Free trade's victims turning against Bush, GOP

The Herald Sun ^ | August 25, 2003 | associated press

[Tokhtamish]

I think the inner cities, wandering fathers, divorce, decay in society are a result of your attitude.

Yeah... surely it has to do with money, right? Surely it couldn't be because a bunch of black and white liberal atheists (of which I'm neither) convinced the inner-city's populations to abandon their churches for government programs, right? Nah... had to be the evil CEOs or something.

You have yet to say one intelligent thing this thread.

Abandon their churches ? What garbage. If you drive through a black inner city neighborhood you see practically a church on every block. What white neighborhoods have that ? In church attendance blacks vastly outdistance whites.

But the socioeconomic collapse created by the destruction of the low-semi skilled stable jobs that were the black community's base, the despair in the wake of deindustrialization, disempowered the respectable and empowered the gangbanger. If social mobility by obeying the rules and following the law is destroyed, you will have street culture becoming pervasive. When you have idle young men with no education and no future you have big trouble. You have it in Saxony, Russia, the British Midlands, etc. wherever deindustrialization has essentially left a generation without hope. Is it so hard to understand that people's values will be derived from how they perceive the world operates ? Is it so hard to understand that callousness is returned as viciousness and depravity ?

[Texas_Dawg]

You are right. But do you really think church attendance has anything to do with true faith? It has not a single bit to do with anything. I have a grandfather that has gone to his Baptist church 15,000 times in his life and he doesn't get Christianity and what it's about for a second.

Do you know what kind of garbage is flowing out of so many of these churches? In the early 20th Century, the Abyssinian Baptist Church was one of the most influential, Christ-filled, churches this country has ever seen. Now, it is a Communist-loving dumphole that has not a clue.

But please, don't look to renew the spirit in these churches in these communities. Keep making excuses for the gangbangers and thugs terrorizing the black communities. Blame it all on CEOs and free traitors and capitalists and Republicans and everyone else you can find. I'm sure with that approach things will change and the Black churches and unity will be back to what they were in no time.

[m18436572]

Unfortunately, posters like the dawg are fearless in thier rebuttal of your simple common sense. They have theirs, and are not afraid to collect even more via S.S. through your taxes (if you're lucky enough to have a job). They have no concern, and are blinded by age and prosperity. Feel free to refute them, but they will not stop. They obviously have NOTHING BETTER TO DO and are really, not concerned with the plight that is upon this country!

[Texas_Dawg]

They obviously have NOTHING BETTER TO DO and are really, not concerned with the plight that is upon this country!

"We're all doomed."

[m18436572]

Like I said... "NOTHING BETTER TO DO".

[Texas_Dawg]

So you are concerned with "the little man's" plight?

[m18436572]

Who is the "little man" you speak of? No... wait... ahhh... guess I'll let you try to figgure out what "NOTHING ELSE TO DO" means and move on. I've read your posts and well, nothing personal, but I think the BINGO hall awaits me. I actually DO have better things to do than reply to your comments.

[bluejay]

Tokhtamish wrote:

"...The fascinating thing about free traitor types is their obliviousness to anything but libertarian doctrine. The collapse of America's ability to maintain superpower status, a widening gulf between haves and have nots, net downward social mobility, a huge and growing underclass, hey that's AOK so long as free trade reigns supreme. Sacrificing the lives and well being of the living to an ideal of a pure society in pure indifference to real world consequences is a very European thing to do. Americans judge a policy by results."

America is an undisputed superpower in all respects - military, economically, and culturally.

US military power is unmatched.

In the last 20 years US economy has far surpasses both Western Europe and Japan. We averaged 3%-4% growth every year; Europe has been doing about 2% and Japan about 1%. Both Europe and Japan are examples of what happens if excessive trade restrictions are allowed to smother the economy - presumably we do not wish to imitate them. Let's look at a couple of examples:

1. Prices in Europe are (best case) 2X prices in US. Salaries in Europe are comparable to US salaries. In some cases, in fact, they are far lower - my boss in a Western European Bank had to get a special permission from senior manager to be able to higher me at a competitive US salary.
2. Our IT industry has no significant competition either in Europe or Japan. (India is providing some competition in the narrow field of IT consulting.)
3. The majority of biotech/pharmaceutical industry is now in the US - this was not the case 20 years ago.
4. Japanese economy has gone completely anemic with no recovery in sight. (A poster child on protectionism!)

