opendebates.org — We, the undersigned, support Open Debates' campaign to reform the presidential debate process. We believe that the presidential debates should serve the American people first, not political parties. We support replacing the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates with the nonpartisan Citizens' Debate Commission, so that inspiring formats....
Sep 11, 2008 View in Crawl 4
sandsafariSep 12, 2008
This sounds more like America. Too bad it wasn't enforced soon enough to give more of the candidates a more fair representation. Now how do we go about eliminating the biased press?
Closed AccountSep 12, 2008
I signed but did so knowing that it was no different than signing a petition that we cut oil prices in half.I wish we were still in a state of affairs that petitions and redress of grievances actually carried some weight.They do NOT. The only thing that carries weight in the current society is how many grains of lead you're sending downfield. I've yet to see a piece of paper than can withstand something as minuscule as a .22 rifle. If it makes you feel better and more in touch with things, more power to you! Get yourself a sticker to put on your car or something like that as well. When you're ready to truly make a difference, arm yourself, your family and be ready to sacrifice your all. The Liberty Tree is thirsty as hell. She will be watered within two years.
rowjimmySep 13, 2008
emailed to them all"I saw that MySpace is hosting an internet-based debate for the upcoming American presidential election. I wanted to express to you the dire need to invite and allow third party and independent candidates (with some level of national recognition) - in particular, Cynthia McKinney (Green party), Bob Barr (Libertarian party), and Ralph Nader (independent). As you are no doubt aware of, the media largely sets the agenda for what is on the table in terms of political discourse in this country, and by and large, the mainstream media has been hand-fed the agendas of the two major parties (which, more or less, align with the corporate interests of the same multi-nationals that own that same media). One need only look at the high-degree of corporate sponsorship for both parties and nearly every mainstream media outlet to raise suspicion – namely, is the media serving the interests of the American people, or that of its advertisers in establishing and maintaining a level of discourse that could only be called low-brow & sensationalist? With the advent of social media, the citizens of America finally have the resources available, if not to view the actual “facts on the ground” then to at least view multiple sources, checking their backgrounds and weighing that against the opinions presented. However, while this move away from entertainment consumption to active involvement in political discourse is certainly important, it would be naive to assume that it reaches more than a small, mostly homogenous minority of Americans. In light of that, I feel strongly that it is the duty of organizations such as MySpace, Digg, Facebook, Reddit, etc – that bridge the gap between old & new media – to raise the level of discourse in an effort to enable Americans to begin to participate in the political sphere with a renewed sense of communicative action. A first step on this arduous – yet hopefully successful – process should be turning away from the established, limited agenda of what corporate America and the Democratic/Republican parties view as “on the table” by giving an equal voice in electoral debates to third party candidates. While the American political system – barring serious reform – will never view third party candidates as anything but a spoiler, simply allowing their take not only on the issues at hand, but on what the issues should be can only serve to better the (currently quite sad) state of political discourse in this country. I look forward to hearing any response you might have to this request, and to seeing whether MySpace and other new media outlets begin to step up to the challenge of re-invigorating the political sphere in America rather than simply pandering to the bottom line of corporate benefactors, lowering standards of political discourse and communicative rationality in an effort to champion a “football-game” mentality that while, undeniably entertaining, does nothing to ensure a bright future for tomorrow.Thank you,XXXXXXXX (me!)"