Grateful for Coverage, but Disappointed

I don't always embed YouTube vids. But when I do, they typically have something to do with the Green Party.

Actually, to my recollection, this is the first time I've used the Embed Code tool on Weebly. Sorry if it cuts of the right edge. Also sorry that I didn't post something here before this happened.

The video is a 30-minute excerpt of the two-hour Green Party candidates' forum RT America broadcast Monday afternoon. Three Libertarian candidates get their turn Thursday. As of this writing, RT has not posted the entire two hours.

Green Party Watch also embedded the excerpted video. Their post also includes a link to RT's page summarizing the issues discussed.

They called this a debate, but it never really rose to that level. That's typical of such events. There's very little "I disagree, and instead we should..." and quite a bit of "Yes, not only what she said, but also..." If you're looking for oblique references to candidates' genitalia, or the size thereof, you won't find it here.

Although the forum did not highlight much diversity among the three Green candidates' policy positions, and although I personally have thrown my support behind Dr. Jill Stein, I am grateful that RT chose to show that there is more than one Green running for the presidency. None of the other candidates has the organization or the resources that Stein has been able to assemble, but we Greens like knowing that we have multiple choices.

Sadly, I could not watch (or even listen to) the whole two hours. I tried keeping the video stream on one monitor while doing actual work on the other, but about twenty minutes in, I got irritated at the incessant network lag and closed the browser tab. I'm still not sure whether the lag was due to insufficient bandwidth on campus or overtaxed servers on RT's end; I'd like to believe the latter, but the former is more likely.

Just as sadly, what I saw of the forum disappointed me. The portion that I tried to watch live, along with the 30-minute edited version, gave me a pretty good idea of how the whole thing went. It's obvious that none of these candidates is a career politician (good) or a skilled rhetorician (not so good). Maybe the candidates were just getting warmed up, but their answers weren't as tidy, concise, or coherent as the format of this forum demanded.

Then again, maybe my standards are too high.

When you're a marginalized political movement, you have to convince people that your ideas are worthy of their votes and of media coverage. If I were an undecided voter, I don't know that I would have been convinced to vote Green. If "too many" means "more than one," there were too many instances of

• not actually answering the question that was asked
• wasting time at the beginning of an answer by pointing out, "Yes, that's a major problem..."
• muddling issues by referring to a related issue that isn't obviously or intuitively related in the eyes of most viewers
• referring to related issues so as to make it difficult or impossible to provide a satisfactory answer in the small amount of time provided (about a minute)

If anything, this forum shows the Green movement's main handicap: Our issues cannot easily be reduced to 30- or even 60-second soundbytes. We understand too clearly how issues are interrelated, and thus when TV interviewers are ready to ask the next question, Stein is just getting to the main point of her answer. It's very easy to say, "The US has too many people in prison," but harder to get across why having lots of prisoners is bad for our nation, socially, economically, and otherwise.

Apart from that, there was too much Tyrel Ventura. Mr. Ventura may have keen progressive insight and intellect, but his gesticulations and histrionics are painful to observe. He's a big guy with a big personality that doesn't really fit within the camera's field of view.