President Obama: offshoring fears are outdated, unwarranted

[LiberalArkie]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/110610-president-obama-offshoring-fears-are.html


The perception that Indian call centers and back office operations cost U.S. jobs is an old stereotype that ignores today’s reality that two-way trade between the U.S. and India is helping create jobs and raise the standard of living in both countries, U.S. President Barack Obama told a gathering of business executives in Mumbai on Saturday.

President Obama’s remarks come after some moves in the U.S. that had Indian outsourcers worried that the U.S. may get protectionist in the wake of job losses in the country. The state of Ohio, for example, banned earlier this year the expenditure of public funds for offshore purposes.

Snip


This is total Bullshit.. If he is correctly quoted, he is so out of touch..

The building where I work is owned by a financial software company. They bring in Indians to train a department then after they are trained they fire the 100 to 300 people and the work continues in INDIA...

This is so wrong and it happening in all the IT areas.. If Obama wants to help jobs... stop the H1B visa's

It is so wrong to loose thousands of $60,000 to $100,000 jobs and replace them with Wal-Mart jobs.. This is job growth?

[dbonds]

1. This is REALLY WAY OUT OF TOUCH!

It is no longer fears, it is a living nightmare.

[Desertrose]

2. Please let this be out of context....

or something!!

[emulatorloo]

27. Well there aren't any DIRECT QUOTES from Obama in the article. n/t

[yourout]

3. Scooby Doo moment.......huh?

<http://www.entertonement.com/clips/dyyjhmxzww--HuhScooby-Doo->

I really hope he is just placating them.

Or flat out lying cause that is some serious bullshit.

[Xicano]

42. His actions (non actions) with NAFTA suggests a pattern

That which we already know. That he is first and foremost a corporatist.

[L0oniX]

4. What a huge mass of shit bombing...

[Individualist]

7. +1

[yourout]

5. Very many statements like this and he will get primaried.

I hope Dr Dean and Senator Feingold are paying attention.

[Vincardog]

6. AND/OR Grayson

[Coyote_Bandit]

15. .

here's hoping there's another name on my Dem primary ballot.....

Words are inadequate to describe just how unimprtessed I am with the current administration.

[Hawkowl]

19. A primary is inevitable

If he chooses to run again at all. My gut feeling all along is that he will decline to run for a second term. He simply has no stomach for it.

[somone]

40. Obama is not electable

unless he changes his ways very soon. I suspect most people who voted for him won't make the same mistake again. Right now he's damaged goods.

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. They took our jobs and sent us H1-B people.

I guess that means we both win.

:eyes:

[Individualist]

9. Just what you'd expect to hear from DLC/NDC

:puke:

[sulphurdunn]

10. Obama is a DLC

rightist in the Bill Clinton mold. Progressives voted for him because no liberal has a snow balls chance in hell of getting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and the alternative was Palin/McCain. So, it's time to stop acting shocked because he doesn't live up to liberal expectations. The irony is that the right has framed him as an extreme leftist. He might as well be one.

[Nite Owl]

11. Holy shit

he really said that?

"...helping create jobs and raise the standard of living in both countries..."

He hasn't even noticed how the standard of living is declining exponentially here? That is beyond out of touch, just mindboggling to hear those words from him.

I recc'd and it's still at 0. When are the deniers going to finally see the light of what we have here?

[OHdem10]

12. President Obama, I do my best to support you, but this sounds

so snobbish and I hate to say it like someone who graduated
from Harvard and now works on Wall Street. That is not you.
Get a new speech writer, ple

There are too many people just as well ecucated as you
know and understand Trade. Do not call it fear. This makes
you sound lost in the 80s. Maybe it was fear then. Now
the American are knowledgeable.

I realize you will do what Wall Street wants with the
help of the GOP but I have to say this because I had
had more hope things would be different. Right now
I cannot compete with COC and Goldman Sachs.

