• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

You’ve watched the balloons drop, heard the recycled speeches and been subjected to endless bombardment by golden-tongued pundits. You’ve been blinded by the glitter, glitz and glamour of American mass-politics. You’ve seen the Democrats and you’ve seen the Republicans.

And now it’s time to take a look at political parties even weirder than the two big ones. One glimpse at these gems and those middle-of-the-road parties don’t look so bad.

The first organization you should consider if you’re looking for a time-tested fringe group is the Communist Party U.S.A. (www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa/) The CPUSA is pretty run of the mill-as far as Communists go. They promise a “militant fight for the needs of the working class,” and propose eliminating all taxes on people earning less than $60,000 a year.

The CPUSA tax cuts are especially interesting when you consider that Republicans today seem to want to eliminate taxes on people earning more than $60,000 a year.

Now, maybe this is just me, but I start to worry when people start using adjectives like ‘militant’ – especially when it comes to subjects like tax reform. Seriously, militant tax reform? Who does the CPUSA think they are kidding?

And has the CPUSA considered other policy questions? How about belligerent drug policy? Or radical education for second grade students across the nation?

Just how housebroken are the CPUSA compared to other parties out there? Pretty tame. The Southern Party (www.southernparty.org) wants to do more than just reform the tax code. Rejecting the Democrats as “the party of socialism” and the Republicans as “representing globalist corporations,” their solution to America’s problems is time honored in the South. Yes, that’s right, the Southern Party is the only national secessionist party.

These “decent, God-fearing Southerners” call for the original Confederate States of America plus Maryland, Oklahoma and West Virginia to secede from the USA but, unlike their more famous secessionist ancestors, condemn “an attitude of racial malice toward people of non-European origin.” And while that may be true, I tend not to trust people that proudly tout a “National Flag of Dixie.” Perhaps I’m judging too quickly. Perhaps not.

The Southern Party does have a point – the U.S. has a lot of problems; I just don’t think that secession will solve them. But if you do, now you know who to support.

Vibrant, charismatic leaders are also indispensable for political success. Tom Wells is what you’d call lively. He’s the founder of The Family Values Party (http://members.aol.com/fvparty/fvparty1) which is nothing less than an extraordinarily right-wing clan led by a man who believes that the strange ball of light that came into his bedroom at 2 a.m. on December 25, 1992 was God. Tom’s Jewish which makes the Christmas morning appearance kind of interesting. Bottom line is that the glowing ball said this to Tom. “Tom – tell my people that they are to tell their public officials that they are prepared not to pay their taxes until abortion is no longer publicly

funded.”

Apparently the glowing ball said nothing about promoting world peace, the brotherhood of man, or ending world hunger, which makes me wonder about how divine Tom’s glowing ball actually was.

Personally, I tend to worry whenever a political campaign focuses most intensely on things it won’t do, rather than on things it will do, though that’s probably the least of Tom’s worries.

Members of the next party might see glowing objects in the middle of the night, but the cause would likely be chemical rather than plain lunacy like in Tom Wells’ case. The Light Party (www.lightparty.com) has a multipoint plan for saving the country, the world, your inner-being, your soul and your dog’s inner-being. They take a very spiritual approach to politics and use words like ‘synergy,’ and ‘wholistic.’

In their own words, “The Light Party is a synthesis of the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian and Green Parties, a proactive, wholistic, educational, empowerment party.”

Oh.

The Light Party’s most interesting policy suggestion is to enable national referendum and initiative to be commenced by any citizen with a policy suggestion. Personally, I think that’s a great idea. After all, policy gets made so quickly today I can barely keep up, and a national referendum would be a terrific way to completely gridlock government the way it ought to be done.

The Light Party seems like a lot of fun; they have a weird techno lightshow on their Web site and upon joining The Light Party you receive “An Artainment Music Video designed to ‘Inspire, Delight, Heal & Enlighten’ plus A Magical Musical Gift For You.”

No really, they are a political party.

No description of extremist political parties is complete without at least some representation from the right. The American Heritage Party (www.americanheritageparty.org) is a Christian right-wing organization.

They simultaneously claim that unalienable rights may be derived only from God and that gun control is despicable because it violates the unimpeachable Second Amendment. Apparently consistency is not one of the AHP’s goals.

They also “call for an end to the bestowing of U.S. citizenship on children born to illegal aliens in this country,” not to mention excluding persons with “immoral life-styles, or beliefs hostile to our form of government” from immigrating to the United States. Huh. They sound like lovely people, don’t they?

The AHP opposes all forms of government welfare. They “support Christian charity and family free-enterprise as the best means of reducing and preventing poverty.”

Now THAT is policy! Forget reforming welfare, lets just abandon that whole paperwork mess completely – not to mention abandoning a couple million kids.

Try to imagine any of these parties actually making policy in Washington, or, in the Southern Party’s case, Atlanta or New Orleans. The Light Party would be out teaching the homeless about synergy and requiring postal workers to distribute magical musical gifts. Tom Wells would institute legislation requiring chastity belts until marriage. And the American Heritage Party would have those mailmen out converting a nation of heathens.

There’s no doubt the benign standby parties are lacking more than just a little. They lack the ability to innovate and that hurts the country. Still, creativity is not always a good thing, and we should remember that. If you ask me, the middle of the road never looked so good.