Fresh Air

Presidential Candidates Sen. Mike Gravel and Rep. Ron Paul both visited YouTuber James Kotecki's dorm room recently. This is an amazing and beautiful thing, because these appearances put a seriously human face on next year's election. I hope the next year holds many similar moments of distributed information freedom. It'd be a really fantastic experience to participate in a real national discussion via MySpace and YouTube. However, I really hope these two guys find a way to distance themselves from the two big parties. Truth be told, I think a third-party ticket with Gravel and Paul could have a real chance of winning. My real hesitation has everything to do with awareness of unearned privilege: how can I vote for a white man if I can symbolically vote for change by voting for a black man or a woman. Because as much as I like Barack, I'm cynical because I liked Bill Clinton in the same way, and I felt a little let down by his politics in the end.
As in the last election, though, I really wish there was a stronger anti-war voice. Not just an anti-this-war voice, which seems to be plentiful, now that it's statistically popular. It's hard for me to trust any politician who was in support of the Iraq war only until they heard it wasn't cool anymore. Where are the candidates who have concrete ideas about our national educational system? Where are the candidates willing to talk about the negative influence of fundamentalist Christianity on American scientists, not to mention global health initiatives? Where are the candidates willing to say words like deescalation, voluntary disarming, self-defense-only, or peace dividend?
Maybe the underlying question is wondering: Where are the candidates not tied to multinational corporate interests? Check out these two videos, and let's talk about whether either of these men would make good presidents.



PS: The ads are just an experiment for a bigger project. We'll see..