[mopinko]

13. this stuff really is more complicated than the binary vision

a lot of people have.
ie- the laws in india are such that if you want to sell things in india, you have to have a presence their. at least an office, but better a production facility of some type. so many, many companies that export products to india also have an indian counterpart. the net then is money flowing back to the us, even though jobs are created in india. so, you can look at that and say american jobs went to india, and if what you are only counting is jobs, it is a loss. but if you follow it up the chain, and see products sent to india, or just profits sent back to the u.s., the equation is different.

i'm not saying that we aren't outsourcing jobs. i am just saying that it is not as black and white as it is often painted.

[Meldread]

22. +1. I hate knee-jerk reactions.

There is no doubt there are major problems with our trade policy, but embracing strict isolationist and protectionist thinking is just ridiculous.

I hate the way Obama worded his statement, because I think it is needlessly inflammatory. However, the issue isn't as black and white as people believe it to be - we need to rethink how the American economy works. Globalization is one genie that is never going back into the bottle.

[OHdem10]

26. This has been the problem. China India and practically every

other country in the world demand: If you ever want to sell
in this country you must manufacture there.

America sends all our jobs over there and we are supposed
to buy all their products.

If you are on the side of Investors this is a great Deal.
American Middle Class has been decimated.

Anyone who believes the the Banking Fiasco created all
the jobless is blowing smoke. These Trade Treaties
are inherently unfair.

Get ready for a Banana Republic.

I am not against Trade. Sorry Trade Policy.

The American People no longer fear Trade. They hate
what it has done to this country. Our Policies are
written to favor the Elites and Multinationals. Rich
get richer and poor get poorer.

[laughingliberal]

28. "the net then is money flowing back to the us, even though jobs are created in india. "

And that money that flows back to the US goes to who?

[OHdem10]

33. They keep as much as possible in overseas Banks so as not

to pay taxes.

At this very time the GOP is trying to get a taxcut
for them so they might bring the money home.

[mopinko]

51. some of it goes to widows and orphans and retired people.

not all stock holders are rich people especially in the age of the 401k. that is not an excuse, just an example of the complicated nature of the world economy. there just is no black and white.

[sabrina 1]

37. And if the U.S. decided that they would prefer not to send their

manufacturing jobs overseas, India and China, who badly need U.S. business, would change those laws.

ARE WE the most powerful nation in the world or not?

This is an excuse to back up the greedy Corps whose only reason for off-shoring jobs is for profit.

I can't believe I am reading excuses on a Democratic board for this. There was a time when Democrats at least, stood up against these corporate lies.

These are REpublican, Reagan, ideas and they have destroyed this country's middle-class. If there are laws in other countries that do not benefit the U.S. middle class, then we need leadership that will change that. That is why I supported Democrats.

If we are going to get a continuation of Reagonomics from Democrats, then give me a reason for being a Democrat anymore please.

I hope he was misquoted on this. Even Reagan Republicans, seeing their own lives so adversely affected by these policies, have begun to see how damaging they were to this country.

And if he really did say this, we can rest assured the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy are not going away. I knew it when they wouldn't commit to it before the election. But was hoping to be wrong.

[Xicano]

43. +1000

Exactly. n/t

[mopinko]

52. what makes us the most powerful country?

american exceptionalism was always a myth.

[sabrina 1]

59. Our military. We tend to bomb people who don't go along with

what we want.

[mopinko]

61. that is pretty simplistic.

do you think we will bomb india? china?
did that keep england's empire on top of the world?

[sabrina 1]

63. Why would we, they cooperate with us. We bomb countries

who don't cooperate, like Iraq and we use other means to destabilize other countries, like Venezuela, Ecuador and Honduras, such as backing coups against their elected leaders. They have resources we want, we've been doing it for a long time.

We threaten to nuke places like Iran and we have the remnants of the old British Empire to help us out.

We are not nice people. Just ask the Iraqis or Afghans, or Pakistanis.

[Yavin4]

72. As Someone Who Has Spent Considerable Time in India

The Indians don't buy shit from us. Sure, there are Western retail stores there, but they sell to other Westerners who work there. Indians simply don't make enough to buy Western goods.

