The Third of Three P.K. Politcal Party Posts

Phillip Bunker

more Platform Planks and some Rules of the Party:

Planks:
-- Sustainability through Simplicity.
-- Fair Trade (we'll no longer import anything made by childrens hands nor by adults hands who aren't paid enough to meet basic needs)... See More
-- Removing multinational corporation influence from trade, aid, and military policies.
-- Overhaul of government with reference too: corporate taxes and oversight (this part will have a long laundry list of all the shit that went down like in Roger & Me and offshore accounts sheltering money from taxes, and all that good stuff), commodities markets, finance industry practices, and of course foreign policy.
-- Instant run-off voting, paper mail-in ballots (several options on this would be best, voting machines for those few that need them, poll booths for those places that have always done it that way - but everyone should have the right to vote from their own home through the mail, so there is a paper copy and a postal record to verify by - all ballots have a stub that the voters are legally obligated to keep in the event of a recount).
-- Public financing of elections and outlaw of private financing of elections, though private donations will be accepted to enter the pool of public campaign finance money
- oh and the restructured FCC will be requiring that all media outlets carry public election information, in order to disseminate the fact sheets, resumes and position statements, debates, and all other related stuff, to the public whose airwaves it is.
-- Complete decentralization of public education - I say allow charter schools to some level or percentage because that's a great place for innovation, but I say get the Federal government out of public education, and let each State decide what is best to do. This will not only allow innovation such as we only get from charter schools and special public schools, but it will also let each State cater it's education to the success of it's population. Let all the Californians learn Spanish if they want to; let Alaska not put bush natives through the same curriculum and tests required for midwesterners, though maybe such a thing would be fine in Anchorage; let rural farm towns take more summer off, and go to school longer in the winter when there isn't as much farming to do; let city kids go year-round and choose which semester to take as 'summer' break - meanwhile class sizes go down, teachers can take other months off and get maternity leave any time of the year - and those kids that can't keep up or aren't working hard enough can get punished/fixed by going year-round till they figure it out or graduate and move on to working year round like the rest of us do; let religious towns have a religious school (alternative-type magnet school), but if they ever put Creationism on a standardized Science test I'll be putting sicking an anger-picket brigade on them; let city kids go experience the country with outdoor school programs, and let the country kids exchange with them to learn about life in the city; teach young kids foreign languages while they can absorb them like water, and save all the abstractions of math for when their brains have all gotten there; and for god's sake, get civics back in the classroom so we can make some informed voters and citizens willing and able to participate in our participatory democracy - it doesn't make sense to me that the educational leadership of this country haven't already sat down and said: " you know, we all, every United Statesian, have a deep and vested interest in making sure the voting populace is capable of picking good leaders, and being involved in populace, IN FACT considering our JOB is to make policies that will help this nation prosper and remain just and stable, we should in fact getting every kid registered, connected to one of the many political parties out there, and making sure that the national voter turnout numbers go up every single year - we could get em while they're young and have national school-wide mock-elections where every kid ten and older has to make a selection of various laws, candidates, and learn about what the public ended up choosing and why - where possible, and locally too of course." But our leadership hasn't said that. I wonder why? Why would anyone say, "no, that isn't a good idea." What motivation could a government higher up have for ignoring such an obvious thing?; let kids have a desktop computer that lasts their whole education, made cheaply en masse with cheap interchangable, upgradable, and accesible components, and the teachers can skype in for part of the day, and students can go to the teachers' class rooms for part of the day - but every kid is obligated to take an hour and fifteen minute lunch, eating the school provided meal, whose funding will come from 1% of the general school budget in every school, except where more than 1% will be required to provide kids with wholesome, real food for breakfasts and lunches (in fact, one of my recent business ideas, that could go to help pay for this, would be to allow any chef willing to pay the administration/inspection costs, the free use of a school kitchen in the evening times as a commercial site for a start-up business, like a catering operation or a food delivery service, and giving a large percentage of the profits to the school breakfast and lunch program - student workers could get jobs, or have a work for dinner program for the poor kids, like a work study job.) A free, standard, expertly written national standard textbook and curriculum will be created and available every ten years or so - maybe ten subjects, one per year.
-- The Freedom of Information Act will be expanded and made into an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
-- We will end the war on drugs, poverty, and all those others. We'll just try and solve the problems instead of fighting them.
-- Recycling processing centers have got to be built in many many more areas (also provides raw materials for increased domestic manufacturing) to prevent them from getting flown, trucked and barged everywhere in an effort to save the environment.
-- Trade tariffs and taxes will be raised slightly, even if it pisses a few bankers off.
-- Bankers will be pissed off intentionally in every other way we can think of - their profits are hardly earned, aren't productive to the society, and slow down the transfer of wealth. These days they even charge us to print the cash, store the cash, use the cash (though they charge us for cards too), and even just to get cash these days, you have to pay (granted you can now get cash almost anywhere 24/7 and that's prety damned convenient).

