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Ask Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb
Today you have the opportunity to ask questions of the
Green Party's candidate for President of the United States,
David Cobb. Standard interview rules apply: we'll select a dozen or so of the best questions and Mr. Cobb will give us his answers next week.
How do you respond to accusations from Democrats that a vote for your party is a vote for George Bush?
In this world of political campaigning via direct attacks and dancing around the real issues, I am curious to know how you and your party have reacted to these attacks.
Additionally, what is your party and personal stance towards using the very methods I'm mentioning as return fodder for the 2 large parties?
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
Thank you for taking our questions.
The first of the ten key values of the Green Party is "Grssroots Democracy". Over the past few years, the American Green Party has made significant steps forward, but (as best I can tell) is still growing at a local level. While I understand the appeal of national coverage, is running a presidential campaign really in the spirit or the best interests of the party? Wouldn't those funds be more effective in campaigning for more local offices, or launching a statewide candidate in an area where the Greens have a solid foothold? Isn't that how grassroots is supposed to work--from the bottom up and not from the top down?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
In a two-party system like the U.S. has, what is your strategy to draw voters and most importantly have them take you seriously?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
The Green Party is best known for its progressive policies on the environment, however its other policies are often shrouded by this, most people not knowing where the Green Party stands on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.
What do you think might be the best approach to educate the masses about the rest of Green Party polices?
If I was a Repubican or Democrat, what would you say to me to make me switch to the Green Party?
Mr Cobb, As a registered member of the Green Party for the past several elections, I am concerned about the verbage in party information I've received concerning the November 2004 election. It seems I am being encouraged (strongly) to vote for the Democratic ticket. Is the Green Party no longer holding to it's grass-roots past and is it abandoning the philosophy of presenting a viable third-party point of view and candidate? Thank you.
One thing I've wondered about third party candidates is their motivation; do you really think you can win races? Do you think that if you run long enough, eventually you can break through the two party system? Or is it just a "protest candidacy" because you don't agree with the Democratic Party's platform? Would you be a Democrat if they became more of a leftist party (for lack of a better way to put it, but you know what I mean; if they had policies more in line with the Green Party). Or do you really and truly believe in your party, and want get them elected and into the political system?
Bottom line, do you ever think that you can truly win political office in the United States, now or in the future?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
How does the Green Party's view on affirmative action (from what I could gather from your website) coincide with key value #2 (social justice and equal opportunity)? It seems that someone who is pushing for monetary reparations for past injustices as well as affirmative action programs cannot say they also confront things that "deny fair treatment" (also from key value #2).
What is your opinion of Ralf Nader's actions after not gaining the Green Party Nomination for president? Do you think the Reform Party and the Green Party share any ideological common ground? If the first major Reform Party candidate, Ross Perot, is at all representative of the Reform Party platform, I would think there would be a clash of believes between the two parties. Is Nader selling out for another bid at the presidency?
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
Since the Green party (as other minor parties) has no chance of winning the Presidency, how does the party evaluate and justify spending resources on this contest instead of on Congressional and state-level contests?
Is it a PR thing? If you look at the Greens in Germany (granted, very different system) you see that they rose slowly over time from the smallest contests to eventually having Cabinet positions.
What is the American Green Party's overall strategy to increase their representation, and how does an unwinnable Presidential election fit into it?
This Like That - fun with words!
I recently watched your very good and very friendly debate between Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik. One issue you brought up was universal health care that taxpayer would pay for. If you are elected president, what do you think is a fair tax percentage for the average American, 10%, 20%, 30%? If you say it depends on how much you make, then for the sake of this question, say I make $75,000 a year. What percentage would a Green party president expect an average American making $75,000 a year pay to support all these social plans?
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Thank you for your time. Recently in San Francisco, Matt Gonzalez, a popular local Green Party politico, has been pushing for the ability for noncitizens to vote in some of the local elections. While there are other places that offer this long before SF, it seems as though this erodes the differences between having citizenship or not. Rather than expanding the franchise this way, why not work to streamline the process for getting citizenship and encourage people to seek it?