I was in Bangalore, the capital of the IT world. I was all over that city, and I never saw anyone carrying a laptop or anyone else using any kind of tech.

[BanzaiBonnie]

14. Sounds like more Clintonesque

We got it then, that NAFTA was going to be a good thing for the US.

[w8liftinglady]

16. I gues the AFL/CIO was full of crap,then

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/10/07/job-tracker-outsourcers-can-run-but-now-they-cant-hide/

Job Tracker: Outsourcers Can Run, But Now They Can’t Hide


In the past decade, more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and 850,000 information sector jobs have disappeared—many of which have been shipped overseas. This outsourcing is encouraged by faulty trade and tax policies that corporate executives use to boost record-breaking profits and outrageous and obscene executive salaries.

But finding out specific information on specific companies sending American jobs overseas and devastating their communities has been nearly impossible—until today. The AFL-CIO and Working America’s new Job Tracker database lists information on more than 400,000 corporations that have exported jobs overseas, violated health and safety codes or engaged in discriminatory or other illegal practice. (Check it out at http://t.co/qbg7wwm.)

[OlympicBrian]

65. I'd trust the AFL-CIO. Congress or the President won't be honest on this issue

Too much money involved...there isn't a single credible report out on the macro-economic effects of offshoring. And who would fund such a study? They would be shot.

[cherokeeprogressive]

17. In other words: Get OVER the fear and get USED to the reality.

Sometimes I swear he says whatever fits best in whatever county he's in.

[SammyWinstonJack]

36. +1. nt

[ProSense]

18. That is not what the President said

in context. His remarks and his op-ed before leaving for his trip.

[kysrsoze]

21. Thanks for the link. I was SO pissed for about 10 mins.

[emulatorloo]

25. Thanks for the link. I am getting irritated about this article - all reporter "summary", no Obama

direct quotes. Typical DU Hysteria Bait.

[backscatter712]

29. Indeed. He was talking about increasing American exports to India (not just offshored jobs.)

We're selling Harley motorcycles, Boeing 737 jets, C-17 cargo jets, etc. The 737s and C-17s generate about 50,000 jobs in the U.S.

[w8liftinglady]

34. Harley-Davidson to Open Assembly Plant in India

http://www.sys-con.com/node/1598325

Harley-Davidson to Open Assembly Plant in India
Harley-Davidson will open an assembly plant in Haryana, India and plans to have it running by the middle of next year to feed the Indian market.

Workers will build bikes from component kits supplied by U.S. plants. The company expects the CKD (complete knock-down) assembly facility to be operational in the first half of 2011.

“CKD assembly operations in India are a natural next step for Harley-Davidson as we build our brand presence around the world,” said president and COO Matthew S. Levatich. “This investment will allow us to improve our market responsiveness and production flexibility while reducing the tariff burden, which we expect will drive growth over time by making our bikes more accessible to India’s consumers. Given the strong response we have received in the initial months of retail operations, we believe this is the right investment for this important market.”

The company opened its first Indian dealership in August and plans to have five open by the end of the year. Those stores have been selling American-made bikes. Some models will continue to be imported as completely built motorcycles “for now,” the company says..

The Motor Company also has a CKD plant in Brazil.

[yourout]

35. How long before they are made over there and shipped back here?

[mopinko]

53. yeah, because if they want to sell the bikes there, they have

to build them there. government regulations and business practices dictate that.
motorcycles are very, very big in india. few people own cars. it is very common to see a whole family riding a motorcycle. yes, a whole family. when i was there we saw many people with 5 on a bike. mom, dad, and up to 3 kids. you know you are in the middle class when you own an actual car.

[w8liftinglady]

39. and Boeing

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36507420/ns/business-us_business/

In part because Boeing serves so many large international airline customers, the company also relies heavily on international suppliers. Among major suppliers, China’s Xian Aircraft Co. makes the some 737 vertical fins, and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries provides the wing’s inboard flaps.

“We recognize we can’t build every single piece of the plane in America,” Michael said.

But as one of the nation's top exporters and a major defense contractor, Boeing also recognizes the importance of keeping its assembly factories on U.S. soil.

