It is not so much a question of whether Obama succeeds, but whether or not he fails to leave the White House having made equivalent progress with other white male Presidents, not less.

It is not so much a question of whether Obama fails, but whether or not the American people succeed to have voted in, entertained, and made progress in its national architecture of human relations within the international framework of government and global relations as is the undisclosed but diplomatic objective of any people.

As far as debt is concerned, and defecit spending, have you ever compared the total debt and defecits of the USA as a percent of GDP to that of the other industrialized nations…..the result would surprise you.

If Obama comes through with his opressive taxation scheme, many will be forced to domicile their business offshore, and will ultimately reduce government revenues. Although the mere mention of the Laffer curve is probably heresy in this group, it has it’s merits.

Jeff

As far as the taxes you listed, I pay most of them, and I don’t really have a problem with them going up even though it’ll mean more taxes out of my paycheck. In general, I don’t have a problem with paying taxes so long as I get something out of them. And if the only thing I get is a lower debt, that’s good enough. Better higher taxes for debt payments than who knows how many more years of BS “emergency supplemental” spending bills to pay for our occupation of Iraq….

A few of my major problems with Obama is that he’s anti business, wants to raise taxes for everyone(despite his saying he only wants to tax the rich), raise the capital gains tax, impose windfall taxes, increase estate taxes, increase witholding taxes, and raise Social Security taxes. All in all, he voted for every tax increase that went to the floor…..some put it at him voting for a tax increase every 5 days of his senate career. His stance on unions is very inflationary and causes me concern.

I have no objection to change…..I just wish his ideas of change were spelled out concisely, quantified, and stripped of the flowery rhetoric. A good understanding of his intentions would allow the people who really pay the majority of the taxes to duck and cover.

Jeff

Seems like such criticisms of Obama amount to … just words, coming from those who seem to have little desire to inform themselves. Very helpful of you to leave that link. I’m sure I’ll be visiting it quite often to inform myself of what other Clinton-McCain talking points are doing the rounds.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

cheerio

ps: try writing a “flowery” speech sometime. Its not as easy as it appears.

pps: do let us know which one of his speeches you HAVE read. The race speech perhaps. No? The one on defense. Not that one either. The one on the economy, or the one on a vision of politics and public debate which rises above such talking-points and rumor mongering. Its a long list and you should do you hw before making unsubstantiable comments.

Better luck next time.

I used to criticize the Obama campaign for exactly what you’re saying – all flowery words, no substance. Then a hard-core primary battle forced him to develop the substance behind his words, and it’s definitely there now.

Seriously, check out his campaign site – there’s a huge amount more substance than McCain’s site. That’s probably because all the substance that McCain would add makes him less appealing to the Republican Party, not more. After all, McCain doesn’t want his supporters to remember the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, his original immigration reform proposals, his votes against restoring the Everglades, etc. because they make his current and prospective supporters less likely to support him in the future.

I’ve been told that Latin and ancient Greek don’t have words for “race,” and my Latin is far to elementary to know any better (my Greek is nonexistent). But it makes sense. Neither the Romans nor Greeks would have found classification by race to be very useful. What did the relatively light-skinned, and sometimes blond and blue-eyed, Romans have in common with the Germans? The dark-skinned Numideans and Nubians were far more civilized than the Germans and many other Celtic tribes the Romans knew.

No, the Romans and Greeks were basically strongly prejudiced against pretty much anyone who wasn’t Roman or Greek.

My experience with Europeans has been that they attach pretty strong stereotypes to nationalities. Now, I haven’t been in France since the Islamic immigration wave, so it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear much there that could be termed racist. Yet, I wonder if the Europeans, through long habit, aren’t more focused on nationality than race. Certainly, I’ve heard stronger invective against Germans there than I’ve heard against, say, Turks.

But maybe that’s because I’ve spent no time in Germany where Turks are numerous.

I never understood this paradox though I enjoyed watching its fallout everytime. But a paradox ceases to be a paradox if it is seen as the rule rather than the exception.

You won’t hear about racism in an economically ethnically and mixed community. Ultimately all forms of racism and social hatred can be traced back to the presence of economic inequality and the unwillingness of those who have to not share or care for those who don’t. Look at Africa. Why do black people keep killing other blacks? Zimbabwe, Rwanda and now South Africa.

The strongest motivator in nature is hunger. Give a man with an empty stomach platitudes and turn his hunger into hatred at real or imagined injustice and you can use him as a weapon. Over the long arc of human history such weapon’s almost always turn out to be boomerangs, but not before they have wreaked pain and suffering indiscriminately.

This is not to say that hate must not be confronted. But unless we see the real reasons we are just as likely to fan the flames as to put them out. Sadly the hard work of hate-fighting cannot be done by blogging alone. At the end one has to step away from the keyboard, and go do something about it such as feeding the hungry and helping the poor. It is the misery around us that we ignore that will everntually turn into the weapons of hate and discrimination.

Here’s the kicker – this guy and I had lived together in Los Angeles for a year prior to that, and I don’t mean lily-white OC or even Tarzana, I mean down on the ground LA. Of course there’s racial and economic segregation, but you can find street meat in the Garment District from at least five different continents, and before the gangs took over Venice Beach it was a mecca of mostly naked multiculturalism… anyway, I had NEVER heard this guy say anything even remotely racist.

As soon as he hit his home turf, it was damn the immigrant Albanians.

From time to time, Freberg would use a running gag as referred to foreigners on the show as being (in his words) “Swiss–that way, we don’t offend anybody.”

Could such be a possible solution, or is it liable to backfire on the Swiss people and nation?

The UK has racist elements and certain regions are without doubt more anti the “other”. We know about these areas because the people (often working class white poor) are more vocal. The truly insular ones are silent.

I doubt the UK was included. Black sells as well as white here, sometimes better just ask this chap:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uEVjbosMqFM

Obama’s candidacy, and possible Presidency, will force the world to confront racism in their own societies, but there will be times when global racism will confront Obama instead. We’ll be watching to see which societies need a bright light shined i…