Can you expound and explain a bit on your stance on this?
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Hello, Given that the current system of voting tends to reinforce the positions of the two major parties (e.g. you must vote for a candidate or for their closest challenger), have you given any though to supporting election reform as a method of making inroads for your party? It would seem that if all the 'second class' political parties supported election reform you would be able to make larger strides than trying to play the republicrat's game.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As President, you would at best be able to veto bills and direct some agency policies (within the confines of legislation).
Why are you seeking the presidency, particularly? Why is it the best strategy for achieving your goals?
On the Green Party website, it states that you support "reparations for people of color in the form of monetary compensation."
Where would this money come from, if this plan was enacted and how would the recipients be determined? If the money would come from tax dollars, what do you say to people, such as myself, whose ancestors had no part in slavery or major racial discrimination and don't think their tax dollars should be spent on these reparations?
Obviously we here at slashdot are a bit on the techie side. I know that I have personally watched my rights being taken away from me over the past few years. Mainly my right to fair use. Under current law it is illegal to watch CSS encoded DVDs under Linux or any other Open Source operating system. What are you and your party's feelings on loosening certain restrictions to make the act of fair use a right again.
Also, on the concept of intellectual property and copyright laws. What are your party's and your feelings on the current trend of extending the length of copyright terms? Do you have any plans to reverse the current trend or perhaps to set the lengths back to their original terms?
Thanks.
---Nick Fury
What is your stance on the use of medical-marijana? What do you think can be done to change the way in which the war on drugs in America is being fought, either legalizing/decriminalizing and taxing or otherwise?
Furthermore, How will you deal with our budget deficit and reform the GOP's relentless tax cuts and the Democratic Party's exorbanent spending?
What is your stance on the DMCA and surrounding issues (upcoming acts like the INDUCE act)? Should legislation like this be curbed, watered down, or tightened?
AccountKiller
My Bad got sidetracked there and cut the first question out....
Mr Cobb,
What is your view of our national debt versus
current entitlement programs? How would you
balance the federal budget and would you support
paying off the national debt?
What in your view is the proper scope and size of the federal government?
Do you think environental issues are best solved at the federal, or local (state county etc) level?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Why doesn't the Green Party support nuclear power?
Mr. Cobb,
What do you believe is necessary for your party or any other to become a viable third party in American elections? Even though George Washington warned against having a partisan political system in his farewell speech, America seems to have developed a two-party system that forces third-parties out of the political process.
Also, what do you think of the Democratic and Republican parties shift away from what's good for America toward what is good for their respective parties and the businesses / people that support them while leaving the majority of Americans out?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
What do you see as the greatest problem with US News media? What do you think is the best way of restoring more objective news outlets? How would you change current media regulations and how would you encourage independant non-profit news outlets?
Thanks!
I think it is now becoming conventional wisdom among the American Left that America politics as a whole has moved rightwards (more conservative) in the last 30 years. Among the most cogent analyses of the move to the right are those that trace the flow of money (over $2B) from the ultra rich and the large multinational corporations to conservative rightwing foundations and thinktanks (see for example the essays at www.tcfranks.com, and google "tentacles of rage").
The more visible component of this propaganda machine are the talk radio shows and the cable tv news shows. But they sprang from, and still largely depend on, fodder from the think tanks and foundations.
Many on the American Left now accept that unless this inexorable flood of rightwnig propaganda is somehow countered or neutralized, electoral politicking (e.g., fighting to elect Kerry, or voting 3rd party) is somewhat moot, because this decades-old flood of propaganda has also moved the Democratic party to the right much the same as the GOP. Also, the undemocratic structure of the electoral political machine in America (single member, winner take all districts, etc) would seem to disempower 3rd parties except for a spoiler role.
Given the situation outlined above, what good does it do to engage in 3rd party electoral politics?
And more to the point, what can American leftists do to move America to the left, given the power that 3 decades of rightwing propaganda has had on the American political mind?