[yourout]

41. “We recognize we can’t build every single piece of the plane in America,”...

Why not?

[Hawkowl]

49. We used to

In fact, the 787's production flaws and delays are directly attributable to overseas manufacturers. The Boeing 787 is the first of Boeing's jets to be manufactured this way.

[laughingliberal]

30. IDFLBL's nm

[kysrsoze]

20. Self delete

[mzmolly]

23. I don't see specific quotes from the President? I wonder why?

:eyes:

[emulatorloo]

24. THRE IS NOT A SINGLE DIRECT QUOTE FROM OBAMA IN THAT ARTICLE. All reporter "summary"

Don't you find that a little fishy?

I do.

[LoZoccolo]

45. +1 n/t

[laughingliberal]

31. K & R nt

[saracat]

32. Wow. And the reason we never got our jobs back is what then?

[sabrina 1]

38. Oh yes, and Offshore Drilling was outdated also. n/t

[ben fletcher]

44. Just lost my well paid software engineer job due to offshoring

Since the late '90s, I had a well paid job as a software developer at one of the largest retirement fund companies in the US. Over the years, it was impossible not to notice the staffing trend. The company hired very few young people born in the US into IT positions, and instead hired more and more young H1-B immigrants, mainly from India, but some from Ireland. It's hard to believe that here in Massachusetts there is any great shortage of recent college grads with the tech skills that the company needs. But the truth doesn't really matter when it comes to "maximizing profit", I guess.
Along side the clear policy of preferring imported IT talent to local, the company began to export more and more of the work to its outpost in Bangalore. In the past few years, instead of working face to face with other developers, I found myself always on the phone talking to someone in India, either one to one, or in a conference call. As a designated "tech lead", I had to do a lot of baby sitting since whatever their resumes may have claimed, many of the offshore people lacked a firm grasp of the most basic software engineering principles. So for a while at least, the company still found my services of some value.
Meanwhile, starting in 2008, a series of "reductions in force" began, the first one announced a couple of months in advance, but each subsequent RIF came without warning. Finally, in early October, they decided to toss me onto the refuse heap, along with hundreds of my colleagues. The people the company chose to discard, according to the age distribution chart I received with my kiss off package, were mostly in their 40s and 50s, with the youngest being 36 and the oldest 64. No national origin data were included, but from walking around the building I can say with a high degree of confidence that the older IT staff who were hired back in the 80s and 90s tend to be natives of the US, while the younger staff hired in the 00s are predominantly Indian, with the smattering of Irish that I mentioned earlier.
So what's my point? First, whatever Obama may or may not have said, whether it's been interpreted correctly or incorrectly, who cares? Obama made it clear which side of the class war he stands on a few days after he was elected, when he appointed Summers, Geithner and the rest of the Wall Street vultures he brought along with him into the White House. Second, the Indians and Irish are not to blame. They are wonderful people, by and large, most of them with more progressive political attitudes than I encountered among my Republican supporting "native born" fellow workers. They are just trying to provide a living for themselves and their families, just like you and me. But, the facts are the facts: Offshoring well paid IT jobs to India is extremely damaging to IT workers in the US.
Here's my point: Dividing workers against each other along ethnic lines is the boss class's most reliable tactic for maintaining its rule. Just look how well it's been working among older white working people in this country who vote Rethug because they blame their own very real suffering on their black and brown fellow workers. But I, for one, will not drink that stale old poison. I know who my enemy is, it's the global capitalist ruling class. It's time we stop kidding ourselves and get organized to dump these parasite bosses off our backs.
What would really throw a scare into the boss class is a true revival of the Industrial Workers of the World (iww.org). Way back in 1905, the workers who formed the IWW understood that Capital is organized globally, with no respect for national borders. We also need to organize globally, to fight the system of wage slavery that is crushing working people all over this planet. There's no reason you can't be a loyal Democrat and be a Wobbly too.

[scarletwoman]

60. +1,000!!! Helluva post!

Warm welcome to you, ben fletcher! :applause:

I hope we'll hear a lot more from you.

