So Obama goes to India to work out a trade deal ~

[gateley]

(paraphrasing Thom Hartmann)

Obama says, Hey, you guys, we've been friends and allies for such a long time, many of our companies employ your people right here in India, how 'bout some reciprocity -- we'd like you to purchase some of our products.

India says, Great! You're right! We'd be happy to have such an agreement. Whaddya got? What do you manufacture there -- Levis? No. Converse Tennis Shoes? No. TV's? No. Computers? No.
Uhhh, so what DO you manufacture?

We manufacture military hardware!

Okay, great! The check's in the mail!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hartmann, of course, presented it much better, but you get the gist.

How heartbreaking is this? And now we're scrambling going "we'll work on green energy!" when a big chunk of the world is already far ahead of us in this area. It seems like we're starting from scratch, and we have NOTHING.

AND -- how does Pakistan (our "ally" in our fight against Terra) feel about such an agreement w/India? (I haven't looked it up so don't know the specifics.)

:(

America. We hardly knew ye.

[Catherina]

1. Heartbreaking indeed. Going to the land of Gandhi to peddle the 6th largest arms deal in history

is nothing other than heartbreaking.

Our President is reduced to peddling WMDs. How shameful is that?

[gateley]

3. Agree. nt

[xchrom]

2. Recommend -- the admin knew that before they went. Nt

[jeff47]

4. Are the paychecks of people assembling military hardware

somehow inferior to the paychecks of people assembling other products?

[gtar100]

5. Only in that they are promoting instruments of death and destruction

as opposed to the more mundane needs of everyday life. But who are we to complain. Money's money, right?

[gateley]

6. That wasn't my point. The point is that we've sold our

country and jobs and the ONLY thing we have left to sell is military hardware. It wasn't a judgment call about the 'product'.

But it did make me wonder how Pakistan will look at this.

[robinlynne]

7. I believe the point is that we can change that.

[jeff47]

8. My meaning was more short-term

We need jobs now. If it's making bombs, then it's making bombs. We can have the luxury of deciding what we want to produce when unemployment isn't disastrous.