We have the Wrong Standard for Presidential Debates
... and it keeps getting Wronger, Worser, less responsive to We the People.
And that Standard is ...
... five polls that will be averaged together to determine who is receiving 15% support nationwide.The polls are ABC-Washington Post; CBS-New York Times; CNN-Opinion Research Corporation; Fox News; and NBC-Wall Street Journal.
Worse yet ...
That Standard is ... decided by political "insiders" who have a vested interest, in keeping the real "upstarts" off the stage.
But since the 15-percent rule was established, no third-party candidate has satisfied it. And the Commission on Presidential Debates? It was formed and is controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. Currently, its co-chairs are the former head of the Republican National Committee, Frank Fahrenkopf, and the former press secretary for President Bill Clinton, Mike McCurry.
So while the presidential election isn’t rigged (despite what some Republicans might want you to believe), the debates sure seem to be.
Mission Accomplished!
Those with the Outsider Ideas -- will once again be kept there -- Outside of the National Stage of "acceptable" Ideas.
Wouldn't make more sense, both common sense, and governing sense -- if those Candidates allowed on Stage, had to meet a Minimum Level of Voter Acceptability?
Overall satisfaction with the choice of candidates is at its lowest point in two decades. Currently, fewer than half of registered voters in both parties – 43% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans – say they are satisfied with their choices for president.
Roughly four-in-ten voters (41%) say it is difficult to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton because neither would make a good president --
Voter satisfaction with presidential candidates at lowest level in decades -- Pew Research Center
Afterall, it is We the Voting Public, who have to live with the fall-out for the next 4 to 8 years, of whichever Un-Acceptable Candidate happens to fool, con, dissuade enough to the People, during enough of the Debate time ... that they Indeed are enough of the "Lesser Evil" ...
To WIN the biggest National Stage of them all -- the Oval Office ...
(where anything goes, this time around ... It will make that "4 to 8 years" -- seem like a virtual Eternity! of excuses, stagnation, and even MORE sellouts, given their recent spiraling track records.)
Comments
too many
have forgotten
The real cost ...
That song still gives me goose bumps
Even 35 years after it was released.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Reminded me of Dog Eat Dog
Not sure why:
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
This album
was a major change for Joni Mitchell but I loved it!
A couple of the songs on this album go well with the current political atmosphere.
"Fiction"[video:http://youtu.be/9N_DVt49CEk] and "The Three Great Stimulants" [video:http://youtu.be/PNetw90qV1Q] come to mind.
This is my first time embedding video so if it doesn't work, I will try to edit it later.
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
Amen
"Fresdom is just another word for nothing left to lose" and we are heading for a lot more "freedom" the way this country is going.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
At my age...
it's quite possible that the "virtual eternity" you write about will possibly be actual eternity for me. I was so hopeful that I might live out at least some of my remaining life with a true progressive leader like Sanders at the helm. I felt the pretty optimistic about Obama until he started making his appointments. I realized once again, it was only going to get worse. And here we are again. This time it seems like I'm living a never ending nightmare. Trump or Clinton? Allow me to quote Hillary Clinton, "At this point, what difference does it make?"
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
George W. Bush
good use
of a virtual soundbite, reflectionsv37.
My heart goes out to the millennials,
-- they will inherit the lobbyist's whirlwind.
I hear ya, rv37.
Even at my advancing age and having been burned before ('burnt smart is learnt smart', they used to say around these parts) I had high hopes for PBO. Clearly, I never should have let myself be set up for such a knockdown. I started to get nervous very early in PBO's tenure. After Obama appointed The Usual Suspects, it became, as my late father would say "Suspicions confirmed".
I was guardedly hopeful that America was sharing my frustration when Bernie surged. Maybe we were waking up. But it doesn't matter whether there just weren't enough of us or if the nomination was stolen by DWS and her DNC. Bernie is not the nominee. Many times during the primaries I said that Bernie was America's last best hope. Sadly, I still feel that way. At least with Her Royal Heinous, I cannot be disappointed.
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
I must venture to disagree
I must venture to disagree with you in one area, that it does matter very much that there were enough of the people voting for Bernie for him to win the Dem nomination and that the election was stolen from the voters of America so that they could be sacrificed to the worshipers of Mammon.