:hi:
sw

[w8liftinglady]

64. excellent first post.same thing happened to my neighbor

before he was kicked to the curb,he was "allowed" to train his Indian replacements.
he has a two-year old and a wife.the wife is working 60 hours a week.i let him use my computer to apply for jobs...as they had their phone and power turned off.

yeah...it's outdated.

[treestar]

46. This thread has the whole speech.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=512698&mesg_id=512698

Read it and learn something.

[LiberalArkie]

47. Yep. It sounds like we will be exporting a hell of a lot of jobs over there

[ProSense]

48. No, this is

a case of where simply choosing to ignore the facts in favor of spin.

Screw what the President actually said, some prefer the articles twisting his message.

[Hawkowl]

50. You are a presidential apologist

You spin every action, every syllable Obama says into whatever benefits the fairy tale world in which you live. The fact is the President actually believes in free trade as an economic growth tool. See the key is the "believe" part. As in disregarded all past history and factual data to the contrary, he continues to push these disastrous trade policies. I can't believe he didn't launch into a soliloquy about how much he likes Indian mangoes.

[treestar]

55. We are Democrats

the President is a Democrat. Yet you post as if it's some sort of failing or "apologism" whatever that may be - to listen to a Democratic President's entire speech.

What is wrong with liking any aspect of another country's culture? He is reaching out to them.

There is nothing constructive to your criticism; it seems you believe trade is "disastrous," but that's all we get.

[treestar]

54. Then you did not read the whole speech

[RainDog]

57. here's some of the speech...

which absolutely acknowledges the complaints of people who have lost jobs in the global economy - as the elite around the world work to reduce the cost of labor, no matter what nation made it possible for them to develop their wealth, nor how skewed the ratio between worker and CEO salary might be.

I realize that for some, this truth may not be readily apparent. I want to be honest. There are many Americans whose only experience with trade and globalization has been a shuttered factory or a job that was shipped overseas. And there still exists a caricature of India as a land of call centers and back offices that cost American jobs. That's a real perception. Here in India, I know that many still see the arrival of American companies and products as a threat to small shopkeepers and to India’s ancient and proud culture.

But these old stereotypes, these old concerns ignore today’s reality: In 2010, trade between our countries is not just a one-way street of American jobs and companies moving to India. It is a dynamic, two-way relationship that is creating jobs, growth, and higher living standards in both our countries. And that is the truth.

I have to question whether globalized labor wages is raising the living standards of the working class in the U.S. In fact, here's some evidence this is an outright lie.



If you will note, production workers' pay has flatlined for decades. CEO pay and corporate profit, on the other hand, has soared.

Oh, and those outsourced jobs that are now supposed to be replaced by service sector (often minimum wage jobs) - people in that cycle have lost ground.

Obama forced union concessions in regard to wages - but no such conditions were placed upon the fucking shithole financial sector that has DESTROYED the current economy.... but the rich are different. They must be rewarded, no matter what, or they'll take their toys and go. Because no one expects them to give a fuck about the working people whose low wages made them money in the first place.

Just admit it. The Democratic Party does not really give a shit about working people in this nation, any more than the Republican Party does. This has been the case since the corporatists got Reagan into office.

Reagan didn't give a fuck if the mentally ill were forced to sleep on park benches (and they were.) He didn't give a fuck if people died of AIDS, either, btw, which he pretty much stated outright, but I digress. Clinton continued the assault on the working class in the 1990s with NAFTA and "welfare reform." Bush continued the assault on the working class with the largest tax cut for the wealthy in history that resulted in negative job growth and now Obama continues this same disregard for the working class by pretending that the growing discrepancy between the elite, the CEOs, the stockholders (often family members who set CEO salaries, btw) have anything to do with the general welfare of the working people of this nation - and that includes those who work in non-manufacturing jobs.

