Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Daydreamin'

2009-04-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Jon: Flush Party. I love that name. Where’d you come up with it?
Dave: Was online with Reddit, a site of interesting links & commentary. Somebody said we need to reform Congress. I responded, instead, we need to flush it. Bang, bang: thumbs up and the name was born.
Jon: Okay, I make you king for a day. What’re you gonna do?
Dave: As Doctor Franklin said, overcoming bad customs is more than the work of a day.
Jon: How long would it take?
Dave: Ten to Twenty years.
Jon: You mean by 2030 we might not have Democrat vs. Republican in a chamber owned by bankers?
Dave: Guaranteed - if a couple things happen.
Jon: Like?
Dave: One, your virus has to spread. The king fell in 1776 because Tom Paine was Jon Stewart. He had the folks on the street falling down laughing at, not just Mad King George, but at the very idea of a spoiled, isolated-from-reality child growing up to dominate you.
Second, we have to give voters a chance – a choice against our Deadly Duo.
Jon: “Deadly Duo?” I like that already without knowing what it is! Am I a jerk or something?
Dave: No, intuitively we all know our system sucks. We’re trained to respect the system while cursing individuals or parties.
Jon: What are the Deadly Duo?
Dave: (1) A bottom feeder has the advantage over a Benjamin Franklin. (Running for office.) (2) Party spirit is the American national insanity. It can, as our first president warned, destroy a nation.
Jon: And what will the Flush Party do for this Deadly Duo?
Dave: Two things. We’ll run a slate of candidates who haven’t spent a dime to run, who haven’t made any promises that you’ll keep your job, who haven’t had to join a tired party. Second, we’ll hold a mock constitutional convention where the delegates aren’t selected by the controlling interests. No oil company, Rove or president will have any say whatsoever.
Jon: Where do I join?
Dave: Just don the tee.
(Both stand up & rip off their jackets revealing the Flush Party tee.)
Audience cheers and throws hats. (Hats? Who knew?)

Flush Party Overview

2009-04-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

By 2030 our two zombie parties will remain only as scattered and ridiculed remnants of ancient prejudices and privileges. Initially they will be replaced by the Flush Party. Soon after, we will graduate from party control of elections and legislatures. Hence, Flush considers itself America’s last political party because it will fade away when its job is accomplished.

Consider the following:

