Lou Dobbs and Dan Burton ...

[Taeger]

Last night, Dan Burton (R-IN) was on Lou Dobbs. Normally, I haven't been very fond of Burton. He's the one who openly called Clinton a "scumbag"* (note that I'm not too fond of Clinton anymore either). I used to live in his district just north of Indianapolis (where are the affluent folk in Indy live (Carmel, Geist, Fishers, Zionsville etc...) (not saying I was rich).

Anyway, I finally found myself agreeing with Tinfoil Danny on something. He definitely had a negative attitude towards NAFTA and outsourceing. But he added something that I've believed for the past 3 years. NAFTA and WTO are eroding the foundation and independence of our nation.

Dan rightfully pointed out that since the majority of our manufacturing is being sent overseas, we could NOT arm ourselves in case of a MAJOR war. The fact that MANY components for defense contracting are being sent overseas is even MORE disturbing. Plus, you must consider that all that all those silicon gizmos that the army uses to make our soldiers more effective ... they're ALL manufactured overseas.

In MANY cases, they are made in SouthEast Asia. That's a hop, skip and a jump from the Chinese army. Add in all the manufacturing and machine tools being sent DIRECTLY TO CHINA (look up Magnaquench, they used to make rare-earth magnets for smart bombs in Indiana) and you can envision a scenario where China will have the United States by the balls.

A highly placed group of Americans and foreigners have declared a stealth war on America. They are gradually eroding our ability to stand by ourselves. They are handicapping America, and China will no doubt have our crutch.

All you anti-NAFTA folks. We DO have some allies in the Republican party. When they do good, we should compliment them. This is a "Fortress America" issue that should unite men and women from all ranks and stations in life (those with patriotism).

So my compliments to Dan Burton on this issue. He did an excellent jobs on Lou Dobbs and managed not to blame Clinton for ANYTHING ;-) I'd send him a thank you letter, except he doesn't have an open email address.


*BTW, I DO think that Dan Burton was right to pursue the Mena, Arkansas issue. But he should have spread his net to include the CIA men (and their handlers) who were smuggling drugs into the United States. The trail of blow would have lead STRAIGHT to Ollie North and George Sr. In fact, the Ken Starr investigation on the matter was STOPPED by request of REPUBLICANS!!!!).

[quispquake]

1. This has GOT to be pointed out more!

I agree completely...the main reason the North won the Civil War, and the US helped win WWII was because of our manufacturing base, which is disappearing really quickly.

Great post!
pp23

[Birthmark]

2. I've been concerned about this...forever.

It seems to me that China is heeding the words of whichever Soviet Dictator said, "The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with."

[Taeger]

6. China wasn't a threat before ...

The truth of the whole issue is that command economies were NEVER that big of a threat to the West. The bureaucracies in those systems stifle innovation. Politics rule technology and business development. And we all know what large businesses do to their potential competitors ;-)

Post WWII China was one of the dumbest, most backward countries on the face of the Earth. Sorry, but Mao-Ze-Dung was an IDIOT!!!!!

China has adapted and realized that centrally managed economies simply DO NOT deliver goods, services and innovation effectively. They have switched to a dictatorship with satellites of oligarchs (similar to Russia without the pretense of rigged elections).

I believe that this China is a MUCH bigger threat to the United States than the Soviet Union or Third Reich EVER was. They have created an outward appearance of friendliness. But deep down, I fear that they want to destroy America from the inside out.


Back in the old days, we KNEW that helping Communist dictatorships was wrong. We knew that we would effectively be paying tribute to barbarians (deliberate Roman reference).

Despite China's "reforms", they are STILL a dictatorship and an enemy to Democracy. They rule the people with an iron fist. And now, we are effectively PAYING THEM to do it.

Once we've sent all our manufacturing to China, how could we resist them???? What if they decided to invade the Koreas. How could we oppose them if they decided to simply "cut us off" from our life line of manufactured goods. Don't forget that Taiwan is the source of TONS of our electronic gadgets that we hold dear. China CLAIMS Taiwan as being part of China. How long till China makes good on that claim the way that Saddam Hussein made good on his claims on Kuwait (with consent of George Sr (hmmmm.... next big "threat"???)).

In fact, I believe that some politicians would make the same claims in the negative today. They would say that these foreign countries could effectively STOP the supply of certain goods to the US in retaliation of our withdrawing from NAFTA and WTO.

Would that be painful???? YES. But think how much more painful it would be if we waited 5 more years.

The civilized, progressive Democracies of the world must take a stand and decide that they CANNOT fund foreign dictatorships and exploitation. INSTEAD, they should establish trade policies that demand worker rights or cut these petty 3rd world thugs off from their supply of hard cash.

There IS right and wrong in the world. And I'm deeply sorry if it was the countries dominated by Euros that figured it out. I'm even MORE deeply saddened that our government has actively opposed Democracy and progressive policies in the "brown" countries in the Southern hemisphere.

We must make a stand and DEMAND that we DO compete as a country. Free trade IS NOT competition. It's exploitation. We compete with slave driving nations by REFUSING to trade with them and doing a BETTER job with paying and protecting workers.

It worked for almost FIFTY YEARS during the cold war. We REFUSED to fund the exploitation and domination of people in the East. The prospects of a SECOND cold war may sound bleak. But it's FAR BETTER than simply laying down our arms and succumbing to the enemy - Global Feudalism.

[Birthmark]

7. That's a nice piece of writing.

I couldn't agree with you more.

[BR_Parkway]

3. I had the same thought watching it

and hadn't considered it until then. I normally watch Lou because I do like his take on outsourcing these jobs, I really hadn't considered our ability to defend ourselves or to make arms. Lou has come up a lot in my book for taking on this issue and finally getting the rest of the media to wake up to it.

[KoKo]

4. And, not only military parts, but what about "outsourcing software?"

Security risks are very scary with that to me. Who's to know what foreign country could know codes and have the ability to gain access to passwords with so much being outsourced to India. What about insurance companies, banks and physicians using foreign countries to access our private information?

So much of our military runs on computers today, how do we know what is being sent where.

I've been shocked the Conservatives haven't been howling about this. It's very curious. So, glad to hear that "Watermelon Dan" is raising questions.

Thanks for the post on this.

[Taeger]

5. Yeah, I saw the new Battlestar Galactica !!!! ;-)

It introduced a VERY sci-fi concept of a mole introducing a back-door trojan that could effectively disable an ENTIRE military force.


It's a good point. The software in systems code could be vulnerable to back doors INTENTIONALLY implanted their.

As the military goes even MORE high tech and wireless, our systems will become MORE and MORE vulnerable to this type of attack.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that everyone working on these systems still need security clearances. Though I suspect, they may be "lowering the bar" to allow more foreigners with no "special skills" (things that an American CANNOT DO) access to these projects.

My highest concern at this point would be the hardware drivers running the larger pieces of equipment. Those are the portions of code MOST likely to be written completely overseas by OEMs.