Rules:
-- Party members will only drive on Sundays on a regular, normal basis (gas will be saved for roadtrips to battleground states and political protests, and the occasional camping trip).
-- Party members will drive fuel efficient vehicles.
-- Party members will post weekly in mail or online networks regarding their status and any political information examinations made during the week. Party members may opt to post a new recipe instead.
-- Party members will be required to find one new party member per year who will become actively involved, otherwise, next year, you owe us two new people.
-- Party members are required to tithe a minimum of 1% of their income to a local low-overhead charity that cares for the poor.
-- Party members must spend less at corporate box stores and chain/franchise stores this year than they did last year.
-- Party members must have victory gardens and are in fact expected to not have any types of lawn grass growing unless they can already grow the vast majority of their own food - then knock yourself out, but don't use any fertilizer and your lawn mower better be solar, mulching, and last many years.

33 minutes ago ·

Phillip Bunker

-- Party members are encouraged to do old-fashioned things and do them the old-fashioned way: including: homemade everything, spinning wool, hemp, or dog fur into thread, weaving crocheting or knitting textiles, pottery, tool-making, carpentry, masonry, and auto mechanics where applicable.
-- Party members are not allowed to receive cable Television, especially on election day or Superbowl Sunday.
-- Party members must not give money to people holding cardboard signs asking for money.
-- Party members are encouraged to entertain themselves with things that are free. Friends are a good place to start. Games count too, because they're pretty cheap.
-- Party members are not allowed to say 'Liberal' or 'Conservative' when referring to the Party, and are only allowed to use those words if they immediately recite the current Party definitions for those terms, and recite it exactly.... See More
-- Party members absolutely must read the daily Party literature, though in return, the Party will almost always keep the Daily Literature to less than one page, and will try to keep it as positive as possible, and put lots of pretty pictures on the other side of the Daily Pamphlet.
-- Party members will be responsible for printing and reading their own copy of the Daily Pamphlet, though they are allowed to form cooperatives to save time and money in doing so. This also makes a good excuse to create a person to person delivery tree within the party, which is one of those things that is handy and positive in many many ways.
-- Party members may opt to pay postage and printing fees to have the Daily Literature delivered to them Daily via USPS, but the Sunday edition will be delivered on Tuesday along with the Monday edition, and since all deliveries will be about a day late, the online profile of such a party member will be flagged as being at least one day out of date at all times.
-- Party members are required to perform random acts of kindness and take in stray pets where possible.
-- Party members are encouraged to move to the midwest and South to teach conservatives how to be conservative again.
-- Party members aren't allowed to gamble.
-- Party members are allowed to do whatever they want to at parties, especially if they're the ones who threw the party.
-- Party members are encouraged to walk everywhere.
-- Party members should have sensible shoes that are durable and not made by children or people paid too little to live on.
-- Party members are required to find out what all products are made locally, and encouraged to like those products and eventually only buy those products.
-- Party members are encouraged to relax, get massages frequently, and take care of themselves really well.
-- Party members should feel obligated to sleep well at night knowing they do far more good to the world than harm.
-- Party members are encouraged to encourage other people to plan for small families because a lower population means less mouths to feed and more abundance for us all.
-- Party members must insist that their children join the party when they are very young. The Young Party Scouts will be an organization that must be created after a lot of debate as to it's nature and purpose.
-- Party members aren't obligated to follow every single rule, but at some point of not following these rules, Party members will no longer be Party members.

