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Robert Scoble posted an entry
My fellow Democrats
September 14, 2008 3:00 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
I just visited the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon today and the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Those experiences, among others, have led me to this note. To everyone else, sorry, this is one of those times I’m going to get into politics. If you don’t like that, come back tomorrow when I’ll be at AT&T and talking about the cool technology they are showing me. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ My fellow Democrats, I keep seeing you, and the press, taking pot shots at Sarah Palin. I’ve taken a few myself, if you’ve been over on FriendFeed the past couple of weeks. You... [Tags: , , , , ]
A note to my fellow Democrats: http://tinyurl.com/6rkslr - Robert Scoble
Robert, this piece is right on the mark. Great work. Now hopefully others will take this to heart and put it into action. - Eric Newman
I really am sorry I missed you this weekend. Let me know if you're free during the day tomorrow at all. - Andrew Feinberg
A note from Scoble to Democrats and ex-Republicans - http://tinyurl.com/6rkslr - Mike Reynolds
You missed 1 trillion dollar misguided kbr war and its consequences ! - imran
Well stated, Robert. - Mark VandenBerg
"5. Our anti-science and anti-technology discourse and beliefs. In the Republican America today we are seeing a debate, not about whether science should drive our national debate, but whether religion should and, let’s just be honest, religion is winning. Stem cell research is being forced off our shores. That research will still be done, albeit now it’s done over in some other country. More $150,000 jobs down the drain." - Russellreno
Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive My fellow Democrats « - Russellreno
lets face it this pick was diversionary tactic that worked for mccain, the old look over there not over here, and the media took the bait and dry humped that cash cow, now were potentially fucked, potentially. - adolfo foronda
Well said. It starts and ends with education for me. from pre-K to grad school, the U.S. educational system is having problems despite its great potential. Only about half of the students in South Carolina who start high school graduate. Those who start college are often only a step or two above illiterate and innumerate. They can't write and want answers to be canned and spoon-fed to them. Of course I'm generalizing and students run the gamut. But I've seen far too many who just want the degree without the effort. The question is: what can government do? What should government (state or national) do? - steplow
imran: good point. That drains resources too that could be used to improve our competitiveness. - Robert Scoble
Excellent points Robert. - Jeff P. Henderson
@steplow If the person doesn't want an education, can you force them to have one? You can lead a horse to water... - Mark VandenBerg
A great post Robert. Speak to people about something they can aspire to, stop treating them like you think they are inbred sheep and jsut maybe Obama can get momentum back. - Soulhuntre
But with a complete and admitted lack of experience, how will that happen Robert? Biden admits Hilary is the better VP choice and Obama himself admits his Lack of experience to run on a national ticket.By your travels to these locations you been to should tell you how important knowing history is, Obama does not even know how many states there are! To want a party to win for the sake of winning is not in the best interest of the USA. A call to action is not enough without a leader with a record of action and experience.I respect your technical views, but you are off on your candidates. Time to re-evaluate Robert. - Thomas Capote
Andrew: tomorrow I'm headed to NYC, sorry. - Robert Scoble
Nahhh. It's the second inning. Lots more baseball to be played. - Dave Winer
Thomas: Obama has a LOT of experience calling on us to be better. The last administration was the most experienced in history and look how it screwed up. And, anyway, you don't get to pull the experience card anymore. That debate is totally over now. - Robert Scoble
I agree with you on the point of what has to change. But you are saying that Republicans are more liberal than Democrats are, which is stupid. So much of America is more conservative than the Republican Party is showing today. - Randy
@Robert: Thanks for the thought provoking post. - imran
Why is it up to the government to fix the very problem they've created? It's funny, but every one of your talking points are in agreement to where McCain stands. C'est la vie. - peterbokunet
Weren't you smitten and totally tricked by the pretty guy who cheated on his wife? - Douglas Karr
I wish one day KBR subcontracting awards/terms/prices are released/leaked. - imran
Douglas: yes, I was smitten and totally tricked by John McCain who cheated on his handicapped wife. Thanks for noticing. - Robert Scoble
The same cultural and intellectual arrogance that Democrats displayed in 2004 is back again in 2008. Point well made to get focused on things that matter before Democrats are left stunned on November 5th wondering what happened, empty threats to move to Canada, buying bumper stickers that say "don't blame me," etc... - Peter Kim
Haha - awesome Robert! I bow to your snarky rebute. :) - Douglas Karr
