For OpEdNews: Gary Vance - Writer
I often receive emails from conservative friends or family trying to enlighten me about the sorry state of liberal America. The most recent was supposedly written by a law student suggesting that the Left and Right should seek a divorce and then divide the country's land mass as part of the settlement. You know...all the good Christian, SUV driving, gun toting,war loving capitalist types on one side of the continent while the rest of us could have the other.
I am a sixty year old political independent who has voted on both sides of the divide in the many political elections in my lifetime. The reason I have voted for various members of both parties is because I feel neither party or any particular candidate ever fully represents my concerns as a citizen. So, I choose the one I think might make a difference. I am almost always disappointed with whoever is in control of the government. Why is that? Because campaign promises are seldom kept.
A goat herder on a Tibetan mountain or anyone else who is far removed from our culture and politics would not see a gnat's eyelash worth of difference between the two political parties representing our national interests today. What he would notice are several distinctive common threads that bind both parties tightly together in an inseparable bond. One is capitalism and the other is democratic freedom. This is a mixed bag of good and bad, depending on how the two are blended and applied.
There are powerful media propaganda machines on the Left and the Right. They pitch their differences by exaggerating the perceived weaknesses of the other side. Neither side spends much time pitching their own strengths or substantive solutions because apparently they no longer have any. It should once again be painfully clear that both parties have an undying commitment to choose corporate interests over the interests of the citizens who elect them.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Corporate-Lobbyists-Are-Ki-by-Gary-Vance-100821-735.html