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

niki niki.shelley at gmail.com
Mon Sep 8 09:19:36 PDT 2014


The argument is not that ONL is not radical enough, it's that the show was
basically a free commercial for the mayoral candidates. Free, meaning,
subsidized by the Omni and when I say the Omni I mean the groups that are
currently contributing to making the Omni function.

Creating a civic space for the community means engaging the community, not
having politicians sit there and spout meaningless rhetoric at the
community for two hours.

If ONL wants to just be nothing more than an entertaining talk show, why
have mayoral candidates on as guests?

N

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 9:06 AM, Andrew Lowe <andrew at lostways.com> wrote:

> I did not attend this event, but I have attended ONL events before. ONL is
> a talk show, I'm not sure why not being political enough makes them
> "offensive". I mean I will let them speak for them selves, but they are an
> entertainment show, why would you expect a "debate" at a talk show?
>
> Also while it is true that ONL reduced their rent before singing the
> sublease option, there still has been no official policy that says that
> that action (which Backspace took as well, at the time) requires a
> re-application.
>
> It would be great if ONL paid more, but keep in mind that we haven't come
> up with a price for nightly rentals in the ballroom, when we do I think it
> would be fair to evaluate ONL's contribution based on that.
>
> Anyway, just standing up for this show even if it isn't really my cup of
> tea all the time, I think what ONL has been able to do with it is pretty
> amazing, and to force them out because their show isn't radical enough in
> the ways you want it to be would be a shame.
>
> --Andrew
>
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 12:33 AM, yar <yardenack at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> >> 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. :)
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> ---------
> Andrew Lowe
> http://www.lostways.com
>
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