Indian IT workers didn't steal our jobs. Psychopathic billionaires did, and gave them to Indians.

[backscatter712]

Last edited Thu Aug 9, 2012, 06:34 PM - Edit history (3)

I posted this in DainBramaged's thread, but felt strongly enough about this to make an OP out of it.

The Indians didn't steal our jobs. The 1% stole our jobs and gave them to Indians.

And Chinese and Mexicans and Burmans and Africans and so on. Where the labor is cheap and exploitable. And they're doing that to make workers here in the U.S. cheap and exploitable.

The psychopathic subhumans making the decisions in the corner offices of the big corporations chose to outsource because they wanted something closer to slavery. Because we have such inconvenient things as minimum wage laws, workplace safety laws, unions, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and enough of a middle class to ensure that at least some workers can look around and find a better deal if their current employer is shitting on them. They don't like that. They want us without benefits, without the option of moving to a competitor, scrambling and struggling to make a pittance that's barely enough to afford a cup of rice and a jury-rigged shack made out of scrapyard materials. No schools, no hospitals, no paved roads, no clean water, no nothin', and most of all, NO WAY OUT for those being exploited - gets in the way of the executives' 100,000 square foot mansions with car elevators, Gulfsteam jets and 200' yachts. They have their priorities.

Our anger needs to be directed correctly - at the corrupt billionaires and psychopathic executives who made the decisions, lobbied our governments, and gave the orders. They're the ones who are fucking us so they can live like kings while we're falling into squalor.

The guy on tech support in Mumbai with the Hindi accent is just a working stiff like us - he applied for job openings and got hired just like we do. The Indians are just struggling to make a living like we are. The only difference is that their wages are lower, they get less or no training, basic services are non-existant, so they're more desperate, have no safety net, and thus more exploitable. Remember the words "I can fire you at any time!" actually translate to "I can force you and your family to die slowly of starvation and sickness in poverty at any time!"

Remember your true enemy. Mitt-Romney-esque one-percenters who want to enslave the rest of us. They love it when we turn on each other instead of them.

Blame Bill Gates. Blame Steve Jobs. Blame Sheldon Adelson, and Rupert Murdoch, and the Koch brothers, and the DeVos and the Waltons. They're the ones fucking us sideways. They're just using 3rd world workers as pawns to give us a deeper fucking.

Yes, Virginia, it IS class warfare. And we're leveling our sights on the wrong targets.

[Blue Owl]

1. K&R

:kick:

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Agreed, but I would say "sociopathic" rather than "psychopathic".

[backscatter712]

3. Is there really a difference between a psychopath and a sociopath?

Both words are used to describe someone with antisocial behavior - hurts other people, in a predatory manner, without remorse or empathy towards their victims. Either word describes them just fine to me.

[limpyhobbler]

4. k/r.

That was a case of some seriously misplaced anger.

[pampango]

5. So we should be mad at our own 1% rather than fellow workers in another country. Who knew?

Thanks for the OP, backscatter712. You make some great points.

[backscatter712]

6. Yep. What do you think Rmoney did at Bain?

He wanted to build elevators for his cars, so he bought up companies, laid off the workers, offshored the work to China, loaded the company up with debt, charged "management fees", and made off with millions while the rest of us got fucked.

That Chinese worker getting paid $0.25/hour for working in a toxic deathtrap of a factory didn't steal that job that used to be in the U.S. in a regulated, safe manufacturing facility, that paid a decent middle class wage. People like Rmoney, working at firms like Bain did.

[uponit7771]

7. Unnnn, I work in IT people are exploiting the sociopaths at the behest of US workers but the onus...

...belongs on the 1% no doubt..

I do think there's enough work here were we need help, I somewhat agree with gates but gates doesn't understand how much it hurts US citizens

[backscatter712]

10. Do you mean the sociopaths are exploiting everyone else?

Both US workers and foreign workers (be they Indian, Chinese, Mexican, H1b, etc.) are getting the shaft. The only ones benefiting are the Wall Street crooks making all the bucks while US workers go unemployed, Chinese and Indian workers are abused in sweatshops, H1bs are paid half of what they're worth, and forced to stay in those jobs, not moving elsewhere under penalty of deportation, etc.

I've also worked as a software engineer. Past tense, though I've been getting freelance jobs here and there putting together web sites. But the old steady-salary engineering jobs are very hard to find, and don't pay like they used to.

[moondust]

8. I sometimes wonder

if those third world countries will ever be "allowed" to meaningfully develop "inconvenient things as minimum wage laws, workplace safety laws, unions, Social Security, unemployment insurance." I suppose if one of them does then the sociopaths will pull up and move on to the next desperate underdeveloped place. Jack Welch once suggested putting factories on barges so they could be moved from port to port the minute some gov't or workforce doesn't give them whatever they want.

Jack Welch's Barge

[limpyhobbler]

11. It probably doesn't help when we support regimes hostile to labor unions...

Such as in Latin America. Selling them guns to shoot their union organizers.

[arthritisR_US]

9. You echo my thoughts! k&r. n/t

[JI7]

12. indians should refuse to take those jobs

[limpyhobbler]

13. sarcasm ?

I think it is, but ya never know.

[JI7]

15. kind of, but that seems to be the only thing that could be done

other than changes in the law.

[limpyhobbler]

16. It might not be that crazy.

If there were some kind of international software workers union in place and they had a strike or picket action at a particular worksite whether in Bangalore or Boston, many software workers would voluntarily choose not to cross the picket line.

It would take a little solidarity on both sides though. But as long as it's every girl for herself, I don't think too many people are going to independently come up with the idea of not accepting jobs.

[Starry Messenger]

14. k&r

[HiPointDem]

17. He didn't say "Indian IT workers". He said: "the Indian IT industry". And the issue of workers v.

capital, Indians & Americans were discussed in the thread. I didn't read the OP as an attack on Indian workers, or the discussion that followed.

[JCMach1]

18. a friend of mine here in Nairobi was just hired by Dyncorp

The US military contractor for 5$ an hr. Even our military is now outsourced.