In general, looking over the past 20 years, US prospered tremendously by having fewer trade regulations then our competitors. The "giant sucking sound" has resulted in huge number of high quality new jobs and tremendous boost to US economy both in absolute size and relative to our nearest competitors.

[Dane]

PS Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to understand

Proposed concept behind NAFTA in 1979

Reagan himself was a dreamer, capable of imagining a world without trade barriers. In announcing his presidential candidacy in Nov. 1979, he had proposed a “North American accord” in which commerce & people would move freely across the borders of Canada & Mexico. This idea, largely overlooked or dismissed as a campaign gimmick in the US, rankled nationalist sensibilities in the neighboring nations. But Reagan was serious in his proposal. Though he traveled only once outside the North American continent during his first 57 years, he was neither insular nor isolationist. California has windows to the world in Asia, and Reagan thought of the US as a Pacific power as well as an Atlantic one. He also had a Californian’s consciousness of Mexico and an actor’s appreciation of Canadians, who are well-represented in the film community. The dream of a North American accord would drive the successful pursuit of a US-Canadian free trade agreement and a future-oriented “framework” trade agreement with Mexico.

Issues2000.org

[Texas_Dawg]

Who is the "little man" you speak of?

So who exactly did you mean by this?: not concerned with the plight that is upon this country!

[Texas_Dawg]

The "giant sucking sound" has resulted in huge number of high quality new jobs and tremendous boost to US economy both in absolute size and relative to our nearest competitors.

So we're not all doomed?

[A. Pole]

The cure for outsourcing is simple. Congress should pass a law saying that no CEO of any US company can make more than 15 times the average wage of his employees. It certainly would be a cut for the CEO if the average wage of his company's employees was 5,000 a year, as it is in India.

This proposition is brilliant!

[billbears]

What's Dole's stance on this?

Who knows? She never says anything - she's too busy going to cocktail parties in her philosophical home D.C. and figuring out ways to make our government bigger and more intrusive.

Now, now, speak no ill of Giddy. She's too busy 'helping' the tobacco industry here in NC to be concerned with textiles right now.

Although if I were you, I'd check with WalMart to see what Giddy's position on textiles is....

[Texas_Dawg]

The cure for outsourcing is simple. Congress should pass a law saying that no CEO of any US company can make more than 15 times the average wage of his employees. It certainly would be a cut for the CEO if the average wage of his company's employees was 5,000 a year, as it is in India.

This proposition is brilliant!

Sweet. FReepers supporting salary caps now. Hey, who's up for some Communism?

[meadsjn]

Tokhtamish, you should know that poor people of all colors start to get too "uppity" when they experience middle class things like education, jobs, home-ownership, mortgages, bank accounts, self-sufficiency, and such. Those of the self-annointed elite get nervous when they can't control the voters.

Just for fun, though:

Look at all the Democrat Party Files on Texas_Dawg's computer!!!

[Poohbah]

The cure for outsourcing is simple. Congress should pass a law saying that no CEO of any US company can make more than 15 times the average wage of his employees. It certainly would be a cut for the CEO if the average wage of his company's employees was 5,000 a year, as it is in India.

This proposition is brilliant!

Actually, it isn't, unless you're a doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist commie prevert.

Please remove me from your ping list. If I wanted to be pinged to communist preversions, I'd register on DU.

[Texas_Dawg]

Those of the self-annointed elite get nervous when they can't control the voters.

Annoyed? My party controls the White House, Senate, House and majority of the state's governorships, and will only gain even more in 2004. Why would I be annoyed?

[Redcloak]

Brilliantly socialist.