[Peace-discuss] my comment to WILL/IPR Fwd: Chat with Illinois Public Media's Kimberlie Kranich today over lunch and tell her what information you want from us so you can be an informed voter. Today at noon online

[Karen Medina]

Below is my response to Illinois Public Radio's announcement: "Chat
with Illinois Public Media's Kimberlie Kranich today over lunch and
tell her what information you want from us so you can be an
informed voter. Today at noon online at http://willconnect.org/."

On their facebook announcement, I wrote the following comment:

Hmmm. Informed voting is an interesting goal -- a goal that I see has
two parts. The *most important part* to me is a thorough understanding
of the issues. I fear that even WILL and NPR are falling into the
short-sighted goal of informing of us of the political candidates'
current views on minor issues. The responsibility of a citizen in a
democracy is not only to try to seek out and vote for the "correct
candidate" but to inform the elected officials of how they should best
REPRESENT their constituents.

"Political leader" is an oxymoronic term for a democracy to use. The
term implies that the people follow wherever the leaders take them,
which is the characteristic of a dictatorship, a monarchy, a
theocracy, a plutocracy, imperialism, and all the other forms of
government that democracy was to replace.

So, my answer to Ms. Kranich's question would be, "Sure interview the
candidates and ask them the hard questions, but more importantly do
good journalism: interview at least two sides of the issues, and ask
everyone hard questions all the time."

-karen medina