This dual threat, the offshore “outsourcing” of American jobs and the concomitant “insourcing” of foreign workers (both skilled and unskilled), presents a far greater danger to America’s future than the usual experts have been willing to admit. One exception has been economist-author-columnist Paul Craig Roberts. In 2003, Roberts, an assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, predicted that if jobs outsourcing and occupational destruction continued apace, America would be a Third World country within 20 years.

Many, if not most, other economists responded to these alarming trends and Dr. Roberts’ dire prediction with amusement and derision. In February 2004, Gregory Mankiw, President Bush’s chief economic adviser, created a firestorm by stating that sending millions of U.S. service jobs abroad “is probably a plus for the economy in the long run,” because foreign workers can do the jobs more cheaply. “Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade,” he said. Voters and displaced workers were upset, but economists — even Democratic economists, including former Clinton economic advisers like Janet Yellen, Robert Reich, Laura Tyson, and Brad DeLong — came to Mankiw’s defense.

Outsourcing is merely a reflection of “globalization,” they sniffed, a contemporary illustration of Adam Smith’s classical trade principle of “comparative advantage.” While “temporarily” painful, it will benefit all players in the long run, they insisted. Economist Daniel W. Drezner presented one of the most important expositions of this argument in the May/June 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs, the influential journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. In his essay, entitled “The Outsourcing Bogeyman,” Drezner defended Mankiw’s remarks and said:

Should Americans be concerned about the economic effects of outsourcing? Not particularly. Most of the numbers thrown around are vague, overhyped estimates. What hard data exist suggest that gross job losses due to offshore outsourcing have been minimal when compared to the size of the entire U.S. economy.

However, within a couple of years, some very sobering studies were showing Paul Craig Roberts’ warnings to be anything but bogeyman rantings. In 2006, Alan S. Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, shocked people on both sides of the debate with his “crude guestimate” that the number of potentially offshorable U.S. jobs was in the neighborhood of 42-56 million, roughly 30-40 percent of all U.S. jobs!

In March of this year, Dr. Blinder announced a more detailed study that was slightly less ominous but still alarming: “I estimate that somewhere between 22 percent and 29 percent of all U.S. jobs are or will be potentially offshorable within a decade or two.” He didn’t say that 22-29 percent of American jobs would be sent offshore, but that that percentage potentially could be outsourced. Nevertheless, that level of potential, combined with the devastating trends of the past decade — with no let up or reversal in sight — points toward a very bleak future for America.
By Philip GIRARDIN

The absolute last thing we need is for this country to be burdened and hamstrung by one party rule; the Party of Clinton and Pelosi, Reid and Obama. George Bush may not be an ideal brake on Democratic-Socialistic zeal, but for now he's all we have. Perhaps one of his staff will call his attention to (1) the fact that he has the veto power, (2) Ted Kennedy, is not noble, intelligent, honorable, or his friend.

It seems like a long time till the 2008 elections, but they will be on us in a flash. Right now there are herds of candidates, but they will be culled and sorted by race, gender, and charisma. For now, we must stand firm at the gates against the barbarian hordes, who wish to change the character of this nation, and interfere disastrously with our economic engine in the name of the ephemeral nemesis of the modern-day Luddites, global warming.

Speaking of things global , the issue of globalism will be on the agenda in 2009. Is it a blessing of modern efficiency or an accursed loss of jobs? Will it make us more streamlined or rob us of yet more sovereignty. It is an intriguing subject, and a topic for another day.

L. Handiboe & Philip GIRARDIN from a group at www.gather.com

In this column, I am going to attempt something risky. I am going to rationally discuss racial politics. I realize I shouldn't, of course. It's dangerous to do so.

I'm white, you see. White people are not supposed to discuss race in any critical fashion--we do not have the right to do so. We are supposed to sit in the corner and remain silent while academics and activists tell us how evil our culture is, how greedy we are, how many advantages we have reaped from the sweat and toil of black people, and so on. Never mind the fact that half the white people in America were poor immigrants around the time of the Civil War, or even came along many years after the slaves were freed. Never mind the fact that the Africans ended up on slave ships in the first place because they were sold into human bondage by other Africans. We aren't supposed to talk about these things, because we aren't supposed to talk about race at all. We don't have the right to talk about it.