So, since we have the data to show that this largest tax cut in history created negative job growth - and the LOWEST income growth over 50 YEARS, what POSSIBLE reason can our govt have for even considering extending them - no matter what side of the aisle? Could it be that money has bought out democracy in this nation?

what actually happened during the economic cycle that began in March 2001 and ended in December of 2007 which almost exactly coincides with the Bush presidency and the implementation of the Bush tax cuts. This period registered the weakest jobs and income growth in the post-war period. Overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967. Women reversed employment gains of previous cycles. And for African Americans, the worst job growth on record was matched by an unprecedented increase in poverty.


http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/bush_recession.html

Now, I can understand the reason to want to strengthen ties between India and the U.S. and to increase the success of India's economy. - just not at the expense of America's working people.

But, yes, absolutely, India is a great ally - they put pressure on Pakistan to deal with their problems b/c of the long-standing animosity b/t those two nations. India has nukes, just like Pakistan. India is situated in a region of the world that will be more and more important - China is a neighbor and we want friendly, strong nations in the region to promote our interests and, sadly, to allow us to use them for our greatest export - military aggression.

[RainDog]

62. hmmmmmmm n/t

[Odin2005]

56. Tone-Deaf and Out of Touch.

[and-justice-for-all]

58. What the hell?! nt

[OlympicBrian]

66. I tried to post on the networkworld website...

My comment said I questioned the accuracy of their story.

The comment has not appeared.

[OlympicBrian]

67. They posted the comment

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/68309#comment-270361

[OlympicBrian]

68. IBM alone has 75,000 employees in India...Obama claims his trip created 50,000 US...

During his trip, is Obama cutting deals to allow more offshoring?

IBM has hired around 75,000 Indian workers since 1992. The Indian IBM page also says "IBM stopped giving its headcount numbers" (hmm, trying to hide something?)

http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/dqtop20_10/CompanyRanking/2010/110072309.asp

Those 75,000 jobs--or a good fraction of them--could be still in the US.

I also heard some suspicious talk in Obama's speech about "opening more markets" and it sounded like opening more of ours to offshoring. Did anyone else catch that?

[Yavin4]

73. I've Seen IBM's Plants in Bangalore

They're in a section off the city called Electronic City. You should see it. They've transported Silicon Valley there. The landscape there is carbon copy of Silicon Valley. It doesn't even feel like you're in India any more. The out-sourced facilities there are massive, and they were constructing a second Electronic City while we were there.





This photo tells all about India. A mix of massive poverty set against rapid expansion:



Wipro Campus:



Oracle in Bangalore:

[OlympicBrian]

69. Offshoring allows corporate executives to hog more profits

"IT leaders in India say outsourcing does not hurt American companies but makes them more efficient and helps the U.S. economy by freeing up money for innovation and investments."

No, it allows corporations and fat-cat CEOs to hog a greater percent share of national income...

http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/net/page21.pdf

Notice in the above graph the ever-widening gap between (rising) percent share of national income afforded to corporate profits and (shrinking) percent share afforded to compensation. There is a both a long- and short- term trend.

Likewise, employment and benefits costs plummet as you hire Indians over Americans:

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=EC_ectbrief

And the ultra-rich, and corporations have the audacity to ask for tax breaks?

[RainDog]

70. exactly

this is the sort of scenario that sparks massive unrest in a nation.

the conditions vary by historical circumstance - for example - the French Revolution had a large group of educated people who were not part of the aristocracy who were denied positions because they were not included in the elite (the self-selected group that defined themselves as somehow more worthy - tho, as is shown over and over, this designation is a fantasy they continue to create to justify their greed because of the accident of birth into a family with property and assets.)

the peasants were expected to bear the costs of the financial decisions of the aristocrats and royals that put unsustainable burdens on the state. In the case of France at the time - one of those burdens was helping to finance the revolution in the soon-to-be United States in order to undermine the avowed enemy of France: Great Britain. Another was the assumed right of aristocrats to use the wealth of the nation for their own comfort.

What the aristocrats, the royalty and the clergy who pretended the arrogance of the elite was justified got were mass executions - it didn't matter if someone was guilty or innocent - what mattered was that they had been part of the group that unjustly benefited from bad policy. The aristocracy and clergy were destroyed, their wealth confiscated and revolution was exported around the western world.

