Slashdot Mirror
IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama
antipeon alerts us to a presidential preference survey, done in late February and early March, indicating that Obama and McCain lead among IT workers with 29% each. Clinton follows with 13%, just ahead of Huckabee (11%) and Ron Paul (9%). The Computing Technology Industry Association commissioned the poll, and the article notes that this trade group claims the population of IT workers is four times as large as the Bureau of Labor Statistics thinks it is — the better to make a voting block whose views must be attended to.
I had the pleasure of growing up in one of the few really integrated towns/school districts. I had many black friends but none that would invite me over because they were afraid of what their father would say.
Rev. Wright is sadly enough the norm...
It would be nice if we could brush the situation under the rug, but we can't and we shouldn't. I don't believe that Obama shares the Rev. thinking, and I can understand why he doesn't disown him.
If you really want to find out the current status of race relations in the US watch some of the Chris Rock videos on youtube.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Michelle Obama tends to typify a large segment of black America in her vehemence, with a Chicagoan's fervor. I have neighbors that are similarly vehement. When I see how black women are often subjugated and marginalized in actuality and rhetorically in urban America, I understand where she's coming from. When you consider how the Bush administration's done little to help veracity in the presidency, and has played character assassination politics, hugging a small but vocal marginalized segment of the Christian 'Right', I applaud her desire to be vocal about what she believes in.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
cahoots? I think you're mistaken. He wasn't in cahoots with anyone. This whole thing got blown WAY out of proportion because the media tried to crucify (pardon the expression) Obama. What about John McCain and Hagee? I think you need to watch Wright's speech in its entirety before you pass judgement, I think you should see the whole picture first. And in any case, who cares? You're feeding into the propaganda machine. And FYI, the Clintons had invited Rev. Wright to the White House in '98..
Agreed. I don't see any real difference between IT people and other people politically, except that IT people tend to me a bit more libertarian (and obviously concerned with a politician's IT platform). One time a non-CS friend asked me why computer science people lean libertarian, and I honestly couldn't answer... when most polls show Ron Paul at under 5%, why do 10% of IT people support him?
Poll after poll has one consistent trend; people still find passive sexism normal and acceptable.
If you want the media, from the SNL skit to even hard topics the past weeks, the media is very afraid of walking the racism line (except FOX that might as well wear white hoods).
However the media isn't as afraid of walking the sexism line and even pander to sexist tendencies that are instilled in Americans to the point they disappear from perception.
The media shouldn't be as afraid of race as they are, even Barack pushes this issue and says we need a more open dialogue to help in breaking down the latent fences that are still left in portions of the country and in portions of people's minds that have been indoctrinated by it their entire.
We need the media to realize this about sexism as well, and reopen that dialogue as well. I met a student on her way to becoming a constitutional lawyer just last year, and she even had sexist ideals that made her believe Hillary being a woman disqualified her. And in other aspects of life this person is smart, liberal even, and wants to be a federal judge. Anyone else find that mouth dropping that conflicted 'beliefs' like this still exist?
Sadly though, if you are sensitive to sexist tones, remarks, etc - you like me would be horrified with the current election cycle and how little progress has been made in this regard.
There are an enormous amount of items from this primary that I take issue with from the press to the other presidential candidates regarding sexism. We are still in the 60s and 70s with regard to sexism, and sadly people are more PC so it is just more hidden.
From the press pointing out how 'emotional' Hillary is, but when other canidates did the same thing, it was candor and 'emotional' was never used. There are too many of these examples to note.
Anyway, I truly had hoped Americans had come further with regard to sexism, and the ignorance associated, and sadly the IT world isn't any better. You would think that the IT world would respect Intelligence and stop to realize on average Woman run 20% smarter than men, and the highest IQ goes to women, beating the highest male IQ by almost 40 points. But I guess if geeks like to look at dumb blondes and boobs, maybe this is all they will think of when crossing the issue of the gender differences.
In contrast to the Democratic candidates, McCain is a tool. McCain lost all conservative respect when he started supporting the Bush admin economic policies, even though he had voted against most of them.
McCain may be from Arizona, but he doesn't have the disciplined principles that Goldwater did.
(This is where I recommend any of the last 3 John Dean books for Republicans/Conservatives/Anyone to read that think the current party is either conservative or believes in smaller government. In addition to being in the middle of the Nixon administration, Dean was a friend of Goldwater and Conservatives WIHTOUT a Conscience is a book they started together, as a direct response to the movement of the party from Reagan to Newt and how horribly off track Goldwater felt they were.)