In 2008, as America slid swiftly into depression, the government denied we were even in a recession. Lies are so deeply imbedded into our system that one cannot discern where the gassy campaign ends and the act of governance begins. When parties rule, candor dies. Flush the phonies.
The Fed, which can be relied on to understate the matter, says that Americans lost $11 trillion over the past year. Do the math: In the preceding years, $5 billion in various forms of bribes and donations went from financial corporations to Congress and the White House. Ask yourself: Who rules Congress? Flush legalized bribery.
Many are saying that the economic collapse has been a matter of bad luck, ill timing or the shenanigans of one party. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone ridiculed the notion, stating plainly:
”People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout…formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.” Flush the bribers and Flush representatives who feast on this corruption.
The word “change” has no coin. Stop saying that our system is great, but bad people are messing it up. We need to fix the system. We need to Flush Congress as a first step. Eventually we can introduce a constitutional fix, but that’s not viable with the two parties are enjoying their miasmic monopoly.
The Flush Party says it’s the last American party for this simple reason: Our job is to put ourselves out of business! We’ll know that we’ve succeeded when representatives reach Congress without hocking their homes, making pie-in-the-sky promises or shouting their moral superiority. Once we’ve admitted that our election system sucks, we can give voters a new option that deep-sixes the two tired parties. If the people are pissed enough, we’ll make a dramatic difference by the time Obama ends his first term. The Flush Party can retire before our sixth graders graduate college. It will then, like a vaccine, spread around the world as the answer to moving from juvenile to adult democracy.
Consider China and Russia: How will their political systems evolve? The Flush Party offers a new way forward for any nation that values merit and hard work over the stale ideas behind political parties. Ideas like one group having all the answers and their opponents being evil or retarded. That was crap when Plato was a pup.
In a depression it’s important to lesson the burden on working stiffs. Instead our national and state governments are raising taxes. California's legislature takes the lion's share of blame, but it's also been led y blue-pencil-enabled governors. It's overspent for decades and now is tapping citizens of some Bay Area and L.A. communities for about 11 cents sales taxes. Obama is sliding away from his outrage of McCain’s threat to tax medical benefits. During the campaign he savaged McCain for his intended “trillion dollar hit on the middle class.” Once we’ve Flushed Congress we can get real about expenditures. Demagogues always say taxes are too high. Realists simply say that expenditures must match reality, not fantasy.
America has about 25 million underemployed; we have as many folks on food stamps as the entire U.S. population of 1860. For decades it’s been obvious that our job model - part Middle Age serfdom, part slavery-minded thinking and part 19^th century industrialization - is out of whack in a nation that’s been winking at the inflow of millions of low-wage workers and wholesale outsourcing. We don’t have a simple answer, but admission that we have a systemic problem is the first step towards resolution. The two sad parties are unwilling to ask the tough questions. Can’t be candid? Flush you.
What’s worse? The federal judicial openings routinely bypass legal scholars in favor of party partisans. The best path to the Supreme Court is to become a White House sycophant who uses tortured logic to okay torture, to tell a president that he is above the law.
State judges are expected to tap deep pockets for campaign funds, then turn around and rule when those corporate interests approach the bench. In a party system you choose your poison: non-merit appointments or corporate purchase. Flush this false choice. We can re-make the judiciary once we’ve Flushed the two me-too parties.
Don’t think of the Flush Party as promoting a multi-party system like Italy or Israel. Those don’t work. Minor religious or zealot parties routinely blackmail the major parties into counter-productive policies. Italy has had 50 governments since the end of WWII. The common “solution” to a failed multi-party system is a savior, a dictator under another name. It’s also the “solution” to today’s party-anchored Congress where the President is, more and more, an elected king, a fellow who promises miracles and shows up at disaster sites like a witch doctor whose presence can checkmate mother nature. Next thing you know we’ll be fashioning his crown or kissing his robe. Flush that.

Party government has never been the answer. Consider this from America’s great founders:

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party...Party thinking is an addiction, the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go at all.

Jefferson, Private letter from Paris, 1789

So numerous are the causes which serve to give a false bias to judgment that this should serve as a lesson to those who are ever so thoroughly persuaded of their being in the right. No contaminant of judgment betrays moderation more than that intolerance which has at all times characterized the spirit of political parties. Judge your government thus: Is it capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice or does it depend on accident and force?

Hamilton, Federalist #1, 1787 (paraphrase)

Party apologists will respond that these two were party men. Maybe they saw no alternative to the old systems of juvenile democracy. Maybe our first President was also stuck for an alternative, but he was on target when he said,

Let me warn you, in the most solemn manner, against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party.

Washington, The Farewell Address, 1796

(note, baneful: Causing harm, ruin, or death)

Conclusion

Angry? Pissed? Tired of holding your nose when you enter to voting booth? Time to get smart. If the banking frauds own the politicians, what’s the solution? Easy: Let’s Flush Congress. Then we can re-make the rest of the system so that we are represented by persons of merit who aren’t working for Wall Street or their hired party masters. Americans are supposed to be an independent people. Let’s prove it. Join the Flush Party today.

Become a Member

To join the Flush Party simply send an email to flush2009@gmail.com. In the subject field put “membership.” If you have questions, put “question” as the subject. We will ask those who join to contribute. How much? It’s up to you. If life is tough, membership is free. If you can afford to help Flush the system, give what you can. Those who contribute $25 or more get a tee shirt with our slogan, Democrats vs. Republicans: America's official insanity.

We’ll be setting up a conference discussion group. For now, join Reddit where we are establishing a subgroup, Flush Party where you can add links, post your own questions or add comments. Note: contributions are not yet tax deductible. We will publish an audit of all proceeds each year.