Tuesday, September 18, 2007

In Opposition to Hillary Clinton...


Hillary Clinton supports laws, regulations and trade agreements which subordinate the broad general good of all Americans and the long term interests of the United States to the whims of corporations controlled by monied elites. Hillary Clinton believes in the same radical corporate-managed trade and labor policies supported by the Bush Administration. These radical pro-corporate policies, established in law and government regulation, enable corporations to destroy good paying jobs for Americans undercutting the very idea of a broad middle class society.

Indeed, Hillary Clinton has displayed a pattern of studied indifference to the plight of working Americans while eagerly accepting corporate gifts, favors, and financial reward. From support for UN-FAIR trade agreements to promoting corporate "guest worker" programs used to replace American white-collar workers with imported lower-cost non-Americans, Senator Clinton well represents the corporate interests of the Offshore Outsourcing lobby in the U.S. Senate.


However, effective advocacy and unwavering support for the interests of corporations and slavish devotion to business lobbies are not popularly-accepted qualifications for election to the office of President of the United States. While it is convenient for some to confuse the short-term objective of winning elections with the principles necessary to govern for the broad general welfare of all Americans, self-serving political opportunism must be recognized for what it is.

Therefore, "The Modern Patriot" opposes the candidacy of Hillary Clinton for the office of President of the United States and urges others to closely examine the beliefs and conduct of Senator Clinton. True democrats do not support policies which destroy the livelihoods of American families and lead to deteriorating living standards for all except the wealthy and well-connected.

Cross-posted to Raising Kaine on 09/18 and the Daily Kos on 09/19.

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Friday, September 14, 2007

Hillary Clinton Supports Destruction of American Jobs, Takes Pay-Offs For Helping Outsourcers



Continuing on the theme of my previous posting re. Hillary Clinton's support for corporate programs to eliminate jobs for American workers, I read a comment by an angry Clinton constituent on Progressive Geek

The one-time Clinton supporter discussed Hillary's promise to work to improve the jobs situation in Upstate New York when she first ran for the U.S. Senate. Clinton has done just the opposite and cynically used the jobs issue for election but has no interest in helping American workers once in office.

Here's a brief part of the comment:

"Her entire career in upstate New York has been of a piece in a series of token gestures, creating 10 token window-dressing American jobs for Tata Consulting in Buffalo (what a great trade -- there are more than 10 Indian consultants right now just in my cubicle cluster in Albany!!). It's endemic up here, cheap token gestures like renaming empty streets leading to dead malls and empty office campuses "Computer Avenue" and "Silicon Way"; pointless PR campaigns "re-branding" upstate New York as "Tech Valley"; setting up a local non-union "Charter School" in technology with enrollments of 40 kids who probably spend more time being photographed with politicians than learning."


The comment came in response to a very important story of how the Clinton campaign was actively seeking the support of key U.S. and foreign "big money" in the Offshore Outsourcing business. The article referenced appeared in the LA Times, "Clinton woos the outsourcers feared by U.S. workers". This article is also well worth a read, essentially underscoring the tremendous reality lost in the much misunderstood Obama campaign claim that Hillary Clinton was essentially representing the interests of the Indian offshore outsourcing business elites.

Here's one fine quote from the article which gives some indication of how offshore outsourcing money is helping to power the Hillary Clinton campaign:

"Clinton is successfully wooing wealthy Indian Americans, many of them business leaders with close ties to their native country and an interest in protecting outsourcing laws and expanding access to worker visas. Her campaign has held three fundraisers in the Indian American community recently, one of which raised close to $3 million, its sponsor told an Indian news organization.

But in Buffalo, the fruits of the Tata deal have been hard to find. The company, which called the arrangement Clinton's "brainchild," says "about 10" employees work here. Tata says most of the new employees were hired from around Buffalo. It declines to say whether any of the new jobs are held by foreigners, who make up 90% of Tata's 10,000-employee workforce in the United States."

The quote from John Miano at the Programmer's Guild reminds me very much of the criticisms faced by Harris Miller in last year's Virginia Dem. primary:

"It's just two-faced," said John Miano, founder of the Programmers Guild, one of several high-tech worker organizations that have sprung up as outsourcing has expanded. "We see her undermining U.S. workers and helping the offshoring business, and then she comes back to the U.S. and says, 'I'm concerned about your pain.' "

TATA or TCS, the Indian Offshore Outsourcing and H-1b bodyshop mentioned in the article imports thousands of Indian guest workers into the US to facilitate offshore outsourcing of jobs to India or replace American workers in the U.S. with imported Indian workers also in the U.S. The key in both cases is the so-called "guest worker" programs (e.g., H-1b, L-1) supposedly created because of "shortages of American workers" (a widespread myth concocted at great effort and cost by outsourcing and anti-worker lobbies).

Hillary Clinton is all about LIES -- lies propping up bigger lies to help make the rich and powerful more rich and more powerful leading to the sort of sharply reduced living standards for the majority of Americans now increasingly in evidence all over the U.S.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Hillary CLinton's Offshoring Ties Face Scrutiny


It seems that contrary to Hillary Clinton's claim that there's nothing new to talk about re. her past, the Sept. 8 Washington Post has an interesting article, "Unions Press Clinton on Outsourcing Of U.S. Jobs", filled with information about Senator Clinton's ties to monied elites who profit from the elimination of American middle class jobs.

The Obama campaign's fumbled criticism of Hillary Clinton's ties to Indian outsourcing corporations (e.g., "Sen. Clinton, D-Punjab") and mainstream press failure to explore the facts, notwithstanding there's plenty of grist for the mill here.

Millions of middle and working class Americans want to know what the he!! an alleged "democrat" is doing allied with the people responsible for declining standards of living and rising inequities in America.

Assuredly, this is the conversation that Hillary Clinton does NOT want to have with American journalists and voters.

The reality is that Hillary likes the cash that comes from being the friend of business lobbies who wish to continue their middle class job-killing policies without government interference.

My suggestion to those interested in seeing whose interests Hillary is concerned with: follow the money. The money trail to Hillary leads back to corporate boardrooms and CEO mansions in the U.S. and offshore -- to people who have grown immensely rich while the lives of middle and working class Americans have deteriorated.

Isn't it interesting that Hillary Clinton is trying to downplay her offshore outsourcing lobbyist ties now? Voters in last November's elections put two outspoken critics of offshore outsourcing into the U.S. Senate: Jim Webb (Virginia) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio)

Perhaps Hillary realises that she has to get past democratic voters in states where her outsourcing lobby money may count less than it does in New York -- states like Virginia and Ohio. Democrats in these states have elected leaders diametrically opposed to the economic/jobs/labor policies that Hillary has joined Republicans in supporting during her time in the Senate.

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