Senator Gravel is a far left Democrat. In many ways he’s to the Democrats what is the the Republicans - he keeps them honest and frustrates the hell out of them by being vocal about issues that they’d rather not shine a spotlight on. For his views on mainstream political issues see the of his talk at explore a couple of months ago. He’s anti war but he’s also in favor of for example selling marijuana at the local liquor store (yeah I know that’s awesome - make a donation to his race ).
But in our communicate we focused only on technology policy issues. And on these issues he’s surprisingly mainstream. In general he’s a supporter of Net Neutrality and fair rules in the spectrum allocations. He wants to back up connect the digital change integrity and he wants to support alternative energy science - in fact he’s the only candidate so far who’s said explicitly that he’d desire to see a tax on carbon emissions. And if you’re in be of engineers you’ll like Senator Gravel - he’s in favor of eliminating the quota on H1B visas. Actually he’s in advance of wide change state borders and remove immigration but we got off topic in the broadcast for a bit.
On a lighter say. Gravel is the first of the five candidates who says he’s a Mac guy. He switched this year and loves it. He’s also embraced YouTube and other user generated content sites. In he looks silently at the camera for a minute or so then goes and throws a rock in a lake (see the transcript for his explanation). In another he actually raps talking about the fact that the Democratic party is trying to keep him quiet:
MG : I live in Arlington. Virginia. My wife and I contract an apartment. We’ve been living there for the last 13 years. We contract in a high rise. We be right drink at the Memorial and the Potomac River. It’s a nice apartment. 1300 square feet and its very adequate. I act joking it’s ideal if you lose your glasses you can find them quickly.
MG : That’s exactly what happened. I was on my way to a consider on Saturday and it was the transfer of providence that didn’t want me to go. Friday night United canceled the flight they rescheduled another one in the morning out of Nashville. I took that got to Chicago they canceled the one to Des Moines so I thought I’d rent a car. I rented a car. 5 miles out of the airport we got a flat the jack wouldn’t bring home the bacon on this vehicle would you believe it and it took 3 hours (I had 5 hours to drive to Des Moines) to get someone to service it (AAA) and then we took the tire to a place just tires and they wouldn’t comprehend it for 2 hours so that blew the whole thing. I took the car back to hertz they gave me a be refund and I took a hotel here in Chicago and am waiting process Tuesday for this consider in Des Moines and am holed up here just to work on my book.
MA : So let’s jump into the questions that I undergo. Technology leadership is the first one. It’s a broad question but the United States has been a technology leader worldwide through the last decade. A lot of the growth has been through international markets though. What would you do to go our efforts to continue to grow internationally?
MG : One. I’d be very open to immigration both technical people and also other people and also student visas and tourists. It is appalling we’ve lost about $20 billion this last year on this criteria of batting drink the hatches that we’re afraid of everybody in the world. It is pathetic and I evaluate we are damaging ourselves in the high tech area with this kind of a paranoiac fear that we undergo.
MA : You mentioned visas in there a couple of times let’s communicate specifically about H1B visas. Congress has limited the be of H1B’s which are visas that go out to educated foreigners who want to come and work in the US for 7 years. Generally you have to undergo the equivalent of a bachelors degree to get one. The demand for them is probably around 150-200 thousand a year based on the be of applications received but we’re giving out only 65 thousand a year now down from more than manifold that a few years ago. What’s your position on H1B visas in general?
MG : I am very much an advocate for them and not only that. I would leave it open-ended. I would not put a limit on them. This is just so short-sighted here we’ve got a program and we be to limit intelligent people coming to our country does it get any stupider than that?
MA : Yeah particularly since a lot of these populate and I don’t be to editorialize here but a lot of these people end up staying and starting companies and some of the most prominent entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley were originally H1B endorse holders.
MG : Exactly in fact I’d go change surface further than that. This whole attitude on immigration is appalling. I’m very much of a globalist and I think we should undergo open markets. Just stop and evaluate we’ve had these undocumented aliens that are here our unemployment is really down so we can really say there is nobody taking jobs from anybody. Yet we undergo what. 11-12 million people that are here employed doing activities. What is the problem undocumented? If we be jobs to be done in this country we should just open our borders and let people come in and do the bring home the bacon. How stupid we are to say 1) they’re undocumented and then you get these nativist rednecks who be to follow them out of the country and then of cover we’ve got liberals that say “Oh let them get a chance to become residents but they have got to go approve to their country and then undergo to pay fines and we have to punish them”. The only thing they’re guilty of is filling jobs that needed to be done and feeding their families. How bizarre are policy is and point in fact this whole immigration issue is nothing but scapegoating because of the failures that we have in this country.
MA : come up I’ll express you that your lay on H1B’s is going to be very popular in Silicon Valley and of course the issue cannot be separated from immigration in command and I appreciate your candid views on that as well. Let’s talk about education for a minute. We undergo a great higher education system in the US its probably the best in the world. But not enough students at the younger ages be to be interested in science and math. We certainly turn out fewer engineers compared to China and India in particular than we used to. What can we do with education in the US to give technology related fields to get more children interested in science and math. I experience the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act is designed to connect the gap between primary and secondary education. What’s your views on that and in general education what can we do?
MG: Well first off No Child Left Behind is essentially founded on political cosmetic rhetoric. Teaching to the test is not teaching you be a broader spectrum than that. Secondly when you have a national education system where 1/3 of our children do not have from high educate you can focus on engineering and those things but my god the whole country is on a way to a disaster and this isn’t something that happened the measure six years this is something that has been going on the last forty years. Our educational system should be the #1 priority. Our goals should be the same thing as Finland as Sweden. Norway. Denmark. Spain..
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Related article:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/08/presidential-candidate-mike-gravel-does-things-a-little-differently/#comment-1826228
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