Would it be more productive trying to land a talk radio gig somewhere?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
What exactly does that mean? Registration? Licensing? Confiscation?
When The Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik was interviewed on Slashdot, there was a comment made about how disruptive it would be to implement his (and his party's) ideas. His response, in essense, was that since the only way he would get elected was if hell had frozen over, that it made sense to create a platform for that situation. While that makes for a nice way for people to give the finger to "the man", it hardly provides a real alternative to the current system.
My question is: are you guys ready or able to play on the same stage as the Democrats and Republicans, can you get the attention of the media, and can you sell your message to the average american? Convince me that voting for you would be of more use than voting for the lesser of two evils.
Mr. Cobb:
I am what is usually described in the United States as a 'liberal' or 'progressive'. As such, I share most, if not almost all of your party's ideals and goals.
Nevertheless, neither I nor anyone I know who shares my political views plan to vote for you in November. While your positions on the issues may match my own more closely than any other candidate, I believe I have a better chance of seeing at least some of my positions enacted as public policy if I vote for John Kerry.
With all due respect, Mr. Cobb, you are not going to win the election this year. To a certainty, the winner will be either John Kerry or George Bush. If George Bush is the winner, then he will continue to govern according to his extreme right-wing beliefs. Most, if not all progressive causes that you and I support will suffer significant setbacks. As President Bush will most likely be able to nominate one or more Supreme Court judges during a second term, those setbacks would long outlive his administration.
If, on the other hand, John Kerry is elected, he will govern according to the political preferences of the Democratic party. While Kerry and the Democrats are, in general, quite a bit more conservative than I am, the simple fact is that the progressive causes I support would fare far better under Kerry than they would under Bush. I am sure that a President Kerry would do things that I strongly disagree with, but I am also sure that his goals and mine are not fundamentally incompatible. In short, I am certain that I can live with Kerry, just as I am certain that I cannot live with George Bush.
According to the polls, this election is going to be extremely close. If John Kerry is to win, he needs every vote he can get. I do not have the luxury of knowing that whoever ultimately wins the election will be at least somethat acceptable to me. Bush must be defeated or the ideals I stand for will be in serious jeopardy.
Thus, my question to you is: How is voting for you, as opposed to Kerry, make it more likely that the ideals I support will be reflected in public policy? Is there a *pragmatic* reason why I and other progressives should vote for you?
On a similar train of thought, do you feel that Nader's campaign in 2000 will be more helpful or detrimental to the Green party going forward? Clearly there's been a backlash against Nader, but how much of that has carried over to the greens. Is the backlash offset by the higher visibility that the green party might now possess because of it?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Do you support the following part of the Green Party's platform?
"Maximum Income: Build into the progressive income tax a 100% tax on all income, regardless of source, over ten times the minimum wage. With this Ten Times Rule in effect under today's extremely unequal distribution of income in the U.S., a 100% tax on income above ten times the minimum wage would allow us to cut the income taxes of everyone in the bottom 99%, by over half for the top brackets, by over three-quarters in the middle brackets, and totally for the lower brackets--and still generate about 40% more tax revenues than under the current income tax structure."
you must understand, now is not the time for social experiments regarding the feasibility of >2 parties running for president. Making politcal stances is fine, I mean - I hate Bush and John Kerry is a douche bag (but im voting for him anyways.com), but it's not worth having Bush for another 4 years, because let's face it -- republicans are lemmings that hear nothing else and are much less likely to take independent stances. It's a sad state of affairs we live in now, but we free-minded people must band together a defeat this buffoon monster.
Take your statement. Switch the sides. You have exactly what some other of my friends believe.
You have been taken in the professional wrestling match that the media has presented. They are both 99.99% the same. They also would ALWAYS have you believe "now is the not the time to experiment" because they would prefer to POSSIBLY lose to the other party than DEFINITELY lose to a third.
Make your vote count! Vote Independent. Green, Libertarian, Freedom, WHATEVER!
Vote for real change.