More party proto-babble, party all the time.

Phillip Bunker

And why the emphasis on the T-party? (does it repel you?) First reason is tit-for-tat warfare, which politics is no exception to ever since Reagan (or ever since ever? just in different forms - slowly shifting, sometimes punctuated equilibrium like the laws that govern evolution). If they pull out the zombie horde, so must we. Their zombie horde might push the Repub.s even further to the right - sanity has already left them.

Right and Left Party? Ambidextrous Party?

Second reason is they're owning some power, no matter how much we want to laugh at it. The power they are owning is a departure from reason, complete and whole.
Now, we don't want to jump off the same cliff (yes I think they're doomed, but bad ideas can take hold strong in the world as history shows). But, there is power in this unreason, and we can let the Philosophy descend the rung of abstraction a couple notches, wind up with the same theoretical power advantages, and still maintain our reason.
As logical beings, the left is sometimes guilty of being pragmatic to a fault, and also being singular to a fault. Anecdotal evidence from my own life would be all the times I stubbornly refused to listen to other peoples' take on things because I knew a logical informed person needed to find their own answers. As a math student, I recognize the divinity and intuition that fuels the personal enlightenment process - not only 'I think therefore I am' but, 'this is how carefully, cautiously and gradually I think' therefore I am learning a growing wiser as I go on. On their side, the T- side (the side of the T junction that only sees right or left, and is so unaware of the middle way that they consider going straight tantamount to suicide - or at least getting stopped in the tracks of moving.
On that T-side, they don't care if politicians are human - they should be perfect. We wash away some expectations - they're human, they get to fuck up once in a while; what I'm seeing is that this and other things may weaken our stance.

More importantly, I'm beginning to see that we can no longer afford to assume we can be logical, purely reasonable, and have a big free-for-all tent on the left side, and still hope to stand any chance against the Establishment which is careening us RIGHT off a cliff (do peaceful, fun-loving folk try to win the cold war by out-borrowing the USSR to spend money on military, or is it the neo-cons who do that? Sorry my Republican friends, but unless you're trying to change your party like 120 or more degrees - and I know some of you are - you're definitely not on the correct side of politics for the last - oh, forty years or so. Meanwhile I know that Clinton signed NAFTA and that Obama is still my #1 hope but has let the left down on health care - whether it was his fault or not remains to be seen in the coming months and years).
So, to make sure we can take the power enough to stop the Establishment, we're going to need a few things: (this is what I'm trying to address here in all these posts - where do we go now to make some positive steps to this goal):
- we're going to have to make some doctrine, standards of practice, compulsions, and...almost hate to say it...religious seeming things to win this battle - not zombies, something more like Obamatons, but loyal to an uncorruptable ideal - we'll stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and all as we define it with no room for compromise.
- we're going to have to pull no punches. This means softies have to become hardies. A hard-line left - robbed of reason and left with nothing but pure passion (probably more hyperbole here than I intended, but these things just come out as I type.)
- we're going to have to play favorites, fight dirty, declare war on things, and call even the moderates traitors (which, they are now pretty much, so no harm no foul).
- we're going to have to take vows of poverty, oaths to toil, calls for abstinence from modern media and other time-wasting devices. These are the things that we have to give up to protect the ability of everyone else to continue to have luxury time.
- we're going to have to do homework to learn the lessons of all the Reformations to figure out how to do it right, and actually improve on the technique of uniting ourselves so that it will become even easier two generations down the road (though it is already getting easier and easier for free people to communicate in common cause - even before the internet there were Bulletin Boards via modems, and even before computers there were free papers and universities all across this United State. Dissent is allowed - hence me and my three founding members haven't been arrested or even watch-listed - why would the government care about political nobody's like us?)
- we're going to have to move to places where we aren't accepted to teach tolerance to those who despise us; write books that are laughed at so we get into the Library of Congress (probably lots of these already - we'll have to have a heady discussion as to prior literature that backs our common cause - the cause of the commons); we'll need to create a handshake and a dance and a slightly different form of music (I'm thinking folk with a DJ - folk-hop like Ani has tried - personally I think to no avail so far, but just my opinion); we'll probably start dressing differently at some point because otherwise we'll vote with money at the wrong stores, and making our own clothes would be sooo keen (again, just my opinion).