Napoleon emerged among the educated who wanted their place at the table after the Jacobins (lawyers who also wanted their place) engaged in mass executions to make room for someone other than the elite 5% of the population. France engaged in wars that murdered millions of their own and of other nations and continued the fight among the monarchists and republicans far into the next century...and into the next one.

This is just one example from history, but there are scores of other examples that show this same trajectory. When the elite become so arrogant (this arrogance now is best exemplified in the U.S. by the rantings of Limbaugh, who claims covering a pre-existing illness is unfair to the insurance cos) the population eventually turns against them in such numbers and such force that innocent and guilty alike are destroyed. Sometimes the elite use the cover of nationalism to justify their continued abuses. This is what is happening in the U.S. now.

In Germany this moment came when the Prussian aristocrats, the Hessians - and the romanticized agrarians insisted on their right to wage war to undermine their avowed enemy: France. With new technologies, soldiers in trenches found their lives were spared and went on to live without legs or half their faces - or any veterans benefits to help them survive. Some of the most heart-wrenching images of the post WWI era are of mutilated soldiers begging on the streets. (This also reminds me of the Republican arrogance toward veterans and a continued insistence on cutting benefits for those who sacrifice their lives, even when they live, oftentimes, for the profits of one "landed" corporation or another.)

The landed class viewed themselves as an aristocracy above the messy modernization of the early 20th c., with all the financial burdens placed upon the small shopkeepers and the urban working poor. The nation created a scapegoat in the "other" - the Jewish population that succeeded in spite of the prejudices against them, the Jewish intelligentsia who supported the new political philosophy arguing for the fall of aristocratic "capitalism" (these two were not the same group, tho both suffered) and their non-Jewish comrades who came to view socialism as the antidote to a tone-deaf, entitled aristocracy.

People were afraid of the changes they saw - the loss of a patriarchal morality, the attempt to create a democracy among contentious factions, the loss of power as Germany had to punitively pay for their war mongering, the financial maneuvers to inflate currency to cover war reparations, the militarism that rearmed in spite of treaties...

and the nation fractured into those who saw socialism or, more radically, communism, as the way out of the current mess and those who embraced nationalism as a way to restore their pride in a dying empire. There was a reason Hitler appealed to the Germans to restore Charlemagne's empire and overturn the medieval Treaty of Verdun: the appeal was to a restoration of mythical Germany and an assault on their avowed WWI enemy: France.

...and the "revolution" they got was fascism.

Millions were slaughtered. But, after both innocent and guilty alike were destroyed, the socialists won. At a great cost to the entire world.

Germany joined the rest of the world only after other nations forced them to accept their position as one of a host of nations, not the empire they felt they deserved to be.

In France, the socialists also won, after more than a century of political coups and counter coups. The socialists were the group that formed the resistance to fascism in France. Their refusal to accept fascism, unlike the government that was willing to compromise, made them the heirs of post-war France. They, too, had to accept their position as one of a host of nations, not the empire they felt they deserved to be. This was the end of their empire too, tho they maintained certain pretensions in outposts... like Vietnam and Algiers.

In the U.S., FDR tried to find a third way to mitigate the damage done by the captains of industry. The U.S. was a fledgling empire, outside of its genocide of the people who populated this nation before the states were formed - no small horror, but contained within its borders. The U.S. had made its incursions into the Philippines and Latin America, as General Smedley Butler noted, to make them safe for United Fruit or other corporate entities. The U.S. had already had its internal battles with labor and the foot soldiers of WWI. But the U.S. had not yet viewed itself as the one-true religion that must impose its belief on the entire world - because it did not yet have an adversary that the capitalists viewed as a threat to their hegemony. Fascism made communism an ideology to contend with because the communists defeated the fascists on the eastern front.

FDR recognized the truth in the canard that change arrives by evolution or revolution and hoped to evolve American society to avoid the mass suffering of revolution. But he had his enemies too, the same sort of people (and same families, in many cases) who, today, think that they are more worthy than the American public, that they deserve to be bailed out for treating the American economy as a casino, that they and only they deserve to be free from paying a reasonable share of taxes to sustain a decent and humane society. They will not choose to change. They must be forced to change - either through evolutionary legislation or through violent means. This is the case again and again in history.

