OpenForQuestions - The Oil Drum Questions for Whitehouse.gov
Posted by Nate Hagens on March 26, 2009 - 2:08pm
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: barack obama [list all tags]
Yesterday I was sent (numerous times) a link to whitehouse.gov, where the White House is inviting folks to participate in a community-moderated online town hall discussing the economy and administration. Today the President will answer some of the most popular submissions live at WhiteHouse.gov. After I read a large sampling of the questions submitted, it struck me that the growing chatter on TOD and elsewhere that this economic downturn may finally signal limits to growing the type of system we have had up until now, that this is exactly NOT the type of questions they are getting in this public survey.
So I submitted a question, out of spirit of democracy (and because I think it a highly relevant question). I didn't have the technology to create a video, but it said text was acceptable. My question was this:
"Energy and natural resources, not dollars, or debt, are what we have to spend. Dollars just control who has the energy (for now). Geithner suggested today a possible global reserve currency - how would you link this currency to natural capital?"
A few hours later I looked and saw that the 'voting' on whether my question was 'most popular' had it at around 10% - almost all the questions on there I saw had 70%+ 'yes' ratings, which prompted me to submit a second question:
"It seems the whitehouse.gov most popular 'questions' are not voted on out of merit, but whether they resonate with a populist chord. Sometimes physical realities trump what is popular. How would you address this? Can our problems be dealt with by voting?"
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Please add up to two (2), (limit 150 characters each) questions you'd like answered by our government, relating to the energy/economy/environment trifecta?
Obama will likely never see my questions, nor the questions you write below. However, framing the logic, concise reasons, and necessary direction of thinking in question form in this forum may benefit others who are working along these lines.
One never knows.




k Nation (Jim Kunstler)






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