But there are some problems with the process by which  he was squished. It was certainly unjust..although, after the Clinton Impeachment Trial, one could almost say that Lott deserved injustice. What he didn't deserve, however, was to be a victim of thought control. No human being deserves to be sacrificed for his thoughts. Unfortunately, we have now arrived at that juncture in America-the punishment of thought crimes. Lott's supposed "gaffe" could not be categorized as anything else. There was nothing racially charged or insensitive contained in his remarks. Everything that was said that pertained to race was inserted by oversensitive black Americans who chose to take offense. All Trent Lott did was praise Strom Thurmond, and say that he should have been elected President in 1948. Because black racial activists have judged Thurmond to be a racist, the spectacularly presumptious leap was made that Lott's praise for Strom Thurmond was an act of racism in itself. This ludicrous charge stuck, and it had repercussions.

So, apparently, it is now only necessary to praise a person or thing that a black man doesn't like, and that is racism--for which a white man may be severely punished. This is thought control of the highest order; even more so than the Confederate flag issue. It is tyranny of one group over another group. It is philosophical domination.

Forget the fact that Lott's public crucifixion was also sheer partisan hypocrisy. There's absolutely no question that if Trent Lott had been a Democrat, he would have been excused for his remarks, patted gently on the head, and escorted back to the Dixie Congressional White Men's Club, to play dominoes with Ernest "Jim Crow" Hollings and ex-Klansman Robert Byrd. Had Lott been a Democrat, the lickspittles of our race-baiting, whorish news media would have hardly wasted a day on the controversy.

Forget, also, that the entire Lott controversy--and the involvement of the Bush Administration in it---speaks volumes about the 'conservatism' of our current President, and the supposed 'traditional values' of the party he represents. The temptation to say 'Ronald Reagan would have handled it differently' is very great, but the days of Reaganism--when Republicans actually stood for something, even if they were wrong---are gone forever. Gone with the wind that swept through Washington. Many conservatives worthy of being called the name now belong to a Third party, and  left the GOP in disgust some time ago.

Forget, even, for the moment, that the 'thought police' in this country are a very hostile, palpable threat when they have the power to remove a United States Senator from a position of high authority over a silly remark made at a birthday party. There is nothing funny about the phrase "Politically Correct" anymore. Anyone with half a brain should realize here and now that Political Correctness is a dire threat to freedom of speech...or whatever tattered remnants remain of it.

However, in addition to all these things, there is another, largely unspoken issue: White Americans need to wake up and realize that they are under attack from sociological forces that it would be unwise to ignore. It is a culture war, and whites are losing it, because most whites don't realize it's a war. Their adversaries in the US civil rights movement--which has largely become a mockery of its former self--are drawing battle lines based purely on skin color.

It is time for white people to realize that they are sitting ducks. White Americans are targets. Their history is a target, their culture is a target, even their government is a target. Most civil rights leaders are not interested in doing away with prejudice; they are interested in profiting from prejudice. They are interested in fomenting prejudice, and agitating a war between the races.

There are a few notable exceptions. Roy Innis and Congress of Racial Equality show a lot of promise. Ward Connelly is a noted opponent of affirmative action. Columnists like Walter Williams, Alan Keyes, and Thomas Sowell reject politics based on race. Other groups appear to be forming to promote a color blind society. But to most liberal civil rights advocates, "color blind" is a dirty phrase. They do not want equality; they want to be judged according to the color of their own skin--and they want to judge whites the same way.

Some black activists profit directly from racial enmity on a financial level; others profit by acquiring fame, notoriety, making speeches, selling books, or winning seats in government. It is in the interests of all these people to keep the fires of racism burning hot. They fully understand that their demagoguery over symbols like the Confederate flag will stir up more racial hatred, not less. That isn't a problem for many black racial activists, because they know stirring up more racial hatred on both sides of the fence feathers their nests. It's their job, you see. If they did away with racial hatred in the United States, they might actually have to find some other way to make a living.

