Scripting News - Latest Comments in Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

brittany — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:50:55 -0000

it will change just beleive because if you dont believe it will never happen. Like from the movie peter pan wendy didnt believe in tinkerbell and tink was dieing well when she believed tink came to life. so believe

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Ab — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:52:58 -0000

If Obama is for Change, He hasn't done a lot of changing in his terms in IL and Washington. McCain will just be Bush '08 But at least a true american patriot. I'd prefer Nader if you really want change.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Will Cate — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:55:57 -0000

Well, I didn't actually use the word "earn," but I'm perfectly comfortable with it. Your comment smacks of a bit of class-envy, no?

The circumstances of the dissolution of McCain's first marriage don't really concern me. Marriage is the very personal business of those who are married. I seem to recall a 2004 candidate who also married into a great deal of money.

And the average voter under 40 doesn't even know what Keating Five means, but that fact notwithstanding, McCain (and John Glenn) were both exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee in that case.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Bryan Schappel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:49:15 -0000

I take issue with the word "earn". In the public sector the employee benefits are far and away more superior than anything in the private sector. He's had top-notch FREE healthcare all of his life. He's never been without it and never will be. I've lived without it and it sucks. It makes you appreciate it when you get it. It's been his norm.

He was married to a model when he went to Vietnam. She was disfigured in an accident while he was imprisoned. She wrote him all the time to keep his spirits up. When he saw her when he got home he got a marriage license to his current super wealthy wife BEFORE he was divorced from wife #1. Opportunistic at the least.

Let's not forget McCain was part of the Keating Five.

The press is giving McCain a huge pass on large parts of his past.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Micah Hobart — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:58:43 -0000

Wow you are crazy. I am doing all I can to get McCain elected. You think the economy is tough now? Wait to Obama gets his say in things. Our future is too important to entrust to a rookie who's only been in office 2 years. The last thing we need is the government controlling everything we do, the health care we get, the education our children receive, and all the while being complicit and negotiating with known terrorists.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Joshua Francis Whalen — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:36:54 -0000

Exactly my point. The junk gets left behind, the lessons get baked-in, and we move on. At last.

The real tragedy of the past 30 years is the way in which common-sense issues like renewable energy sources, healthy dietary standards, reproductive freedom, inter-ethnic equality, gender equality, etc... got lost in a tug of war that mostly had it's roots in who got labled "uncool" and who got invited to the good parties at Yale and Harvard in the late '60's and early '70's. ANYTHING that was associated with the dirty h ippies got labeled un-american, even if it was something as common-sensical as a lower-fat diet.

Granted, that's a massive over-simplification, but I've always been a believer in party politics, i.e., that American politics is mostly about who's parties you get invited to. In a less frivolous context, you could really say that all politics is about the pursuit of alpha-status, that is, about mating privileges. The guy with the alpha female is automatically the alpha male, and vice-versa. If you look at it that way, it goes a long way towards explaining the disproportionate interest we seem to have with politicians sex lives. We want to believe our leaders are competent, but since alpha's never amount to more than 10% of a population, most of us don't want to be reminded that alphas get laid more than the majority of us do. When we're reminded of this, it sets off a dominance battle, which in our society is manifested as a media feeding frenzy, or an impeachment proceeding. Of course, cvonversley, if Clinton had been having an affair with say, Uma Thurman, the republicrats would have done their best to cover it up, because it would have contributed to his alpha-ness.

I used to breed and train big, primitive dogs (Malamutes, Belgian Sheepdogs, Wolves) for a living. You learn a lot about the importance of mating behavior in the construction of social heirarchies when you have to keep a dozen or so 100 lb. plus carnivores from killing each other every day.

Likewise, the resistance that each generation applies to it's successor is largely an expression of one's reproductive fitness. when you can't hold off the young wolves anymore, your mating days are over.

