The Debates

[tonaderspeisung]

Originally Posted by Semantics

I watched.

The 3rd party candidates were so respectful of the debate process and of each other. Larry King kept messing up the agenda and the order and they were very gracious.
I like Johnson, Anderson, and Stein. Although I did enjoy listening to Virgil Goode's accent, his issue positions made me twitchy.

I agree that some of the questions were lame. I wish the 3rd party candidates were allowed to debate with the Democrats and Republicans. It makes the debates so much more interesting and also highlights how similar the two main candidates actually are.

re: goode - i felt like closed captioning would have helped - his accent is very strong - saying he made me twitchy would be an understatement
but i liked his "term limits would cut through congress like a knife through hot buttah"

[Martina]

I heard excerpts on NPR. Free higher education. Damn, we need that but there is no will to make that a reality. That would address income inequality.

Goode was funny re drugs. He said something like "If you want to legalize drugs, vote for one of these other fellers. Do not for me." The way he said it made me laugh.

NPR was also talking about how little the housing crisis has been discussed during the election. I can see why the candidates have not wanted to discuss it, but why has the press and the public let them get away with that. Elephant in the living room issue.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Martina

I heard excerpts on NPR. Free higher education. Damn, we need that but there is no will to make that a reality. That would address income inequality.

Goode was funny re drugs. He said something like "If you want to legalize drugs, vote for one of these other fellers. Do not for me." The way he said it made me laugh.

NPR was also talking about how little the housing crisis has been discussed during the election. I can see why the candidates have not wanted to discuss it, but why has the press and the public let them get away with that. Elephant in the living room issue.

Because our media has forgotten the whole reason we grant them the huge amount of latitude we do. They seem to think that their function is to enjoy 'access' to political and economic elites as well as turn a profit and if, in the course of doing so, they happen to report the news and be the keepers of the Eleventh Commandment (thou shalt not get away with it) no one is going to complain, as such but that is a secondary function to actually reporting the news.

Since our current media has an attention span so brief that it makes a kitten look like a Zen master they simply cannot do reportage on issues like the housing crisis (complex, multi-causal and implicates economic elites) or climate change (complex, multi-causal, implicates economic elites and requires a bit of science to explain) or pretty much anything *other* than 'he said, she said' gossip and, of course, the horse race of the numbers.

Cheers
Aj