In the case of Confederate symbols in particular, there is no worry about stirring ill feelings there: Most black racial activists do not want to make friends with white southerners--they want to punish white southerners. That's one reason they keep Abraham Lincoln on a pedestal--despite the fact that it's common knowledge Lincoln was a white separatist who considered black people to be inferiors. For every Bad Guy, there has to be a polarizing Good Guy. To militant black leaders, the polarizing Good Guy was Lincoln. He may have been a racist, but he also punished white southerners and slave owners. The white man of the South is the Bad Guy. He is the enemy. Lincoln crushed the South and destroyed its civilization. He burned its plantations and cities. That, in itself, earns him bonus points over 'evil aristocrats' like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Even though Thomas Jefferson apparently never said one ill word about black people all his life, was troubled by the institution of slavery, and is even presumed to have had a poignant love affair with a black woman who was one of his slaves...he is the villainous rich white man. Not Lincoln, who only wanted to emancipate southern slaves--leaving the northern ones in captivity--and who planned to send the emancipated slaves back to Africa after the end of the Civil War. Lincoln was a hero, because he crushed the rich white slaveowners of the south. Jefferson was an evil man, because he profited from the labors of blacks, and thereby made money. Money is very critical to understanding the passions and hatreds of militant black activists, because these activists are predominantly Marxists.

What white people need to understand is that, in the view of militant racial activists, rich white Americans are Czarists, and black militants are the heroic proletariat. And in the view of the Marxist, "you are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution." Does anyone recall the solution the Bolsheviks had for the Czarists of Russia? Here's a hint: It was not 'live and let live'.

One of the key goals of Western Communism has been to tear apart the culture and value system of white people, and to pit minority groups against that culture. To set one group against another, and one class against another. Or, more precisely, to set all groups and classes against white males whenever possible. White males are made to be the source of all evil. Economic class warfare is what the Bolsheviks practiced. What is practiced by Western Marxists is racial class warfare.

Does anyone think the motivations behind the push for "reparations" are greed, or a lust for money? If so, allow me to come to the defense of the reparations movement: It is not about greed at all.

It is about revenge.

The dirty little secret no one wants to discuss is where what we call 'prejudice' actually comes from. It does not derive from people looking different from one another. That is a fiction that Marxist academics would like for you to believe. The truth is that bigotry is not about skin color or physical characteristics--it is about getting even. It is about grudges. It is about revenge.

As an example, there are many white Americans who are bigoted against Africans, but there are very few white Americans who are bigoted against people from India or people from Thailand. The reason why is because even though these groups are common here, look different from whites, and have dark skin, there is no past history of conflict with Thais or Indians. There is no brooding group resentment.

Black militants like to excuse their own inherent racism by pointing out that their people have suffered in the past. That is not a valid excuse. In point of fact, all racism is based on suffering, resentment, and perceived wrongs of one group against another.

Bigotry against blacks did not exist during times of colonial slavery...slaves were chattel--property--not enemies. That wasn't a good thing, but it wasn't racism, either. A dairy farmer does not hate his cow. Racism between whites and blacks did not develop until after the Civil War. The racism began with Reconstruction. That was when the Ku Klux Klan originated. Had there been no Civil War...no Gettysburg, no Sherman's March to the Sea---the racism might not have happened at all. It is entirely conceivable that if American slavery had ended peacefully the way it did in England in 1833, or France in 1848--instead of being umbilically connected to America's bloodiest war---many feelings of group victimization might have never developed to any large degree.

All forms of racism derive from feelings of group victimization.

Adolf Hitler did not exterminate six million Jews because he didn't like the way Jews look, or the shape of their noses. He exterminated Jews because he saw Jews as a threat, and he had a grudge against them. He blamed Jews for trying to take over European society, and he had lots of grievances against Jews based on class envy. They owned banks. They had money. In Hitler's view, they were a privileged group with disproportionate economic advantages, who wielded power over his own race.

Sound familiar? It should. It is much the same basis for hatred of white people that is preached by black racial activists.

It's unfortunate that racism exists. It's even more unfortunate that civil rights charlatans have a vested interest in perpetuating the racism...beginning with their own. And there is no such thing as "reverse" racism. Racism is not dependent upon skin color for its definition. You are either a racist, or you are not. There are no special labels for those who cry about group victimhood.

It is time to introduce a new term into the political lexicon: Black Supremacy. This is what large portions of the US Civil Rights movement have become---a black supremacy movement. The anger is undisguised. Racism, to a black supremacist, means anything that stands in opposition to the economic and political interests of black Americans. If the economic and political interests of black people are better served by robbing white people, anyone who stands in the way of robbing white people is a racist. And that, by the way, is the entire philosophical base for affirmative action and the 'reparations' movement.

If there is to be any peace between the races, any end to racism, black supremacy must be ended. The Robert Mugabes of the world cannot continue to dominate racial politics. If they do, a racial war between blacks and whites is inevitable.

A color-blind society is not only the best solution---it's the only solution.

Based on an article in  EtherZone.com :