The Homesewn Party?

6 hours ago ·

Phillip Bunker

And by Religion or religion-like, I mean something different than the typical examples. A political movement (more than a party) is composed of a unique set of moralities. Even if I wanted to say the Second Coming is alive and well, on tour as seen in Religulous, or that Star Trek episodes are the new video bible - stories, parables, archetypes, morality, juxtaposition, twists of fate, and powers like gods. No one would go gaga over it, and suddenly Harry Potter is the new messiah - that's what they're afraid of, so we have to show that their fears are unfounded - become what they're fearing and setting up as the expectation, but do it our way:
only drive cars on Sundays~
only eat things that we grow~
learn to make our own things~
stay off the golden ladder in search of a bigger house~
keep our hands in the social soil doing good works~
getting Jefferson and Franklin smart~
inventing like Edison and teaching like Feinman~
not a vow of poverty per se, more a homespun oath~
supporting local businesses, buying local food~
climbing a golden ladder of fair trade and anti-conglomerate-corporatism~
in short all the good things they get at with bibles and other such texts, yet with contemporary story telling of some kind (this is why we fight) that admits we can focus on the past fifty years instead of thousands ago to become informed moral practical and successful citizens~
only eat crab with lemon~
drink your own homegrown tea~
eliminate lawns in favor of grains and dog chow (if nothing else more useful)~
I'd love to see Oregon's Willamette Valley go from the I-5 exhaust corridor and grass seed factory that it is, and become the worlds most advanced agricultural utopia~
I believe in that last one like maybe some people believe in heaven~

So no, we're nothing like the others way over there, but we can push the middle to the left just as hard as they push the middle to the right. We're really lucky that they're using the transparent tactics and blatant advertising that they are since it's mostly old people, and where it's not, it's differing versions, with more likelihood to see our wholesome folk remedies over here and either rename themselves or join up with us, or form a coalition of belief in the goodness and ability to take moral actions that these United States were made for, Constituted to do, and even though we never had a Bill of Lefts, we do still have rights.

One of those rights is to assemble. To assemble everyone in that land of the Goddess Columbia, would be frankly an organizational nightmare. But what if ten million average joes and janes skyped the doors down at the White House - what if Congress had a third body - all Tri-Cameral and shit. What if people like chefs and teachers and cops, who all have to be benevolent dictators and work themselves hard since they do selfless work (well okay chefs aren't all that selfless really, but you know...they're so pathetically and permanently in a hands dirty economic class - not as many rich chefs as there are other things...I digress quite selfishly), what if all those people who work for the PUBLIC and so end up with a sense of STEWARDSHIP for our COMMONS, what if they all got behind Kucinich and Sanders no matter how not-Arnold Schwartz-ula they are, to say SCHOOL FUNDS NOT FEDERAL GUNS, COPS NEED CLINICS TO MAKE WELL THE INDIGENT THEY ALSO NEED BENEFITS SINCE THEY HAVE A LIFE TO GIVE, TOO BIG TO FAIL MAKES U.S. A SNAIL, THIRTY PER CLASS IS NO WAY TO TEACH, COMMODITIES FROM FEDS - FOOD BETTER OFF DEAD, MY RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE WILL DEFEAT YOUR DISSEMBLE, OUR CHOICE IS UNITED, OUR MINDS ARE OF STATE, OUR PICKETS ARE WAITING BY THE DOOR, WE SAID WE WANT CHANGE.

