Green Party of TN 518 Moore Avenue Nashville, TN 37203

The two party system in the US is maintained by anxiety. This is an anxiety that is driven by a lack of vision for the future along with a lack of imagination that allows for an evaluation of the present political questions.

How do we deal with terrorism? How do we fund educational institutions? What is the role of government/the market in the economic life of the nation/world? etc. All of these questions assume in their formulations answers that keep the eighteenth dentury visions of political organization alive. Citizens of the United States who are allowed and vote do so based on the anxieties that drive the questions. We are voting based on an either/or approach and are disappointed when too much either and not enough or are decided upon by the elected representatives.
Yet, what are the facts of life as we see them? Could those needs be interpreted in other ways? What is a community? Can a community be electronically based? Why does membership in a society require a an automobile, a license to drive, a picture ID, and a mobile communication device? We are anxious not to be lost or missing in this society. We know that these devices and records are now the key to being found...to actually own an identity.
A few decades ago people voted for candidates and parties based on their family ties. It was much like supporting a college football team. Now in the first part of the twenty-first century, people may vote for candidates on how they wish to view themselves. For instance, I may strive for a kind of moral perfection that would require me to vote conservative republican. After all, the people I will listen to and admire do the same thing. While it is no longer based on family ties, a person may decide on being a member of a "good" community of fellow thinkers and vote the way the community decides is correct. It is...much like supporting one's favorite college football team.
A true individuation of a voting citizen requires a vision of personal freedom that allows a person to overcome the anxiety of losing this kind community. An organic community of persons is developed on the satisfying of mutual needs and interests without the setting of arbitrary controls on any one person within the community. For a new politics to grow within The United States of America, we need to focus more on the values of democracy, feminism, and decentralization. We must recast our political slogans to understand that anxiety can only be overcome by vision and imagination. Political democracy is not governed by reason alone. Emotion and need for connection governs most of our choices.