"Defeat Bush"

Last night I got a call from the DNC. They were doing the normal round of shilling and I didn't have any money to give to them, like always. But after this phone call I'm not sure I want to give them any more.

The lady who called talked very divisively talked about how Bush wants to bankrupt social security (not how his plan will, but how he wants to). This didn't surprise me at all, I was put off by the parisanship of it all (like always), but then she said something that I hadn't noticed until after I hung up the phone.

"We need your contribution to help defeat Bush."

Not "We need a better plan for social security" or "Help us build a stronger DNC" or even "Help us fund the overhead costs here at the DNC."

The DNC is still stuck in election mode, and it's hurting America.

This is why I hate the two party system. It's us-versus-them, but for the most part both groups of "us" don't matter. Or, more accurately, shouldn't matter but much to the detriment of the American public, do matter.

If there were a viable centrist third party this sort of thing wouldn't happen. When there are two sides it's very easy to get caught up in the us-versus-them mentality, because either we're right or they're wrong. However, with another demention to it, a second "them," it becomes easier to work with someone else who is not within your group. Either you have to form teams to get stuff done (taking the best of winner-take-all and proportional representation) or the us-verus-them strategy becomes irrelevant as it begins to sound paranoid when you say "We are right, it's those other two who are wrong" over and over again.