I'm still not sure who to believe in, but we're starting somewhere, and there's bound to be light along the way.

4 minutes ago ·

Ending the Shit They Get Away With

The P.K. Party: here is a current post of all party material generated so far. Propaganda for your eyes only, and anyone else's eyes who isn't pushed, prodded, cajoled, or otherwise manipulated into seeing this light.

Here is just the beginning.

Phillip Bunker Palin is going to split the Republican Party, though certainly not down the middle. I'll be there to start a new party once they break that barrier.

Tue at 11:32pm · Comment ·

Phillip Bunker

Apparently there was a NYTimes article saying some guy in SC or somewhere is going to run on the Tea Party ticket.

Tue at 11:50pm ·

Laura Reed

What is the name of your new party? I may want to join.

Wed at 6:44am ·

Janet L. Steinhauser

I'm in.

Wed at 11:02am ·

Amy Waggener Cardwell

Me too

Wed at 12:24pm ·

Phillip Bunker

Phillip Bunker Haven't got a name yet. I was doing some research on online political parties. Here's my first pitch gang:
[Emergent Party? Free Party? United Statesian Party? The Orange Party? The Apple Tree and Post Conglomerate? The Interforum?] -
We are volunteers, take no money, give no money, earn membership by participating in discourse, and start out just accepting that out of the politicians and policies that exist in the field we can only do our best to figure out which one sucks the least. We inform ourselves in simple, easy, religious ways and accept no definitions or purported facts unless it's been examined or wiki'ed about. I don't care if the information's name is the Associated Press or CNN - their information is selling something. But, there is a truth out there, and no matter how the myriad deciders invent or obfuscate the stories that we the people are surrounded and informed by, I know a few things, and you know a few things, and a little viral effort could easily become something tangible in a world where bra colors sweep the nation. This effort could be made transparent and affordable (all for the price of free or very nearly) by the internet and the USPS (I think there should definitely be a bi-cameral digital and analogue spine of the party). I'd place that same emphasis that churches and fraternities and sororities have - a social group with a charter outlining purpose, by-laws that are simple and flexible, and an eye for duality (here's what we are and what we aren't, here's what we believe and what we don't, here's the basic story of our contemporary history, while here is the areas we're not too sure about, etc.). We can create a network nationally that is time-consuming, has no "pay-off", no marketing or advertisement potential, and isn't created by people trying to get attention.
I have a mind to generate some kind of graph model of the proposed structure, pathways of communication, and theoretical self-correcting mechanisms (think founding fathers only with more game theory involved - this political platoon agrees on this truth through various survey while team Anchorage clashes directly with that, so the issue remains in 'undecided status' or 'outcome pending' - sort of like taking parliamentary procedure and updating it for the next hundred years and incorporating technology).
Fox thinks they can create a party based on their porthole information - too bad, they opened the floodgates for denial of common consensus of information from which to organize a party. Used to be people like them would have been called quacks by the intellectuals enough that even the common person would know them to be fools. The floodgate that is being opened is the sell-out of enough of the intelligentsia (perhaps more accurately the confusion of the masses of who the intelligentsia really is - to the point where they only listen to S. Palin and we only listen to The Daily Show) (Not that there's anything wrong with the Daily Show, but it illustrates my point I think). The consequence is that now we see how easy people are to win over, just assure them you know what's going on and be there to provide a constant feed of dialogue from which masses develop their political opinions and suddenly politicians have even less worry over how the public will react to reality (i.e. the things they do wrong). Meanwhile, here we are raising a generation of kids who don't watch TV anymore (or any less?@! HA!). A new better option will be taking over for anyone still evolving into something better instead of sinking into more infotainment or, as I sometimes call it, entermation: instead, young folks are going from web page to web page looking in on those people and ideas and organizations they have cause to care about (or watching reruns with just as many commercials filling them with empty need as before, but still improvement). It's just enough of a difference that the baggage of a national political organization with coffers and donors and Congressional hearings into campaign financing scandals - all that may become obsolete. Maybe not, but we can hope. Typically, in History, a thesis might read, typically that which has become more trouble than it's worth is shed like the skin of a snake while the vital efficiency of a more natural way gradually replaces what was there before.
The rudimentary structure might be something like a newsfeed and personal homepage (complete with neighbors and connections to far flung friends of neighbors) whose contents are vetted by the members, not open to the outside (or maybe by choice - a heady discussion here best headed up by someone well versed in the state of the art of social networking privacy settings etc.), though with the understanding that no pure data constitutes facts without further clash, discourse, or the automatic harmony that comes with obvious common causes (as we see with Susan G. Komen related posts on social networking sites).
Regulation within this party environment should probably be modeled after chiefdoms or seniority or something hybridized that I don't have the faculty to articulate at the moment.
Our power can only come from becoming a free and obvious alternative, generating enough numbers, signing up new voters, and eventually making impacts in local elections until we begin to gather and puppeteer our own candidates (not really puppeteer, but kind of - another heady discussion).
I did some quick research the other day and only found this blogspot posting about a national online party, but I find it lacking in outside-the-box thinking. Hopefully I'm not victim of the same trap. Here is a link:
http://nolp.blogspot.com/
Also there is an interesting phenomenon called national initiative amendment:
http://www.ni4d.us/
I like the flavor of that too.
Most of all, what I'm always left with at the end of thinking about this stuff is, to what degree do we attempt to give the latest and greatest politicain the time needed to turn the head of such a large dragon? Could a health care amendment this year turn into a jobs bill and defense cut next year, and an education reformation and elimination of the insurance industry the next (and are the Republicans right about 'we have to give up the right to sue to get out of the insurance scam/angle? - which is my analysis of what their tort reform {torte?} is about when viewed on the level)?