I like both Hillary and Barack, they have some real principles and 'new' ideas from the horrifying Bush legacy. At this point, I would seriously vote for Colbert before I would Republican for President or Congress. At lesat he knows he's joking. They had 6 years of all Republican controlled government with rubberstamp everything, and it was the largest spending and worst policy period in American History. No more chances for Republicans until their party finds it ideals and real conservatism at its core.
Looking at the Clintons' record on H1B visas and Hillary's deep connections with companies like India's Tata (remember this http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-22654114_ITM) its no surprise that IT professionals are rejecting her. She's all for sending our jobs overseas.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Obama offers real hope for the future. A future with Obama will change the politics of Washington and provide hope for America. The future needs more hope and this will only happen if we have real change, because the future is ahead of us and it needs a lot more hope. Change will provide the hope we need and the future, guided by the past, will be changed for the better.
Change is what America needs. Otherwise hope will wain and the future will be like the past, only with even less hope. The future will provide real hope when Obama brings the needed change. That is why I think the change Obama offers is what we need for a more hopeful future.
Anyhow, I hope you will change your mind in the future and vote for Obama.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
McCain is against net neutrality (and I sense he doesn't understand the issue either) while Obama is for protecting net neutrality and - judging by the way his campaign is ran - is a lot more tech savvy than the other remaining candidates.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Think about it. If he's been there for 20 years and never heard him say that kind of thing, isn't it logical to assume that he didn't say that kind of thing a whole lot?
Look at when he said it. It was right after 9/11. Everybody was saying crazy shit for a few weeks after 9/11. People were seriously proposing that airline passengers be required to fly in hospital gowns. Pat Robertson was blaming the whole thing on the gays. I was ready to join the marines.
What could possibly make an IT person vote for McCain? He doesn't seem likely to even have a cellphone, let alone relate at all to anything IT people have to deal with. He's confessed he doesn't understand the economy. His Republican anti-immigration policies don't protect any IT jobs. What makes him seem like he could possibly represent their interests as president?
--
make install -not war
I'm a bit surprised IT workers are split. While I voted for McCain for Senate while living in Phoenix, I feel Obama is much stronger on tech issues. Here's what really sold me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4yVlPqeZwo
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Is there an IT Policy matrix to compare the candidates? I know that both Clinton and Obama are in favour of net neutrality, and McCain opposes it, but what of the other issues? I know Ralph Nader is against software patents, but I don't have a clue about the other candidates stance on that.
Hell yes Bush did. He looked GREAT on paper:
My point is that resume bullets look good when you don't have to give the details; i.e. rejected by law school and daddy got him into the Guard to duck combat service, CEO of several failed companies, ripped off tax payers of Houston on the stadium deal then turned around and sold team to reap profit from stadium tax, only got into Yale because of legacy, etc.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Outside of science, technology, HB-1s, education, and a few other issues, IT workers don't have enough common interests to be a "voting block."
Your social class, religion/world view, general political leaning left or right, and to a lesser extent, gender, sexual orientation, are stronger "block identifiers" than your career choice.
On many big issues, including abortion, the war in Iraq, gay rights, the economy, etc. IT workers are just as divided as the rest of the country.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
when most polls show Ron Paul at under 5%, why do 10% of IT people support him?
Because many IT folks were fed libertarian talking points throughout their adolescence in the form of American science fiction. American sci-fi is disproportionately libertarian, with even an annual award (the Prometheus Award) given out by the Libertarian Futurist Society. Many famous names in sci-fi including Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Neil Stephenson, David Brin, Larry Niven, and Vernor Vinge are/were associated with establishment libertarianism, and even Heinlein (who was supposedly co-opted by the libertarians ("TAANSTFL")) did little to publicly correct the impression that he favored anarcho-libertarian ideology.
Now twenty years later many IT folks have libertarianism sunk in very deep indeed.
The entire text of the sermon can be read here. The worst bits, the ones that get all the play, are essentially Wright quoting someone else, inside a parenthetical aside from his main disquisition, using an essentially "devil's advocate" voice. Jerry Falwell's comments, even in context, on the same topic were far worse.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
So what makes you think McCain is Bush #2? A bunch of very weak reasoning. For example, if I have a senate bill that is for the kids, then you must be against the kids if you oppose this bill, am I right? Of course, I'm right. Same sort of argument holds for "anti-torture". Similarly, it's to Bush's advantage to back someone in the next election. The fact that he waited this long to endorse McCain indicates to me a certain lack of enthusiasm. He doesn't have other choices. He's not going to back Obama or Clinton, for example.