Scoble's all weepy about the election, but sheez, it's just the second inning. Lots more ball to play. http://bit.ly/1mJ5oe - Dave Winer
Mark, I agree and that's part of the problem, not only with the economy, but with the future prospects of the nation generally. - steplow
Great post, Robert. I've been seeing the same actions from people around me, and it's sad to see Democrats take the easy way out and give up hope for the future. I feel like the nation is at a turning point and to pass up on this opportunity will just continue to further our slide from one of the greatest nations in the world. We don't want to just be "ok" as a country, we want to be "great" and that's not easy. (Also, don't be so quick to blame religion, we're not happy with the situ either.) - Sam Dodge
peterbokunet: really? Well, then, why did McCain hire Palin if he really wants to solve these problems? It's pretty clear he's not executing on those "plans" very well, if you really care about them. - Robert Scoble
Or perhaps high tech jobs are leaving for the same reason low tech jobs are leaving...wages are higher here than in other countries. You can improve U.S. education and loosen immigration all you want, but if doing business in China improves your bottom line, companies will hire in China. - Ontario Emperor
As much as I loved Robert's retort, McCain is not the least bit pretty. - MiniMage
Ontario: the CEOs tell me that it's not just the high wages here (which have gotten a lot lower due to the weak dollar, actually). They tell me they can't bring over here the smartest workers. They can't deal with the high medical costs. They can't deal with the uneducated workforce that's not ready for jobs in science and technology. They can't deal with the infrastructure here (bad transporation systems for moving their workers around, and bad broadband into the home so they are less able to work at home) - Robert Scoble
Great essay. - Sean McBride
@Robert: I always thought if our government spent one trillion dollars on a new Marshall plan to develop the world after 2001, just imagine, where economy of the world would be today, remember oil barrel price was at mid 20s at start of war. - imran
Weren't we told by the Dems a while back that cheating on your wife in the Oval office was just fine and not a cause for concern? McCains history is not an issue for me - the guy is flawed but human. I can accept that about people. I am not a brittle moralist. - Soulhuntre
just posted this - http://tinyurl.com/yesman - needless to say i think there is a place for concentrating on the shortcomings of the incumbent administration, especially if a candidate is so obviously shaping up to perpetuate them. that said, i will answer Robert's call for something positive, and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments behind it. important post. - Dan Light
Great post. I think the key to this election may very well be the economy. In middle America - where the Republicans dominated 4 years ago, people are tired of watching their retirement accounts shrink, as the price of day to day living: gas and groceries continues to rise. If the democrats can come up with a specific plan of attack, this may very well be the point that tips the election. - Lorraine Ball
Actually, Soulhuntre, I think the Dems said that having a consentual affair with one person wasn't evidence of illegally pressuring someone else to bestow favors. - MiniMage
Obama should propose temporarily lifting the costs for bringing money into the US. They did this after 9/11 and billions were brought back into the country by all sorts of corporations. Those dollars went into Domestic investment and really helped things out. He could win over a lot of business votes with that move. - Andrew Burd
Soulhuntre - No one said it was fine for anyone to cheat on their wife. Just that it shouldn't be the subject of a congressional investigation and impeachment. - Andrew Burd
@MiniMage - some did. But many, many more went on and on about how character doesn't matter, only policies matter. They never really understood why folks might care about the core of a persons views. Am I thrilled McCain had an affair? Nope. Am I happy to take that flaw over a personality that lets someone cut a shady deal with a guy like Rezco and hag out will Bill Ayers? You bet. - Soulhuntre
Coastal elites want to talk about education, science and technology and infrastructure; hillibillies (like Soulhuntre) are fixated on extra-marital affairs. Exhibit A -- America is in major decline as the world's leading economic superpower. - Sean McBride
Great essay. The main problem -- declining education, declining literacy, declining science and technology, declining generation of intellectual capital vis-a-vis our competitors -- all the other problems flow from those core problems. And the current Republican Party is pandering to a fundamentalist base which seems to hate intellectual activity. We may well be at the end of our run as the world's leading economic superpower. - Sean McBride
@Andrew Burd - many, many dems here in the NYC area (since that is where I meet the most people) didn't care about it at all. They simply denied that it shoudl be a factor in how they saw the man at all. The impeachment stuff was a whole other deal I was not a big fan of. - Soulhuntre
My fellow Democrats - Rob Diana
Interesting how this started with me asking Democrats to avoid aiming at Republican groins, but now Republicans are aiming at our groins. Damn, can't we do better than this? I guess not. - Robert Scoble
