[Peace-discuss] 2/20 format, etc.

[David Green]

I should add in clarification that each of us will have one minute to respond to each question chosen by the moderator from the audience's submissions. By my calculation that leave the potential for 16 questions--coincidentally, the number of major points listed on the home page of my website. But the realities of time will probably allow for fewer.



On Sunday, February 2, 2014 12:59 PM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote:
  
The debates on Thursday 2/20 are being sponsored by the NG, League of Women Voters, and NAACP. The debate among the Democratic candidates in for U.S. Congress IL-13 will be from 8 to 9 p.m. We have been told that we will be given two minutes for an introduction, and two more for a conclusion. In between, questions will be read from notecards submitted by the audience. It's important that questions about important issues that distinguish the candidates be submitted--especially foreign policy, Iran, TPP, etc. I do not support the Ryan-Murray austerity budget. Who knows what the others think?
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>The questions that get asked depend on who shows up to submit them, and whether there's some coordination in that effort. You can bet the Gollin and Callis will have their strategy in place in order to be able to respond to as many softball questions as possible.
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>DG
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>Below is an early estimate of what I will be saying during my combined four minutes:
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>I entered this race in order to challenge the corporate and
Wall Street leadership of the national Democratic Party, and to provide an
alternative to Washington and blue state-red state politics of obedience,
avoidance, and triviality. Make no mistake that this campaign would be about only
such trivial politics had I not chosen to enter it. The national power brokers have
chosen a candidate for you. Now you have a real choice, and an opportunity to vote
your conscience.
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>The most immoral thing we do as a nation is to attempt to
control the world through violence, killing many innocents and leaving us only
more unsafe in the process. We need to end our wars and drone strikes,
dismantle our military bases in other countries, and bring our troops home.
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>Our exploitation of other countries is mirrored in our
exploitation of the earth and of each other. We need to stop and ban fracking,
and move decisively towards a post-fossil fuel future.
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>The federal government needs to provide a living wage job to
everyone who needs one, in human and social services, infrastructure, transportation,
conservation, and more. Our workers create the real wealth of our nation. It is
perverse to argue that we cannot afford to employ those who only want to
continue doing so.
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>Our rich and productive country can easily afford to
eliminate poverty; to provide free and universal higher education; to ensure
that young families are not only free from student debt, but are provided with
free, government-funded daycare and preschool so that they can afford to start families
and pursue their livelihoods. Moreover, Medicare for All would save $1 trillion
annually of national wealth that would easily cover such programs as listed
above.
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>Our major parties are both obedient to Wall Street, an
obedience that has created enormous and unjust inequality in our society. Our
democracy cannot meaningfully survive such inequality. You have an opportunity
to vote against this cruel and
ultimately suicidal tide, and for a
democratic, universally, and sanely prosperous future.
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>***
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>The wealth of our country is the result of the labor of
generations of workers: citizens and non-citizens; free, indentured, enslaved,
and even imprisoned. Yet we find after four centuries that 1% of families own
over one-third of private wealth; the top 10% of families own over 90%; and the
bottom at least 40% are, on average, in debt. This state of affairs is
obviously and grossly unreflective of the contributions of most working
families, past and present.
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>Therefore we have to face unpleasant facts regarding our
American-dominated system of global financial capitalism. For our species to
survive, this reality has to change, and relatively quickly in historical
terms. 
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>Fortunately, our country is bursting with constructive forms
of resistance to the status quo and corporate, financial, and political powers
that be. Our citizens are bursting with ideas from cooperative ownership and
management to public banks and genuinely democratic investment for the public
good. 
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>Our future depends on massive amounts of public investment
in infrastructure and social and human services, accompanied by millions of
government-funded jobs at living wages in order to meet basic human needs and
support demand in the private sector. Our future depends on local governments
and communities having the resources to invest in developing localized and
sustainable visions for our national future. This requires a genuinely
democratic and responsive political process at all levels, and specifically a
federal government that taxes our citizens and corporations at levels that are adequate
and equitable, and do not allow the 1% to play off state and local governments
against each  other in a destructive race
to the bottom.
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>Our country is controlled by the 1% or fewer, and our major
parties and elections reflect that. However you, the voters, have a unique
opportunity to register your informed opposition to corporate and Wall Street
politics as usual. I encourage you to make an informed and conscientious
choice.
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> 
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