posted April 08, 2004 05:55 PM            

This self-serving betrayal of America's middle-class has-- to put it nicely-- annoyed many, many Americans. This is where Colin Powell steps in. Bush's secretary of state recently sought to reassure people on this issue of offshoring. Unfortunetly, the people he reassured were in India.

On a recent trip there, he promised that the Bushites would do nothing to stop the outsourcing of U.S. high-tech jobs to India and, indeed, would oppose all congressional efforts to stop it. He even posed as an economic philosopher, declaring that "outsourcing is a natural effect of the global economic system," adding adamantly that "you're not going to eliminate outsourcing."

Well, we're certainly not going to eliminate it if our government won't fight for our people. Oh, but Powell said, while "these kinds of dislocations will take place," the Bushites plan to train the American peole for new jobs. What new jobs, exactly? He didn't say. He didn't have a clue.

But Bush's labor department knows. It lists 30 job categories that will have the greatest growth between now and 2010. Number one? Fast food workers. Two-thirds of their "growth jobs" pay less than $20,000 a year.

Forget high-tech. Colin Powell envisions you in a hair net.

By Jim Hightower

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This hits kinda close to home cause my job doing tech-support was outsourced to India. Needless to say, I am one of the 'annoyed Americans' Jim refers to.

posted April 08, 2004 09:00 PM            

I am however vehemently against offshoring of jobs, but make no mistake, that has been going on since Clinton was in office (possibly longer, I'm just not positive about whether or not the practice extends beyond Clinton's presidency). It's not however, part of some evil plan hatched by the GOP.

I know I've been guilty of this myself, both in jest and seriously, but it's a pity that subjects like this, which would be great to talk about, become a GOP blame session (or less frequently, a liberal bashing session)...Instead of talking about the issue each side is forced to represent a political affiliation and debate the worthiness of that instead.

posted April 10, 2004 01:29 AM            

well.. in some ways it's kinda great cause atleast it's something that very often brings "liberals" and "conservatives" together.. Finally! something we can all agree on, right? I mean, nobody likes seeing American jobs disappearing.. the differences usually just lie in the details. Like who's to blame and yada yada.

Suuure it's been going on with Clinton, and even Bush sr. it's just different fields at different times. Ever see Roger and Me? All those auto manufacturing jobs vanishing from MI..

Remember when they used to play all those "Buy American" ads?

What ever do you think happened to those?
Have you ever tried to only buy American? It's impossible unless you are an ascetic.

No.. It isn't because Americans demand to be paid exorbitant amounts of money, so much as it is the nature of the corporation to grow- indefinetly. Bear in mind, they have the rights of a regular human citizen of this country and yet they live forever.. this ammassed weath creates a great amount of power over a great amount of people's lives... Now, to continue growth, the logical place to cut corners eventually falls to the human labor sector. Because these corporations are run by boards of directors who are most often far out of touch with the people whom actually create the things that they sell which puts the money in their pockets, it is easier for them to make callous decisions towards their workers. The primary objective of a corporation is NOT to look out for the best interest of it's workers. Never make the mistake of thinking that. It's just not true. This is capitalism we are talkng about here, people.
The primary objective of the corporation is PROFIT.
Bottome line--------------------------------

Therefore, a board of directors can sit in their 101st story board room and make the decision to fire 10,000 middle class folk, upon whose backs the company's empire is built, and send their production to China where they can pay people $0.13 an hour because this in the most logical way for them to continue seeing a growth in profits.

It's sort of like the group rape. Y'know.. how they say men who wouldn't normally rape a woman on their own can be driven by the heat of the moment and the 'group mentality' to do something totally out of character.
That's how I see these corporate officers.

Now, I'm not blaming the Republicans any more than the Democrats. Afterall, they all have great wealth which comes from, most often, major corporations that they've been intimately involved with. It's what Nader is talking about when he says we need to get the corporations out of washington.

I may even despise Democrats more because they pretend to care about this issue and talk like they are going to do something about it but they never do and they continue to be a part of it. Damn Demoblicans. grrrrr

posted April 27, 2004 09:01 PM            

Have you ever been here Harpyr. I doubt you would agree with all their positions but they support you on the FTAA.
http://www.stoptheftaa.org/

jwhop

posted April 28, 2004 02:26 AM            

*cough*cough*ahem.. excuse me..perhaps i've said too much..er..umm.
hmmmm..
I haven't seen that particular website, jw. I'll give it a looksie.

posted April 28, 2004 11:25 PM            

You realize of course, that if it comes up heads you get Tierra del Fuego and I get everything else---an imminently fair division of the world.

Not too late to change your mind about that electric blanket. Tierra del Fuego is a cool and windy land.

posted April 29, 2004 12:47 AM            

wait, now how does this work? I think we need an impartial third party to flip....

posted April 29, 2004 05:44 PM            

You want tails, OK with me.

A straw house Harpyr? My God did you never read The Three Little Pigs story?