Robert, listen to the DSC Podcast with Adam Curry. Check out http://drop.io/dailysourcecode You've got a lot to learn. - bill giltner
Most of the problems you cite stem from cultural anti-intellectuallism. I'm not sure what any government or person can do to make America value intellectualism more - we're simply a nation that's become too complacent in our success, and hasn't been able to think for ourselves to solve a problem in a long, long time. Republicans exploit it, but they didn't create it. And I don't think the Democrats can do anything to change it. - Eric
Scoble - love the post. One thing I'd like to ask. Why is that many republicans live to call anyone that is a Democrat a "liberal" or "socialist?" It's like their two year old only this is their new way of callig someone a "poopy head?" I'm always up for healthy debate over the good and bad of both parties but geesh, when the other party can't talk like an adult, it makes it awfully hard to have a productive coversation. - Aaron Strout
I'd vote for any candidate who built a platform around improving the US based on your 6.5 points. Democrat or Republican, these are all extremely important issues. The Reps have already picked which side they want to be on (http://bit.ly/17CClx). I'd like to see the Dems stake as a strong a position. - Chris
Robert - The one problem I had with the post was the lumping legal and illegal immigrants together. America is not mad at legal immigrants. It's the ones who intentional break our laws to get into the country. Come one, come all, but do it legally. Immigration is one of the things that makes our country great. - Raymond Phillips
while I agree 95% with your post, just a minor not: Reagan didn't ask German's to tear down the wall, he asked Gorbachev - but in the end, it was us Germans who tore it down with the tacit understanding that Gorbachev would let it happen - I don't think Reagan's speech had a lot of influence over the millions of protesters in Eastern Germany :) - Frederic
I think it's BOTH AND. I think we should both be talking about the issues dear to us AND pointing out the most newsworthy facts about Palin as President in Waiting because no one in her position has been as woefully prepared. That's not pot shots. That's fact. And too many would forget Keating Five in favor of focusing on the positive. In the end, humor and satire (i.e. wit and intellect) will take down the GOP, not blogging. Tina Fey and Sarah Benincasa, I love you. - jeneane sessum
On the show The Communicators on CSPAN rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/de/com091308_mcdowell.rm The FCC speaks to the point of the US not really being 19th in the world for broadband. It's not as bad as people make it to be. Check it out. He speaks to net neutrality as well. - Lee Bautista
Wow, everyone has very good comments to Robert's great post. Robert, let me just say that while I'm a republican, I would echo your call to arms... While I do not necessarily agree the Democratic candidates are the correct recourse - a change in direction is most assuredly necessary. Unfortunately, the collective 'we' continue our in-fighting to such a degree we miss the important things such as horrendous medical costs and anti-immigrant sentiment (what happened to the great melting pot?). - ChangeForge
My fellow Democrats - AJ Batac
You know what I hate? I hate that Robert felt he had to say "My fellow Democrats" rather than "My fellow Americans". Personally, I don't identify with either party, but I can promise you there are Republicans who care about these issues too and even are on the same side as Robert is on some/most of them. The far right pollutes the Repulican name, just as the far left pollutes the Democrats - but Americans are mostly bunched up around the center - and it's only by working together we'll make real changes. - Don MacAskill
good post robert. unfortunately, most americans tend to vote with their heart, not with their head. karl rove has a much better sense of what gets votes than the dems, altho i hope that obama can ris above. still, i agree the issues you selected are pretty much the ones i care about too (particularly: education, immigation, infrastructure... healthcare too, but that needs a hell of a lot more work) - dave mcclure
Robert, as I stated in my previous post, your own candidates admit the are not the right choice for the country.http://twurl.nl/h51657andhttp://twurl.nl/2xj8jwand last but not least:http://twurl.nl/ezgmeoThis is your own candidates and your party speaking.Hard to beat your own facts. - Thomas Capote
Other countries always did a good job in many fields, the difference is now Americans are paying attention to that. Big world out there. - Adriano Gonçalves
+1 Don. - ChangeForge
Really good post. For a moment, I actually thought we'd have a policy debate this election, but we're back to celebrities, moose burgers & lipstick. I'd love to see a push to discuss these issues. (Of course, I also think the Democrats have better answers, but I'd still like to hear the debate anyway.) - Paul Rodriguez
Education will never change under any Democrat. The Teachers Unions will see to that. Obama has already had to back off from any talk of vouchers, merit pay, and allowing capable people to teach whether or not they have a four-year education degree. Teachers Unions have crippled our educational system for decades and Democrats are the cause of that, not the solution. - Dawn

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