>this "strategy" has too much of the ring of adolescents rebelling against
>their parents.
You don't understand. The purpose isn't to force them to reform their party, but to reform the electoral system, so that the crucial votes of those who vote for minor parties can be garnered for the major parties rater than being wasted. So long as they think they can extort these people to vote for them, rather than the party of their choice, they won't be interested in reform. But if they realise that this won't work anymore, it becomes in their interests to support reform.
> of course, it's the only thing the major parties understand.
>they aren't long on understanding or patience regarding people whose
>opinions are different from theirs. they, like shrub, are on a mission from
>god.
I have no idea what this is intended to convey.
>i'd suggest a better strategy is organize and provide a decent alternative.
>the actions of the left have too often been absorbed by the democratic party
>during the 20th century.
Again, you are being somewhat vague and incoherent. Of course you are perfectly entitled to argue that electoral politics is fundamentally a waste of time. I tend to agree that its usefulness is limited myself. But some reforms of capitalism can at least be effected through that strategy, provided the system isn't totally corrupt.
However, where the electoral system tends to disregard the votes of minor party candidates, as happens in the US, then this is more difficult. So getting electoral reform is a precondition for effective minor party electoral politics. But of course you have to figure out how to do that through the major parties, since they have all the power under the present system.
In those circumstances, voting for minor parties isn't a waste of your vote, because they can count it and easily deduce that under a preferential voting system, they would have received the benefit of that vote and it would have carried them to victory. Whereas under the existing system they were defeated.
You are making it a matter of simple self interest for them to implement the change you want.
However, that works best when the minor parties are still very insignificant. Its no use waiting until they are capable of getting 20 - 30% of the vote, because then they pose a threat to the actual supremacy of the major parties and keeping them down becomes a matter of survival. But so long as they can only pull in 5%, this isn't an issue. They aren't a serious threat, the only issue for the major parties is how to add that 5% to their own support.
At present they rely on extortion, telling people that they have to vote for the major parties or else their vote will not be counted towards the result. So long as that continues to work, so long as people bow to the extortion, they will stick to that. But if people start voting for the minor parties despite the threat, causing one or other of the major parties to lose elections that they would otherwise have won, they will quickly be forced to think about reform of the system, because it will be their own votes, in the form of second preference votes, that are being wasted.
This isn't merely a churlish rebellion, still less is it anything to do with revenge. It is a carefully thought out strategic plan.
> let's not let that happen again. let the DLC have
>their party, and let's create something better. or is everyone on the left
>too pooped out?
But there's no point creating a party with better platform if the electoral system discriminates against it. That's just beating your head against a brick wall. Much better to beat their head against the brick wall.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas