[sudo-discuss] Agenda Item for next week's meeting: ONL is not a member collective.

[yar]

>> http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/ONL

On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Charley Sheets <rcsheets at acm.org> wrote:
> It seems like section 7 could use some additional detail. I for one
> don't know what "Saturday's 9/6 ONL event" was, or why it would be
> offensive.

They had 3 mayoral candidates in the room (parker, tuman, siegel), but
chose to interview one candidate at a time. Each candidate got an
uninterrupted stump speech, pandering questions from the hosts, then 2
ad-hoc audience questions, and that was it. One even screened a
commercial.

I was disappointed and insulted because I'd heard it was going to be a
"debate." Maybe it got distorted in the rumor-mill. But either way,
this candidate-showcasing style of engagement is something people have
fought against for ages. It's passive, undemocratic, and pointless. If
we're going to engage with electoral politics we should know this
history. Here's the League of Women Voters explaining why they stopped
hosting presidential "debates" in 1988:
http://www.lwv.org/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud

Some more history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates#Debate_sponsorship

I think at minimum, a debate needs to:

* force candidates to interact with each other
* invite all candidates at the same time
* prioritize audience participation and engagement

We missed an opportunity - we had them on our turf and did nothing new
with them - but it's not too late. On October 11 they're hosting 3
more (schaaf, kaplan, quan). Maybe ONL will be open to input on how
they conduct next month's event! Any Sudoers who want to ask tough
questions on the record of present and future mayors on our turf,
now's your chance to get involved. :)