Bashing Indians

[goodhue]

Hillary has been pilloried for co-founding and co-chairing the Senate India Caucus. (Apparently it is considered evidence that she is no friend to the American worker.)

Before the torches burn out, it is worth shining the light on other alleged representatives apparently associating with the enemy. Consider the horror that 115 democrat house members in the 110th Congress belong to the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. http://www.usindiafriendship.net/congress1/housecaucus/members.htm

Among them are Neil Abercrombie, Barney Frank, Mike Honda, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, John Lewis, and Peter Stark. Sadly, natives have been duped as progressive leaders help sell out America.

Sorry for the sarcasm but xenophobia bugs me. Indeed, I'd call it racism but DUers would protest too much.

[Deja Q]

1. Life's a hoot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-India_relations

They've been the best of friends (until very recently, of course).

If President Bush said people are with us or against us, then calls Iran an enemy, it's of no shock India is going to follow his lead. And why not? Offshoring to India is proving to be anything but appeasing slave drivers; India's economy makes $10/hr jobs a godsend. Indians are certainly not complaining for such wealth. ;) I wouldn't be. (of course, the moment they disagree with Bush on something, I'll whip out the Jiffy Time brand microwave popcorn and diet pepsi...)

One has to wonder, if America's prosperity returned under Bush, would Bush's popularity rating go back up? ;)



(Addendum: In short, no one situation is so simple that it can so easily be defined. I'm not sure what's going on in this world, but I think it's not as much racism as some people want to make it out to be. But I'm not going to spend all day pissing about on various possibilities, tangents, hyperbole, and needless fears.)

[Skittles]

4. you get what you pay for

and believe me, our corporate whores are paying for the cheapest of the cheap

[liberalpragmatist]

2. It is xenophobia

I admit I'm sort of with Paul Krugman on trade - I'm not a protectionist, but I think vastly more has to be done to keep the playing field even and ensure that the negative effects of trade don't become too large, because the potential dislocations are vast.

BUT, I'm sympathetic to those who are anti-trade and perfectly happy to let them express that view (it's an important one and I'm not so presumptuous as to assume that I'm right).

My concern is that too often anti-trade sentiment expresses itself in xenophobia, "us vs. them" ugliness. That's the province of anti-immigration hardliners like Tom Tancredo and old-line racists like Jesse Helms. And such xenophobia quickly becomes guilt by association, whereby anything "good" - even non-trade related - for our trading competitors becomes "selling out" America.

There's nothing wrong with the Senate India Caucus - I see no reason why there shouldn't be a body within Congress calling for closer relations between the world's two largest democracies (imperfect though each may be).

[Hart2008]

3. "Consider the horror that 115 democrat house members..."

Kind of shows us where you are coming from when you write about democrat house members.
:eyes:

[goodhue]

5. sorry it was a typo

or maybe I'm just off the boat

[draft_mario_cuomo]

6. It was simply racist, good post nt

[goodhue]

7. yes, thanks

although I'm not sure why I bother

[draft_mario_cuomo]

8. I hear you. The hero worship blinds some even to basic progressive values nt