It's not that a great number of the American people do not recognize that change toward democracy must be made but that corporate/billionaire-funded corruption has spread so far and deeply throughout America that blatant voter suppression and cheating on the Dem side passes as a 'done deal' as disastrously as it has been passing pretty much forever to worsening degrees on the Republican side and that direct control of domestic law is about to be offshored - on the excuse of a 'trade deal' - to a globally legislating corporate/billionaire-serving court (specific to those participating in specific 'trade deals') under the theory that countries, humans and life itself exist(s) only to further enrich a relative few of the already wealthiest, even though all will be rapidly drained, polluted and destroyed in the process.
Personally, I would regard this as a huge difference.
Edited to add a missing word and make a small correction because I tend to notice these things right after clicking 'post', lol.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
...
theatlantic.com
I wonder...
If the league is willing to host a debate between Stein and Johnson and then life stream it somewhere. Totally by-passing the networks and the party. I'd watch that. Heck - I might even pay money to watch it.
Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?
if one is on the ballot then
they should be included in the debates. Period. Nothing but fear. They kept Nader out. He would have eaten both Gore and Bush alive.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
The idea sounds reasonable but...
Perhaps the notion of trustworthiness or acceptability should replace polls as currently conducted.
But how do we make this distinction? Most likely by polling--thus exposing the current debate scenario problems into transfigured but still flawed problems. I don't have answer except that debates be taken out of the of the PTB and perhaps be restored to the League of Women Voters.
Is like to see polls do ranked choice
If we can eliminate some fear from polling, that would open up the conversation to include hopes as well. For the four candidates we have this year, there are 4! = 12 choices if you wanted to ask just one question. Asking four questions in order doesn't seem out of line with most polls either.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I don't see how we impact the debates, other than
by asking people not to watch them.
The Commission that controls these debates is characterized as nonpartisan, which is bs. It's is bipartisan, Republican and Democratic. Here, as in keeping candidates of newer parties off the ballot, Republicans and Democrats have the same interests: protecting the candidates, which they see as keeping as much hidden from viewers as humanly possible. Informing the public so that members of the public can vote intelligently is not even on their radar screen.
For their part, the interest of the networks is protecting the status quo. It is not even profit. Networks are now owned by conglomerates so large that whether a network makes money or not is probably less important than whether the network protects the status quo.
If no one watches, either the debates will no longer be televised--a loss, but not a huge one, all things considered, or the Commission will find it in the best interest of the candidates to make the debates more inclusive and transparent. And then the tooth fairy will finally pay me, with interest, for that tooth that came out while we were in a plane.
One way
is to talk about The Commission on Presidential Debates,
-- the fair and impartial League of Women Voters most of us grew up with,
-- They are Not!
Make an alternative debate, and get the word out.
Like Democracy Now! did in 2012.
You know what our real problem is? We can't quickly and reliably get the word out to lots of people. About, well, anything.
We can get the word out to comparatively small numbers of people, quickly and reliably.
We've been needing to create a true indie media for about 25-30 years now. I wish we'd started when we all had more money, before the crash.
But this is why the fundraising here is inspiring. It's the tiny beginnings of something that needs a lot more work.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Great Idea
Hope the Free Speech Fans left in the Media Machine,
pickup and run with the idea.
Samizdat.
That is all. Once net neutrality goes in the trash under HRC's Ministry of Homeland Truth and Good News, that will be all we'll be left with. Hopefully it will be enough.
Well, I didn't talk about this yet, b/c I expected
it would be very unpopular round here, but I do really feel we should make backups. Phone trees. Meetups everywhere. Exchanging contact info/getting to know each other better. Downloading and storage of data--maybe a library of useful stuff, articles and diaries and actual books and videos and and and--I sure wish I'd known how to download (without excessive danger of viruses) all the videos that were up on YouTube during Occupy--at one point, I think in Nov, suddenly most of the videos went away, and the only new ones coming in were from RT.
I love the digital world, but it's foolish to imagine it's unassailable. Backup of some kind is a real need.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Is this news to anybody? The
Is this news to anybody? The debates being controlled by the duopoly, I mean.
I think it would be hard to make an argument that a person rating single digits (or even teens) in the polls can really be considered "acceptable". So if we had acceptability as a measure, we'd just have no one in the debates - which we may well have anyway, both candidates (especially Hillary) likely considering debates a needless exercise better avoided. But more useful would be the ability to vote no confidence/none of the above. One of the many problems with our demoncracy* is no matter how few people vote, someone will still win. Maybe we just shouldn't have a president for the next four years; Congress is already gridlocked as it is, and it will keep us out of new wars.
*unintended typo, but I decided to leave it
The kindly FSM was guiding
The kindly FSM was guiding your hand to the correct word.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.