They plotted to overthrow FDR. He refused to hold them publicly responsible for this crime and, unfortunately, made it possible for them to continue their war against the American people. They supported and aided fascism. They helped fascism to survive, tho under the radar of most Americans - and relabeled fascism as "anti-communism." They enlisted the help of the American clergy, most notably through people like Billy Graham, to align white middle American religion with fascism and its social equivalent: racism. They incorporated and promoted this clergy (and continue to do so) to support the murder of people around the world who thought it was their right to form their own governments. The capitalists recognized a threat to their divine right in liberation theology and "godless communism."

They resisted and continue to resist every reform to bring the United States into the modern world via evolutionary legislation (like unemployment insurance - something they resisted even into the 1960s, while every other western democracy had instituted such humane and sensible policies beginning with WWI. They continue with health care reform to this day, while every other western democracy views health care as a human right for its citizens.) They pretend their stances contain morality, when in fact they are immoral justifications to continue policies that maintain a wealthy elite at the expense of the entire nation. They resisted rights for blacks, for women, for homosexuals, for other religious groups -- and continue to do so to this day.

Democrats attempted to co-opt some of their positions - to create a "third way" to attain power. The response to this capitulation was continued attacks on any attempt at evolutionary reform - in health care, in human rights - and a continued insistence that an aristocracy of capital was divine, was anointed by god and thus impervious to any attempt to reform their abuses. The incorporated clergy continues to vow this is true, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

This is why the fascist clergy can use meth and have sex with rent boys and claim they are not homosexuals. This is why the Catholic church hierarchy can harbor pedophiles and claim they are more moral women who want to administer sacraments or homosexual adults who simply want to be recognized as families. The fascist oligarchy approves of this hypocrisy because the co-opted clergy preaches a gospel of hatred for the poor, the sick and the disenfranchised by refusing to acknowledge the solution to problems lies with policies that work to educate, enfranchise and elevate. The clergy gets its kickbacks through policies that funnel money to them to promote their beliefs at the expense of the nation and its constitution. They make it possible for both groups to deny the reality of their positions as outright lies by a convoluted moral framework that claims the rich suffer while the poor abuse them. The comparison to the clergy in aristocratic France is easily made because it is the same collusion.

Too many democrats in power continue to pretend that it is possible to work with these fascists - because they have been incorporated into the power structure and benefit from such a belief, even at the expense of the working people of this nation. They pretend this is the only way to get anything done - even when what they get done is not enough. They refuse to take their time in power to create legislation that, ironically, protects the aristocrats from their own abuse by creating a more stable, egalitarian society. While the clergy in the south remain the mouthpiece for fascism, when Southern Democrats win, they have to use their window of power to change policies, not to seek re-election. As the mid-west declines while the aristocrats continue to seek cheap labor overseas to benefit a small minority of the population, when the Democrats win seats in this part of the nation, they must fight for those who are now economically disenfranchised who once built this nation.

This is the reality of the dangerous time in which we live.

We're back to two groups - the nationalist working poor, who send their children off to fight wars for empire and listen to the religious fictions of a corrupt and co-opted clergy, and the socialists (who may not recognize themselves as such) who want this nation to evolve, to take its place as one among many, without the hyper-militarism that maintains the fiction that we are keeping the world safe for anything other than Halliburton's profits.

The world is changing. The east is taking its place (again) in the cycle of in history as an economic power. We can respond rationally or we can continue to pretend that the divine right of capital makes the aristocratic pretensions of a few justification for the suffering of the many.

[Yavin4]

71. Any Shred of Hope for Victory in 2012 Is Now Lost

By not taking up the fight against offshoring, he simply won't win in 2012. Welcome President Romney and Vice President Rubio.

[QC]

74. I'm sure none of his Harvard friends feel threatened by outsourcing/offshoring. n/t