The fact that McCain doesn't automatically throw away the "military option" when dealing with Iran is just common sense. Even Obama and Clinton can't throw out the military option, though it's not clear to me that they realize this. It'd be nice for international politics to not require considerable loss of life at times, but that's currently impossible. If the US president rules out military action, then the US loses a considerable portion of its negotiation power in restricting Iran from getting nuclear weapons. While you might not care that much who has nuclear weapons, the world is transitioning from a few nuclear powers with a great deal of space between (such as the US and USSR) to a large number of nuclear powers where many are close to each other. Currently there is one such danger spot Pakistan, India, and China. If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, then Iran and Israel will be another such hotspot.
The problem is that these rivals are very vulnerable to nuclear strikes. For example, a surprise first strike by Iran on Israel with say half a dozen nuclear weapons would probably wipe out all resistance, most life, and any nuclear response by Israel that depends on nukes stationed in Israel. Even if Iran wouldn't ever dare do such a thing doesn't mean that Israel knows that. So if the situation ever gets to the point where the nuclear forces of these two countries is on hair-trigger alert, then we are ripe for an accidental nuclear war. The same is true for Pakistan, India, and China. Other parts of the world, like South America and Africa have been known to research nuclear weapons. And the knowledge is spreading. Having a sometimes hostile neighbor with nukes means other countries will have incentive to get nukes as well.
Needless to say, a casual attitude to Iranian nuclear weapons development doesn't make sense to me. Too many parties have nukes as it is. At some point, it may require extreme nuclear threats (ie, a credible threat to nuke your country if you don't relinquish all nukes) to reverse wide-spread nuclear proliferation. Being more diligent now means less chance of a more extreme effort later.
In some sense this is emblematic of the greater problem facing American politics these days: the inability of opposing sides to acknowledge the proper scope of disagreement. Instead, we get the sort of thing in the OP: accusations that some people want to "shred the Constitution" or "sell the USA to the lowest bidder". If Obama supports getting out of Iraq, it must be because he hates America and wants us to fail. If McCain wants to stay in Iraq, it must be because he's a crazy warmonger.
After all, it would be so much harder to start by acknowledging that all the candidates wants to preserve the Constitution but differ as to what it means. Similarly, how could we ever acknowledge that the candidates all want what's best for the US (gasp!) but differ on how to achieve it?
~Oren
* Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Ron Paul and the principles of limited Federal government (but I can't unequivocally endorse some of his other policies).
Did anyone hear Ron Paul's comments on earmarks on the House floor? (Yay for CSPAN) He had an interesting defense of the earmark.
An earmark is just Congress telling the government how to spend money, which, if you read the Constitution, is what they are supposed to do. Eliminating earmarks altogether gives control of spending to the Executive Branch. If you want to cut spending, cut spending, but don't further deteriorate the balance of powers by giving more Congressional power away.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
Absolutely agreed. I've seen some of the Reverend's comments, and they appear to come from a man genuinely disappointed in his country, and not flame-baiting or hate-mongering. Are we so blind by national pride that we cannot see the faults in our own government and our own people? Don't damn the reverend for daring to say what we're all thinking, damn the people who refuse to criticize themselves.
I get the feeling Obama waited as long as he did to distance himself from the Reverend because he knew the whole thing was blown out of proportion. But unfortunately he did cave to media pressure in the end. The power of the media to latch onto a message and be blind to all other interpretations.
Besides, since when did criticizing America become unpatriotic? I would think it's the most patriotic thing to do.
In the interest of fairness, let's briefly examine the religious supporters that are getting behind Senator McCain:
In the wake of securing the Republican nomination, I'm sure a few more like Pat Robertson will come out in support, but let's start with these two winners.
McCain is currently accepting the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, who said Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for homosexuality. (Let's not even get started on his remarks about Catholics being "a cult," or his blaming the Jews for anti-semitism).
Or how about McCain's recent acceptance of the endorsement of Rev. Rod Parsley, who stated (amongst other things) "I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore."
While Rev. Wright has said some angry and stupid things, I think they were coming from a place about being upset with American foreign policy and the historical inequities in this country. Many of his remarks could have been taken out of context (I haven't seen the full sermons, just clips). On the other hand, Pastor Hagee and Rev. Parsley were/are just spewing hate out of misunderstanding, and I don't think any amount of context would help make their statements any less bigoted or stupid.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Care to explain what that difference is? From my perspective, it looks worse for McCain, since he clearly accepted the endorsement in full knowledge of the objectionable things Hagee said. Obama, on the other hand, was attending church long before Wright made his objectionable speeches, and it's a bit much to hold him responsible for not correctly predicting what somebody would say 15 years in advance.
