January 23, 2012

The Quicksand dilemma, or: No country for Free Traders?

Ever notice how when someone posts in favor of outsourcing American jobs, they get utterly mobbed on here? Mind you, that's a good thing IMO, but one has to wonder why the "free trade" mentality persists on selling itself to a crowd that by vast majority is almost virulently opposed to it. Supposedly the polls say Republicans and Teabaggers oppose free trade more than Democrats:

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but, really? I've never been in a room of online or real life Democrats, ever, where the issue of outsourcing American jobs hasn't elicited a vast majority of opposition.

Now mind you, I've been involved in a LOT of globalism threads, and started a bunch myself. I'm a die-hard partisan on this issue, and proud of it. But a lot of other folks have posted drive-by hatefests about foreign outsourcing and a few others have posted threads admonishing Americans for opposing it. The end results are spectacularly different. The former gets loads of support and the latter routinely gets slammed, hard. In fact, the last time someone suggested that we Americans should stop being angry about outsourcing, that thread got more brickbats than my poorly-worded (and thus misinterpreted) thread about the homeless.

Mind you, I'm not saying we should clamp down on freedom of speech. But really, if you're a free trader, don't you see that the more you push this viewpoint, the more people you're seeing running for the pitchforks and torches?

Look at the polls. Support is declining all across the board. Politicians rarely, if ever, get up on TV and tout their support of free trade anymore. You're making your case clearer than ever and it's just doing more damage. Look at the polls and listen to the people, you can't deny this. It's like political quicksand.

Foreign outsourcing is becoming the third rail. Among Democrats it's almost up there with arguments for dumping nuclear and coal sludge waste in the Grand Canyon, invading Iran with an army of poor pregnant female draftees, sending Occupy Wall Street to the Gulags, and taxing the poor to pay for bailing out Mitt Romney.

Again, I'm not saying free traders should be denied their freedom of speech. But I wouldn't go open a booth to sell hard core porn movies in a Megachurch parking lot on Sunday, either. It's kinda getting like that here...

January 21, 2012

Can someone give me a straight answer here about domestic violence jokes?

If we were joking about a woman waking up in the hospital after asking her husband for an open marriage and she found her girlparts were cut out, would be as hilarious as if the victim were a male?

Yes or no, and why?

Straight answer, please.

January 21, 2012

America. Is. Too. OBEDIENT.

Whatever happened to the big sit-in protests of the 1960s? Why aren't America's 46 million unemployed joining Occupy Wall Street? Why aren't more liberal Democrats out protesting with Occupy Wall Street, after all, even if they protest Democrats and Republicans alike, can anyone explain to me where Occupy Wall Street's gripes differ from ours?

I've been to a few Occupy protests and I know for a fact that our numbers should have been FAR larger considering how many people in America hold the same views as OWS. Much less those who have lost their jobs and have gone homeless.

Now I know people are going to demand that I cite some examples of America's servile complacency and I did that pre-emptively in another thread, which led to a little... trouble. So I'll just stay general about it.. America is too obedient.

Nobody fights back anymore. God knows how many folks out there are starving to death quietly, or dying of exposure in this wacky weather, or dying of health problems they know they have. Nobody's rising up. Occupy Wall Street is way smaller than it should be. The unemployed don't even protest. Those who are better off, sure as hell don't do anything, but one can expect that they don't think they'll join the ranks of the jobless or homeless.

We don't even see sit-ins or mass protests anymore. Not even from the millions of people who are the most adversely affected. What happened to our spirit? Are we destined to have a country where the poor are Social Darwinized out of existence?

January 21, 2012

In America, the poor choose to die slowly and painfully rather than fight back.

Recently the cops in Fresno tore down a homeless camp which was their only hope of shelter against the freezing cold.

More than likely a lot of these homeless folks will die of exposure.

Whatever happened to one's willingness to fight for their very survival?


These guys were probably worried about being shot.

Instead they'll freeze to death. Slowly.

Go figure.

Edited: Dear brickbats:

Since this is coming across as BLAMING the homeless, and I didn't intend it that way, please see this clarification:

[url=http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002197137]America is just too obedient[/url].
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002197137

January 21, 2012

Rick Snyder's emergency manager law... why don't the Feds come in and shut him down?

Overriding the voters by taking power away from elected politicians? How does this pass any kind of legal muster???

January 20, 2012

When you talk about Americans losing their jobs to offshoring, why is it that

everyone wants to talk about everything EXCEPT Americans who lose their jobs?

Why does the conversation always move to "we have to sacrifice our livelihood for other nations"

or "why is America wanting to be isolationist"

or "why don't you care about other nations"


The conversation never gets around to America's workers and the hell they're going through. It's as if they're being sacrificed "for the greater good".

Funny, how our CEOs are making no sacrifices.......

January 19, 2012

U.S. companies are locating more of their R&D operations overseas

Forget the nonsense claim that American workers aren't smart enough. Who wants to pay top dollar for American genius when you can get an Asian genius who will work for pennies on the American dollar?

Tell your kid to get into science class now. Go into debt for a degree in biotech research. Leave college with a top degree and join the ranks of the world's smartest unemployed.


http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/011912-science-tech-jobs-255072.html

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/

January 19, 2012

U.S. economy becoming less competitive, and guess why that is. Yup, you guessed it... (drum roll)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/us-economy-less-competitive-harvard-business-school-survey_n_1212548.html

* 71 percent say U.S. to be less competitive

* Political gridlock, education, tax code key worries

* Survey polled Harvard Business School alumni

By Scott Malone

BOSTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The United States is becoming less economically competitive versus other nations, with political gridlock and a weak primary education system seen as the main drag, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

BUT WAIT!!!! Why is the US economy less competitive?

WEAK POINTS

Among respondents who had decided to move operations out of the United States over the past year, 70 percent cited lower wages as the reason they chose a new location, pointing to what is widely seen as emerging markets' main advantage.

In other words. America is less competitive because our workers aren't being paid wages that have them living in mud huts hunting for bugs for dinner.

January 19, 2012

Why does the Mainstream media not cover black people's disappearances?

It seems there are a LOT of African American citizens who disappear and no one ever talks about them.

TvOne, a black TV network, is doing a series called "Find our missing" to address this problem.

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-national/hassani-campbell-case-find-our-missing-features-story-of-missing-boy

Jeez, ain't America's mainstream "liberal" media* great...


* the con-tards keep calling it a liberal media. Who knows why.