You three just became charter members and high priestesses. May the forces be with you...

about an hour ago ·

Phillip Bunker

Next pitch:
Platform - we should get in the middle, support the middle way, BUT we have to come at it from a different angle - what do the Reds and Blues teach us about what the Oranges shouldn't be?
We're pro-U.S. industry, but anti-corporate personhood, anti-trade protectionism (middle way here is best), and demand a bending of the curve away from profit-ness and towards sustainable development. Only an idiot a-hole country would do otherwise.
Kiss giant military spending goodbye, yet we'll be wary of a legitimate argument for keeping such repugnant spending - keep all the best weapons tech companies in the U.S. and then nobody else can go and take over the world just by spending more money on building a better military. In other words, research and limited development of military tech should be okay with us, but change the purview of the military to peaceful efforts - like a jobs program - and get rid of bloated military budgets abroad. How many troops do we need in Germany? Really?? In the next hundred years, when do we expect to need them there? Surely some tiny first response team would be enough instead of what we have: we have grandfather claused military bases, once outfitted to be self-sufficient, spending tons of bills on military base schools, shops, services, caches and depots, and all so that we can what? invade an Asian nation now and then and depose some South American Democratically elected official now and then?
Also grandfather claused is big big money programs, like military aid to Isreal so they can do our dirty work, and supporting people who support us by any means necessary, which is exactly how Osama Bin Laden and other dudes in Afghanistan got millions from the CIA and all that training that has come in handy now that some of them ran off and became the Taliban.
Those are gone. There is no middle way when it comes to building death machines and shipping them around the world as much as possible. That shit is over.
Also on the docket:
Health Care: Insurance companies can burn in hell. If we put profit between me and a doctor, well that's about four times as bad as putting a modern transparent government agency in between me and a doctor.
Gov't Spending: We're bleeding hearts, but we only bleed for what works. We'll pick smart leaders and listen to their advice. In the meantime - no more bombs and ammo and death machines, R&D is okay, cut the corporate hand-outs (except where they're too big to fail, then we'll cut them off at the Achilles tendon) and once the fat is all trimmed, we'll get back to the basics - starting with a skeleton federal government that has to hold a few bake sales to get the new awning installed in the US embassy in New Zealand.
Truth Audits: This is a new idea the way I'm thinking of it: what happened on 9/11 and why did that dude get an insurance policy the day before it happened? what exactly is the CIA, FBI, NSA, and the Homeland people spending all that money on? Is it doing any good? (ultimately my thesis here will be - for crying out loud, there isn't an enemy at our gates - they'll be attacking our currency and trade routes before they ever attack us! they know we have all the guns for christ's sake.) The rate of pay increase of Federal employees compared to the national average is what now? The government makes how much money without our taxes included and we're being fleeced exactly how? The republicans get away with filabustering by declaration instead of actually having to speak on the senate floor for an unlimited amount of time why exactly? and who are the richest five hundred families in the U.S. and what have they been up to (especially politically speaking - how much do they pay out to keep the fascist dream alive)?
What about this whole currency being owned by international banks instead of the U.S. government itself thing? Is that why Kennedy was assassinated, because he was trying to reinstate Federally owned dollars? Can't we just slap em and take back the worthless paper for ourselves so that the national debt isn't reading like a Check-Cashing Payday Loan Service invoice (that's right, we currently pay interest on the money we use - through debt payments made with tax money)?
And most of all, who has been blocking efforts to disseminate all this and much much more important information out to the masses? Sure they only care about Tiger woods, but that's just because they're obsessed with tits and morality (great combo) and haven't been given anything better since media became mass communicated.

