The Panda Bear on Third Parties, George McGovern and Party Line Democrates

The Panda Bear wants to encourage her reader to listed to the debate of the third party candidates for US President  at 8:55 pm EST on October 23 at Free and Equal.   The Panda Bear is very angry at the two party system which arbitrarily shuts out other parties.   She may end up voting for a third party candidate just to keep other political parties active in Massachusetts(according to Massachusetts state law third parties have to receive a certain number of votes in a presidential election to retain party status).

In this busy election season, the Panda Bear would like to pay her respects to George McGovern.   Per the previous link, he was greatly responsible for starting the modern primary system of elections, something which the Panda Bear did not know until now.   She remembered him as a peace advocate both during the Vietnam war and in our present times.

The Panda Bear remembers when he ran for president in 1972.   The Panda Bear was too young to vote.    Father Panda and Mother Panda were one of the few people in the Panda Bear's social circle who voted for Richard Nixon; they saw McGovern as being too soft on national defense; Father Panda was one of the only supporter of the Vietnam war that the Panda Bear knew.   Just before he died, Father Panda admitted that the Vietnam war was was wrong.

In 1972, the Panda Bear thought George McGovern was extreme and flaky.   However, now the Panda Bear thinks he sounded like a good person.   After he left politics, he ran a small business and wrote about the problems of business owners.   The Panda Bear commends his critiques of the Iraq war.   He may not have made a good president but he seems to have been moral human being.

The Panda Bear wishes modern Democrats would learn from George McGovern.   He was a Democrats who was not afraid of critiquing Democratic presidents.   Democrats at one time could disagree with each other!!!

Right now most Democrats seem to follow a party line and very few Democratic politicians seem capable of thinking for themselves and they tolerate virtually  no dissent.   Despite George McGovern's reforms to make the primary system more open, the Democratic party now seems to be a top down rather than grassroots party.

Many people are surprised to find out that there are more dissenters within the Republican than in the Democratic party and that two of the third party presidential candidates(Gary Johnson and the Panda Bear thinks it Virgil Goode who were former Republicans).

Therefore, the Panda Bear things there needs to be more dissent and debate among people who might believe in some of the ideals of the Democratic party but dislike some of their politicians and the way the party is currently being managed.   Perhaps a new party is the answer.