Got a burning question for the presidential candidates?

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
I’m excited to announce that Racialicious has been invited to be one of the blogs sponsoring 10 Questions, an experiment in people-powered online democracy. Given our recent discussion on Addicted to Race about the mainstream blogosphere’s tendency to overlook bloggers of color, I’m particularly happy that Racialicious will be part of this exciting initiative. I’m also glad to see some of our blog friends as sponsors: VivirLatino, CultureKitchen, just to name a couple.

Here’s more about the initiative, from 10 Questions:

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Unlike television debates, the 10Questions Presidential Forum makes full use of the web’s potential to expand participation in politics. Everyone has an opportunity to ask a question, and to rally support for their question being in the top ten. The candidates have plenty of time to formulate their answers, and can post in-depth replies. Finally, the community will be able to grade the candidates’ answers. With large numbers of people participating, the candidates will have an incentive to pay attention. Who knows, maybe we’ll even change the course of the election!

The 10Questions Presidential Forum is being produced by techPresident in cooperation with The New York Times editorial board, with support from MSNBC.com and sponsorship from a large, cross-partisan group of bloggers, online media and organizations. (For a full list, go to our Sponsors page.)

How This Works

The 10Questions Presidential Forum is divided into two rounds. During the first round, which will run from October 17 to November 14, anyone with access to YouTube, MySpace Yahoo Video, or Blip.tv can submit a video question. To enter, upload your video question to one of these sites and tag it “10questions.” Be sure to give it a descriptive title so others can find it. And if you want, add additional tags that describe it further.

During round one, videos bearing the tag “10questions” will be collected on the main page where anyone can vote for or against them. At the close of round one, there will be an audit of the top vote-getters, after which the top ten videos will be presented to the candidates.

During round two, which will begin November 17 and end December 31, the candidates will be asked to post their replies to the top ten questions, and you get to vote on their replies. The candidates will have until December 15 to post their answers; you’ll have until December 31 to vote on them. At the end of this round, we will audit the ratings and announce the final results.

You can submit as many videos as you want, at whatever length you prefer, though we recommend keeping your questions brief since that will probably improve their chances of being viewed, and voted upon, by more people. Also, you can vote on as many videos as you like, but you can vote only once for each video.

Video entries should be questions for all the 2008 American Presidential candidates as a group, and suitable for a general audience. We reserve the right to reject videos if they are obscene or inappropriate. If you want to learn more about 10Questions, check out our FAQ.

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Comments

Sudy wrote:

Thanks for this opportunity. I’ll definitely spread the words while I ponder what my question will be as well. Thanks again.

Posted 17 Oct 2007 at 8:24 am ¶
Kai wrote:

Sounds cool, Carmen! I’m psyched Racialicious is part of this, it might actually induce me to submit a question, ya know just to represent…

Posted 17 Oct 2007 at 11:50 am ¶
Tapart News Advocate wrote:

Here are the major questions for all Presidential Candidates to answer:
Who said we had to compete like this in a global economic arena like gladiators?
Did Globalization and Free Trade evolve as a natural economic process or has it been driven by elite Dysfunctional Globalist Free Traders outside of any real democratic process with workers having no voice in any of it?
Why did the USA Federal Government sponsor the moving of factories outside the USA starting in 1956? ( The program was supposed to be a temporary one lasting only a year or two, but it never ended. It was set in place to help the Mexican and Central American economies while supplying cheaper goods for US consumers. Less than 200 factories were moved by 1976 but then the programs evolved into the Maquiladora factories in Mexico using impovorished workers. Many US manufacturers start moving their “dirty manufacturing” there to escape the regulations in the US. Prior to the passing of NAFTA and GATT Free Trade agreements, there were more than 2,000 factories moved to Mexico. After getting both NAFTA and GATT passed, President Clinton rushed billions of dollars to Mexico to save the peso and the number of factories moved to Mexico doubled to more than 4,000. The term Free Trade kicked in but it was not trade as historically practiced or defined. It was based primarily on moving production from place to place based on the cheapest labor markets of the world. The main commodities became workers who are put on a world trading block to compete with one another for the same jobs down to the lowest levels of wages including wage slave and even child labor.

President Bush says Mexican workers are flocking to the US to take jobs Americans will not do. Mexico reports a low unemployment rate just like the US does. After US moved more than 4,000 factories to Mexico, the workers still come.
WHY?

As Adam Smith held, labor is something “sacred” and the core of all societies. The USA has gone through the most massive dislocation of workers in its history with millions losing their jobs. A new working poor class has been created and there is a vast underclass in the USA now as exposed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

When will someone talk about these real happenings in our time and why? Is it the New World Order or the New World Disorder driven by elite Dysfunctional Globalists including Clinton, Bush and even “green” Gore.

It is really all about you in the global economic arena. Who will ask these questions of who started the process and why?
See http://www.bizarrepolitics.com/new-world-order-or-disorder
http://www.orble.com/feds-moved-factories-outside/7/ or
http://tapsearch.com/flatworld/

Posted 14 Nov 2007 at 3:36 pm ¶