I'm talking about a political party not for the average joe, but for the dedicated adherent to leftist ideals; those who refuse to accept the image that is painted of tree-huggers and whole foods socialists; those who are absolutely convinced that outside the pop-culture map is where we all need to go, and quick; a political party that rejects the baggage of people names places and history, and only hears "yes, we can"; a party for people capable and willing to do their own foot work, pay their own dues, and govern the country from a country rocking chair once all the chores are done; a party of Enlightenment ideas unfettered by the cynicism of modern poll information.

Name: The P.K. Party (first because it's simple and not 'trying to be something' not 'trying be become a brand', second because it is one more letter than T. as in T Party - our thick-headed rivals, and third because p.k. stands for preacher's kid, which I am not, but provides a good sociological identity - the kid of a preacher, super well versed in folk ways, morality, and leadership, but fully ready to rebel and own all that power and tradition for the moment and no other master than ourselves, and fourth, because I'll allow this one conceit just in case my party takes off and I miss out on being in the history books).
If not the P.K. Party, then maybe some other bodacious name yet to be determined.

I want populism that is informed by the lessons of history, that never takes the easy solution or the shortest route to anything. I see Tea Partiers being spoon fed lies because they're angry babies. I'm an angry baby that can only be soothed by spoons full of truth - and I won't settle for Tea Spoons, I demand Table Spoons, or maybe even Soup Spoons. I'm tired of all the news feeling predictable and every new development in the world being shouted about then quickly forgotten, only to be brought up again if the interested parties find themselves once again in the chips.

A red and blue America makes as much sense as having exactly Two astrological signs. I've heard of Blue Collar Democrats, but I hear that and think: Democrats whose livelihood depends on corporate masters that they are willing to serve completely so long as their pensions and pay raises survive. My party says no to Blue Collar Populism - I'm more for no collar - no yoke for us oxen. I don't want trade unions to wrestle away all the power from private industry because then one will become the other and the other will become the one. Instead I want to find those rare and hidden paths that actually RESTORE power to the PEOPLE by not saying: well if we can't sue them or press charges, I guess they can get away with it, so we might as well learn to fight just as dirty. To the idealist, even living in the mud is cleaner than accepting two bad alternatives (unless you count independents which have some good points to them, but clearly haven't fulfilled the third party vacuum fully) and not doing anything about it.

We should have at least fifty god-damn parties says I. Thank god the crazies are being dumb enough to split up the di-pole monopoly for us first, so we won't suffer for our efforts.
btw, I don't think we should recruit Democrats. I think we should recruit non-voters, and unaffiliated voters. Let the Dems who want in join in, but we should only decrease Dem membership as much as it will naturally allow - they're our friends