I mention all this, because such a disproportianate percentagve of the political log jams today stem from on-going conflicts between the percieved winners and losers of the late '60's/early 70's mating games. The dirty hippies got all the good (girls/boys), and everyone else is STILL jealous. The most perverse expression of this is the way the -self-perceived less-reproductively-successful try to get revenge by sabotaging the winner's offspring.

Thank FSM it's almost over.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

RacerRick — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:22:43 -0000

I don't think Columbo is the right reference. He seemed like a bumbler, but it was all a brilliant act.

Also, your buddy Jason Calacanis used a Columbo reference in his email newsletter yesterday as well!

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

fdsa — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:04:28 -0000

community organization? another term for rallying a voting block to suck from the public teat

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Guest — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:50:06 -0000

I think you are trying to purposely misinterpret exactly what I mean. Does life begin at fertilization or not? No degree required, just common sense.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Jim Oakley — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:24:56 -0000

Oh, I meant "We, the outside world..", not the other way around.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Will Cate — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:19:00 -0000

I don't begrudge McCain for a life of civil service. I wish he had some private sector experience, but saying he's "lived off the public teat" makes him sound like a welfare mama. I think he's worked for it.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

fdsa — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:44:25 -0000

"right-wing" and religious right are the same...

The vast right wing conspiracy comes to mind.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

fdsa — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:43:07 -0000

Federal tax subsidies are often engineering practices where the gov't is trying to force some sort of behavior.

The corporate welfare often comes at the lower levels. No property taxes. Education subsidies for training programs. Free parking. Etc.

Followed up by the congressman "bringing home the bacon" to his district to keep a poor business/employer afloat or thriving.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

fdsa — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:40:20 -0000

Amen on the cap gains.

When politicians talk about raising taxes on the wealthy and follow that up with raising income taxes on higher earned incomes instead of on cap gains/dividends, it is annoying.

Tax the wealth, not the payroll.

Of course, AARP would jump into that fight.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

fdsa — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:35:35 -0000

In terms of generation, I look forward to a presidential campaign where discussions of vietnam do not exist. And with no draft for all of the skirmishes over the last 25 years, I doubt we'll see candidates with any direct military involvement.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Joshua Francis Whalen — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:37:19 -0000

Yeah, I wanted to clock him one for that, too. It's not Obama I believe in, it's simply the changing of the guard that he represents that has me optimistic. I don't have faith in politicians, period. None. I have faith in inevitable historical processes, the changes they necessitate, and the possible routes to successful implementation of said changes. We've done what we've done and our options are what our options are because of that. In that context, he's not a bad choice.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Bryan Schappel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:50:08 -0000

I'm more with you than against you. Yes, many HUGE parts of the US Gov't should be jettisoned but we'll disagree as to which ones (at least on some of them). We'll agree that no one in DC has the guts to propose and push through the changes.

I believe that government can work. I think there are many things that the public sector can and should provide for the PEOPLE of the United States. If Obama can come in and energize the citizenry and Congress to fix things then all the better. Sometimes the new guy with big ideas is what we need. If he can't get his ideas implemented then we vote him out. I am certain that McCain offers no new ideas.

In 2000 I liked McCain. I felt really bad that he got torpedoed by Bush. Now, he's too old, not terribly coherent, and he's making things up as he goes along. (I'm a Goldwater Republican, I'm a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, I'm just like Reagan, I'm for all the Bush policies but I'm not GW, etc.)

I just think using the "tax and spend" label for everyone in the Democratic party is unfair. Slapping a label on someone is the worst way to have public discourse. We've gotten too sound-bitten.

I'm willing to give a new guy a chance. McCain has not built anything by himself. He's lived off of the public teat all his life. Obama is young enough that his experience in local politics and community organization are still fresh in his mind. He's also a bright, well educated person. Being liked by the rest of the world is also a plus in my book.

I don't buy the argument that you need experience to be president. What experience does McCain have? Our country has a long history of inexperienced presidents.

