world, although I notice that the electoral system in Iran appears to mimic the US system in some ways. Like the US, Iran apparently has a system where the ruling class reserves the right to veto a political party's choice of candidates. They have recently taken to vetoing reformist candidates (see below) as the US has been doing for about 100 years.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell tas
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Iran Guardian Council to review poll 'mistakes'
The head of Iran's Guardian Council says the watchdog panel is willing to reverse any "mistakes" made when it banned thousands of liberal candidates from running in parliamentary elections.
The Iran Guardian Council's move to bar nearly half of 8,200 hopefuls from standing in the February 20 vote has prompted dozens of top government officials to threaten to resign.
Reformist parties have said they may boycott the election.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said the 12-member panel, which has received more than 3,000 complaints from disqualified candidates most of whom are reformist allies of President Mohammad Khatami, would inform candidates of any changes by January 30.
"There are misunderstandings about the Guardian Council's work," Ayatollah Jannati told a Friday prayers congregation in Tehran.
"Mistakes are possible - we neither insist on [standing by] mistakes nor would we violate the law," he said in the sermon, broadcast live on state radio.
Many of those barred from standing were accused by the council of lacking loyalty to Iran's constitution and the system of clerical rule adopted after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters, has urged the council to review the bans and said that hundreds who had been allowed to run in previous elections should be allowed to stand again.
Among those barred from running are around 80 of the incumbent 290 MPs.
They have been holding a sit-in at parliament for 13 days and fasting from dawn to dusk for the last week to protest against the mass disqualifications.
-- Reuters