>>>As an outsider looking in, though, I'd have to say that having only two REAL political parties that, worst of all, control all the levers that could lead to more real choices for the people, just about guarantees lousy government there in perpetuity.
>>
>>http://www.techmocracy.net/gov
>>
>>Needless to say, while there is a tight grip on some of them, I don't think all the levers are controlled.
>
>That's the whole point - there must always be some minor focal points to which to lure the potential opposition leaders and trouble makers.

The webpage above describes the internet as the focal point, which isn't minor at all.

>So it only takes controlling sufficient number of levers, and having a token number of uncontrolled ones, just to prove you aren't controlling everything.
>
>During Milosevic, we had a few media outlets which were very strongly opposing him. The only problem was that they could reach about 2% of Belgrade, and 0% of the rest of the country. They had websites, though, but then less than 1% of the people had access to the web...

Fortunately the stats are a bit higher than 1% here in the US!