Not that any of this has anything to do with what's best for the nation, of course. Perhaps we would be better off sticking to the issues and leaving the "gotcha" guilt-by-association memes by the wayside...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I don't live in the US, but I am currently here on a business trip.
I spent yesterday in NYC, as a sort of small holiday before travelling on to Connecticut where I've got my meeting.
In NYC, I took one of those tour bus things to take a look around as I didn't have much time or knowledge of the city to really spend it looking around on my own. One thing that sticks in my mind is a statement that the tour guide guy said. "The average income of a person in Manhattan is $1500 a month". He went on to clarify that that is of course taking in to account the millionaires as well as the dirt poor, however I think it may still be a fairly representative figure, but was clearly attempting to say that $1500 a month is a lot of money (basically attempting to impress the tourists about how wealthy Manhattan is). That surprised me a lot - from what I saw, it's NOT a cheap city to live in at all, and $1500 USD a month is NOTHING compared to the average wage back home, which is also a much cheaper place to live. If the US dollar continues to fall, I can really imagine places like Manhattan very quickly becoming slums.
Note that this is just "first impression" and I could well be wrong, but as an outsider's perspective, it's pretty scary. Whoever you do, as a nation, vote in next, I really hope it's someone that is capable of doing something about your economy.
As a side note: I'd also hope it's someone that can do something about your security policies and free speech... I almost got arrested for "public disturbance" at the Statue of Liberty for arguing with a couple of Americans about the meaning of "Liberty" and how excessive security erodes it. I was ALMOST tempted to continue the argument and let them arrest me just for the irony of being arrested for a discussion about the meaning of the word Liberty when standing only metres away from that icon that is supposed to represent it. (I decided instead to apologise to the "nice officer", shut-up and leave, as it would REALLY not make a good impression on my company to miss the business meeting due to being arrested in New York City)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
I've seen the whole clip. The text you're referring to is: "He pointed out, (Did you see him, John?) --a white man-- he pointed out-- an ambassador-- that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Now he could mean that Edward Peck personally quoted Malcom X or he could mean that what Peck said supported that thesis. Given that bloggers have searched transcripts and failed to find any where the ex-ambassador actually used that phrase, it seems that the latter interpretation is most likely. Unless someone digs up a clip or transcript showing his sermon to be a quote or close paraphrase, I think the clear interpretation is that he was riffing off a sentiment he heard on the news.
This is further supported by the tirade having the tone and rhythm of a sermon rather than an answer in an interview and by a backreference to the sermon Wright was making before his "faith footnote", specifically a quote from psalm 137: "blessed be they who bash your children's head agains the rocks".
And really, what would it matter even if an ex-ambassador had said it first? He obviously believes exactly what the media has been quoting - "america's chickens have come home to roost" - and judging by the reaction of the congregation it isn't a radical idea in that church. It really doesn't matter whether he invokes a crusty old white guy to lend credence to the idea.
You were modded funny, but seriously, I think you're absolutely right. It's astonishing how many people honestly believed he was a Muslim, and were afraid to vote for him for that reason. Telling them that he claims to be Christian and was baptized 20 years ago isn't enough to convince them, but a controversy about his crazy pastor might be enough to make them reconsider. Crazy pastor or not, if the mainstream media accepts that Obama's really a churchgoing Christian, he can no longer be a scary Muslim terrorist, so it's now OK to listen to what he has to say.
Damn, politics in this country makes me sad sometimes.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
> If he's been there for 20 years and never heard him say that kind of thing, isn't it logical to assume
> that he didn't say that kind of thing a whole lot?
Only if you get all of your news from the MSM. Some of us look beyond. I had been to TUCC's over the top bigoted webpage a year ago and saw more than I needed to know about the company Sen. Obama keeps. After reading that page all I needed to know was what the heck a 'Black Values System" was and what the hell it could possibly have to do with a church purporting to be devoted to Jesus's teachings. Google knows. Google tells all who ask the right questions. Barack Obama is my sworn enemy, thus while I see no reason to hate him back I will oppose his political ambitions.
> Look at when he said it. It was right after 9/11. Everybody was saying crazy shit for a few weeks after 9/11.
It isn't what he said. You are right, the days after 9/11 were a bit crazy. Pat Robertson comes to mind..... No, the problem with Rev. Wright and TUCC was HOW it was said. A transcript coesn't do it justice. It took the DVD to blow things to hell. It was the rejoicing going on, both at the pulpit and in the pews. While every sane person was mourning (even Robertson, loon that his is) those fucktards were happy as hell that whitey was getting his. Even worse was the total lack of shame that would drive them sell dvds of such perverted cavortings in the name of the dark powers.
Democrat delenda est