I hate the two party system but I am very worried about what another Republican president will do to the Supreme Court. It's far too conservative.

Too many things to write about. I'm rambling. Guess I need a blog of my own!?

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Brian Ehmann — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:53:25 -0000

Sure, Change like a 13% tax increase for my tax bracket? Sorry, but I didn't go to college and spend my nights and weekends in books just so I can make more money to give to the Federal government. Plus, I, like many Americans, am stretched financially. If Obama takes an extra $1000 per month out of my paycheck I won't be able to make my mortgage payment and I'll lose my house.

Sorry, but losing my home is not the kind of Change I want to believe in.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Will Cate — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:52:27 -0000

re: "left-wing"

Yeah, I'll cop to that. It's a modus operandi.... ;-)

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Will Cate — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:50:35 -0000

RE: why do they need tax dollars and subsidies?

They don't. I'm with you there. No federal tax subsidies of any kind to any company. But that alone is not a good enough reason for me to vote Obama.

The cap. gains tax, I admit, doesn't touch everybody, or perhaps even most people. I was just using Dave as an example. My only point is that Obama will raise taxes and raise spending to fund a potpourri of "programs."

If it were up to me I would eliminate huge portions of the federal government (IRS, Dept. of Education, Dept. of Commerce) to save money. Don't think either candidate is gonna go there, though....

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Boredcollegekid — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:11:59 -0000

How can I put faith in Obama? I supported him through the primaries due to his support of FISA. Then after the primaries are over and he is the candidate, he changes his mind, goes against everything he said in the primary campaigns and votes for it. Thats not the only flip-flop hes done, but people seem to forget these. Seriously Dave how can stand behind someone who doesn't even know what position he himself holds?

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Bryan Schappel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:16:30 -0000

98% of America will pay capital gains ONCE in their lives. That time is when they sell their home. The other 2% of America has the capital gains tax rate as their income tax rate. I don't have any investments worth $2.3M. I make a fraction of 2.3M per year. My federal income tax rate is about 30%.

Face it the most wealthy Americans pay far less taxes (as a percentage of income) compared to anyone else in the country. That is not equitable.

Corporations have rigged the tax code so that they pay virtually no corporate income taxes. Compare the tax records from the 1950's to now. A very stark difference. This is inequitable. It's even more so when you consider all of the corporate welfare.

If corporate America is so great why do they need tax dollars and subsidies? Obama wants to reverse some of this. Is that so bad? If so, why?

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Disgruntled — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:45:21 -0000

The worst reason to vote for a candidate is that he's not someone else (someone else who isn't even running, by the way). Obama will win, but will be a lot like Clinton; he will do a lot of things which are bad for the country in the name of "bipartisanship." The Democrats should have fielded a better candidate.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Joshua Francis Whalen — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:10:13 -0000

What I find significant in the potential of an Obama presidency is the ascendancy of my generation to political center stage. Obama appeals to me, not because of anything he has said or done in his campaign, but because of where he comes from and where he's been and his particular journey to where he is now.

In 1984, I was one of two lower east side housing activists who established a liason with the student anti-aparthied coalition at columbia university. The anti-aparthied movement had been brewing for almost a decade, but that was the year it began to boil.

I approached the leadership of the movement with the concept of establishing linkage between the ethnicity-driven apartheid of South Africa with the economics driven divisions that were emerging in the USA and particularly NYC at the time.

Out of this emerged the Direct Action Network, which drove the divestment of NYC's assets from SA's economy. We did this by intefering with the daily operations of all of SA's NYC based operations through various non-violent (but decidedly disruptive) methods, and it worked. It's pretty likely Barack Obama was in the room at a lot of those meetings. I won't name names, but many of the people I worked with in those early days now hold significant positions in the left wing of the Democratic party, or what I prefer to call the post-left wing. That was a phrase we used amongst ourselves in those days to describe our politics, and the infamously hijacked phrase "New Paradigm". When Clinton hijacked that phrase it made me sick to my stomach, especially since his use of it bore no resemblance to our agenda.

