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Open Debates

Debate Commission Loses One-Third Of Board Members

December 23, 2016 Staff, www.ivn.us , ,
By Staff of IVN - The Commission on Presidential Debates, or CPD, has been under fire for its policies for several years now. For the past 24 years, the CPD has excluded anyone but the Republican and Democratic nominees from participating in the three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate in September and October before the election. An important lawsuit, Level the Playing Field, et al. v. Federal Election Commission, goes before a federal judge on Jan. 5. That suit seeks to accomplish what the CPD has refused to do on its own: change the rules to stop systematically preventing independent candidates from debating – and becoming president. Meanwhile, it seems no coincidence that the CPD itself is disintegrating.

Newsletter – On 9/11, Facing The Truth

September 11, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , , ,
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers in New York where 3,000 people died. The immediate responses to the attack were panic, grief and ultra-nationalism, followed by illegal attacks on Afghanistan and then Iraq. Perhaps now that 15 years has passed, we should look back at the events and review decisions that were made in hopes of avoiding mistakes in the future. The leading presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, seem stuck on the same path we have been on for 15 years -- is more militarism the right path? Have war and military attacks made the region more stable, the United States more secure, reduced terrorism, prevented instability in Europe due to the refuege crisis? Or, has the path of militarism made all of this worse?

The US Needs Debates That Expand Political Dialogue: Open Debates

August 27, 2016 Janine Jackson, www.fair.org ,
By Janine Jackson for FAIR - After weeks of watching media rehash Clinton and Trump campaign talking points of the day, Americans can be forgiven for wanting to see some ideas injected into coverage of the presidential election. For some, debates are a natural opportunity to possibly pull candidates off script, force them to answer questions they didn’t write themselves. But, activists are saying, debates that include only the two major party candidates are far less likely to do that.

New Campaign Tells Trump: Follow Reagan-Demand Open Debates

August 23, 2016 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org , ,
By Kevin Zeese for Campaign for Open Debates. The Campaign for Open Debates announced that it will be seeking open, inclusive debates and declared the so-called “Commission” on Presidential Debates, a discredited non-commission that is really a Democratic and Republican corporation, should be replaced by a true, independent commission. On the Campaign website (please like the page) it explains “The Campaign for Open Debates is independent of any presidential campaign. It is seeking to create open debates that include all viable candidates because doing so is in the public interest. We cannot have real democracy if all the candidates are not included in the series of presidential and vice presidential debates.”

Newsletter: #NoHoneymoon, A Presidency Of Protest

August 20, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The task of the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice is much bigger than the presidential election. Our job is to build people power to ensure that no matter who is the next president, the people’s voices are heard and our demands are part of the political agenda. We urge organizers and advocates across the nation to begin to plan a campaign beginning in early 2017 and carrying on through the inauguration to ensure that right from the beginning the people’s voices are a dominant narrative. The #NoHoneymoon campaign will take various forms in communities across the country. Talk to your networks of activists and plan what would work best in your community. The creativity and energy that comes from diverse leadership has surprised the nation before and can do so again.

Act Now To Open The Debates!

August 15, 2016 Jeff Cohen, www.commondreams.org , , , , , ,
By Jeff Cohen for Common Dreams. Debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will not do much to enlighten the political discourse in the United States. The US public deserves more and 2016 is the year for the public to insist on more. The phony "Commission" on Presidential Debates is really a Democratic Party-Republican Party corporation funded by big business. They are not a "Commission" in any sense of the word, they are a corporation using the word commission as a disguise. The two parties and big business should not be deciding who is included in the presidential debates. Below is an article from Jeff Cohen of Roots Action focusing on uring the media to insist on inclusive 4-person debates. It is a useful petition but without much more it will be ineffective. The corporate media makes hundreds of millions in profits from the elections. They will not go against the two establishment parties that buy advertising on their networks. More is needed. The path to inclusion is not going to come from the media which has been consistently complicit in the debate charade. More is needed. The path will come if we can convince one of the two candidates to urge inclusion of all four campaigns -- the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Greens -- in the debates. Stein-Baraka wrote an open letter to Trump and Clinton yesterday calling for four-war debates.

Flowers Excluded From Debate Disrupts For Democracy

March 30, 2016 Green Party Watch, www.greenpartywatch.org ,
By Green Party Watch. Maryland Green Party U.S. Senate candidate Margaret Flowers was forcibly prevented from participating in a candidate forum sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council and Goucher College on Monday evening. Flowers, who had been extended invitations to the debate twice by the organizers, was abruptly disinvited without notice two weeks before the event. When the candidates were asked to take the stage, Flowers stepped up . . . “This is one of many ways the two wealth-based parties create an unfair electoral system for those who challenge them,” said Flowers.

Newsletter – Democracy, Not Corporatocracy

January 23, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese forPopular Resistance. What does a corporatocracy look like? Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, says, “the sovereign state is obsolete.” Instead, WEF’s goal is to give a greater role for corporations in global governance through “40 Global Agenda Councils and industry-sector bodies.” In essence, the Global Redesign Initiative of the World Economic Forum seeks to privatize government. The next battle to stop corporate government on a global scale will be the TPP. Stopping the TPP will be a tremendous victory of popular power over corporate power. We can stop the World Economic Forum's vision of a global governance redesigned into a corporatocracy and create a world of popular democracy for a livable future for everyone.

Ralph Nader: The Devastating Cost Of Monetized Elections

January 23, 2016 Ralph Nader, www..nader.org , , , , ,
Ralph Nader for the Nader Page. Corporatized and commercialized elections reach a point where they stand outside and erode our democracy. Every four years the presidential and Congressional elections become more of a marketplace where the wealthy paymasters turn a civic process into a spectacle of vacuous rhetorical contests, distraction and stupefaction. The civic minds of the people are sidelined by the monetized minds of a corrupted commercial media, political consultants, pundits and the purveyors of an ever-more dictatorial corporate state. The dominance of influence money by the plutocracy and now big business PACs, such as that of the super-rich Koch brothers is just the beginning. The monetized minds don’t just rely on their “quid pro quo” checkbooks. They foster gerrymandering electoral districts so that politicians indentured to them pick the voters instead of a legitimate congressional district’s voters picking a candidate. And the debates now are more ratings inventory for Big Media than a discussion of major issues which remain off the table.
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