Much of your campaign focuses on wealth distribution, and I agree with you that corporations have no rights, only actual people do. But what I have not been able to resolve with the Greens is the role corporations play in producing the goods and services that satisfy society's needs. The laws of economics prove that taxing wealth-creation (income taxes, dividend taxes, etc.) creates a disincentive for society to produce, and subsidizing consumption (of health care, etc.) creates an incentive to consume more. Before wealth can be distributed, it of course must first be created by someone. How do you get around this dilemma of decreasing production and increasing consumption as a side effect of wealth equalization? Do you have a plan to overcome the problem of distributing wealth without decreasing the amount of wealth produced for distribution?
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
While I'm sure this at least partially stems from neither of you having entrenched political positions to protect, it also mirrors my recent experience. I lean towards the Green platform, and I have many friends who are Libertarians. Our political discussions, while spirited, show some fundamental agreement on the kinds of urgent systemic change required in this country.
My question to you is, do you see an opportunity to build consensus among those of us who see through the corporate oligarchy masquerading as democracy and focus on our areas of agreement rather than our differences? Specifically, would you support the Green party and the Libertarian party running joint drives in support of campaign finance reform, control of corporatism, ballot access and voting system reform?
Delivering militantly anti-commercial music to all two people who care!
- Nuclear energy.
- High-temperature garbage incineration.
- Genetically modified foods.
All of these technologies have drawbacks, but they also have many advantages over the alternatives. Nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gases, incineration destroys toxic chemicals and does not require land fill, and GM foods can greatly reduce the amounts of pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, or water needed to grow food.What is the Green Parties' stance on these, and do you see them changing their stance in the near future?
You often point out that pretty much every developed western country except the US has some form of single payer healthcare, and I think it is a valid issue, worth dicussing. However, having lived in a few countries that operate such a system I have generally found the governments involved to be having difficulties sustaining the system.
The dilemma amounts to this: as medical science continues to advance, and as we in general live longer and longer, the amount of things that can be done continues to expand, along with the costs involved with any new technologically advanced treatments. Because of this, the costs of providing complete healthcare continue to expand at a rate faster than we can pay for. With healthcare, if something is possible, people tend to demand that it be done, even if we do not have the resources to do it.
Complete provision of healthcare simply isn't a sustainable practice as the costs are not proportionally bound by population (and hence very roughly speaking, government income), but instead by the ever expanding limits of medical science.
How do you intend to deal with this dilemma? Do you only plan to provide single payer healthcare for core and emergency services only? Do you intend to allow a parallel private health system to provide the more expensive treatments?
Thank you.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
What is your opinion of the proposal in Colorado to award electoral votes proportionally to the popular vote? It would seem this could potentially be a great benefit to your party, firstly by making the state uninteresting to the Democrats and Republicans (it would only have one or two electoral votes in play instead of nine), and also by allowing third parties to win an electoral vote with only 11% of a state rather than needing a plurality across a state (or district). How signifigant would such a change be for your party? Of other changes to the voting system that have been proposed, such as approval voting, Borda counts, etc. which would you favor to improve the viability of third parties?
Mr. Cobb, I voted for the green party in the last election, because I wanted to get you 5% of the vote, to help create a third party system. It seems like this election, you won't get anywhere near 5% of the vote, because democrats are so disillusioned with Bush and Republican are so concerned that their guy will lose. What is the goal of the Green Party in this election, raise awareness, publicity, fundraising.
Mr. Cobb. Given that you're on record saying you won't even vote for yourself if your state is close, how can anyone possibly take you seriously as a candidate for President? Given that it seems you won the nomination over Nader by taking this position, how can your party be seen as anything but an astroturf campaign for the Democrats?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
It's commonly accepted that power corrupts politicians. The Greens are always speaking out against politicians who sell favors to their corporate buddies or other special interests. But the Green party also espouses a system where the government strictly regulates most industry.
How do you propose to have such strong government controlled regulation, without falling victim to the corruption inherent in a bureaucratic system?