Barack Obama didn't go to Yale. He went to Columbia. I'm a very litigious person, and I've worked with a lot of lawyers over the years. The Yaleies all act like they belong to a club, and your and your case are food for both sides lawyers. Ultimately, a Yale attorney works for the Yaleie legal elite. I have met NO exceptions to this rule. Columbia lawyers work for their clients. Yale is the most anglo-centric university in the Ivy League, Old Boy Elite U. Columbia is tied with Brown for most progressive, and easily leads the Ivy's in minority and economically challenged accessibility. Your school has a lot to do with how you see the world moving forward. Every thing you do with your life as an adult begins there. Columbia, in the early 80's, formed Obama's views. You can use the same words and phrases as another politician, and they can mean two entirely different things in practice. A welfare state, for example, to a Yaleie is the horror show we endured in the 70's and '80's: 4 out of 5 dollar budgeted for human services spent on making sure no one cheats, and hideous public housing projects that acted as incubators for poverty, drugs, disease, and despair, or for a Columbian, it means the very successful paradigm adopted by countries like sweden and Denmark, a system that vcatches you when you fall, prividess equal health services for all, and equal educvational opportunities for all.

In those day, any time you engaged in any political action left of the center, you invariably were inundated with people fighting over the last battles of the '60's. As I told RJ Smith of the Village vVoice in 1988, the principal differences between people my age and those even only a few years older than us was the way certain ideas were controversies for older people, but for us were simply a done deal. Gender, and ethnic equality, were simply the way it was for people my age raised in progressive families, not the way it would be someday. For us, it was that way then. It had never been otherwise in our lives in our communities, only in the minds of older or much less educated people form other parts of the country that we had so little in common with we might well have been from different epochs, let alone different countries.

That kind of nails it: Obama grew up in the America I grew up in: multi-ethnic, gender neutral, pro-choice, and mildly socialistic, but still entrepreneurial (hence post-left: Workers of the world.... relax.) and highly individualistic. The barriers we heard about on television seemed like transmissions from another planet, one we only visited when we went shopping on route 17 in New Jersey for bargains. Across the river, another planet.

I suppose I sound like an elitist. Well, Barack gets called that a lot, doesn't he? But he and I belong to a special fraternity. We're the kids who were raised for the future that died with the election of Ronald Reagan, and we are both two of the very proud few who didn't throw in the towel and resign ourselves to life in 'Murka, but stuck to our principles, critiqued the errors that led to the Reagan-Bush error, and re-invented America. His victory is my victory. There hasn't been a presidential candidate I could say that about before. The globe in his 1st grade classroom was surfaced with the apollo 7 photographs of earth, and there were no thick black lines around the countries all in different colors like they were just a few years earlier. That is change. Even if his agenda never deviates from the old party line, I can count on the fact that his implementation will, because he comes from the same planet I come from: the beautiful blue one with no thick black lines, where the borders are all in your mind.

BTW, I was born in March, 1961, at NY Infirmary on 14th st. In Manhattan.

Re: Obama does mean change, here's why (Scripting News)

Will Cate — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:54:18 -0000

And Dave, here's a concrete example. You sold Weblogs.com to VeriSign in 2005 for $2.3 million (wikipedia). That means you paid $345,000 in capital gains tax (15%), assuming the company was debt-free.

Obama has proposed a increase in CGT to a rate of 20%, but certainly has not ruled out increases up to even 28% (source: ABC News).

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt & stick with 20%. That is still a one-third increase in the rate! For the same capital gains you realized with the Weblogs sale, under Plan Obama you would have paid $115,000 more in taxes. Ya know, a hundred-thousand here & a hundred-thousand there, & pretty soon you're talking about real money.

It's so obvious it almost... mathematical.