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Sandip Roy
Sandip Roy is an editor with New America Media and host of its radio show New America Now on KALW 91.7 FM.
[ filed under: politics race-relations ] Here’s Chris Matthews tearing into Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s non-state-of-the-union speech. “They had to outsource the response” says Matthews. Interesting choice of words. Of course, Matthews clarified he meant that they had to get a Republican who was not in Congress because the ones in Congress were all tainted, compromised, less-than-inspiring.But “outsourced”? To the nation’s only Indian-American governor? You could hardly miss the barb. (It’s not that Jindal was a total stranger to Congress either. He was re-elected to it in 2006 with over 80 percent of the vote.) I wonder if all-American hockey-mom Sarah Palin had delivered the Republican response, Matthews would have used the same phrase. After all, she has really never been to Congress. And Alaska is pretty offshore. I am no big admirer of Bobby Jindal, the new brown hope of the Republican party. We are not brothers under the skin. He’s bright, efficient, personable, a good family man and socially inflexibly conservative with a grin. But it is interesting how “outsourcing” has become accepted as the smear word of American politics. A business processing turn has acquired moral tones and found its place in the popular imagination as the new brown peril. The Los Angeles Times once quipped the US had “outsourced” its national security and the hunt for bin Laden to Pakistan. John Kerry hammered home the same point, with the same pointed reference to outsourcing during his presidential campaign. Outsourcing raises visions of your “sensitive personal data” falling into unwashed “foreign hands.” I once did a survey of Indian papers and American papers about that issue. The difference was clear. Papers in India often stuck to the acronym BPO (or business process outsourcing) while American media used outsourcing as the bogeyman. Of course what they were usually talking about was offshore outsourcing. Outsourcing technically could be done to the company down the street. But in the popular imagination of the call-center world, outsourcing usually meant brown people who looked like Jindal. Good evening and happy Mardi Gras, I am Bobby Jindal. How can I take away your economic stimulus today? In the current economic climate with Obama saying he would eliminate incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas, outsourcing is back as Public Enemy Number 1. The whipping boy is back. Matthews took that bait and tried to run with it. Jindal became the outsourced rebuttal – brown, foreign, therefore not to be trusted. comments |
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It’s time for indian companies to make most out of recession and protectionist policies adapted by Mr Obama .If befitting response is not given to America then we would loose a lot and gain nothing.I am not against America or Americans i do feel what Obama is doing is the need of time , i mean who would want millions of job loss.I work in a call center.I am in this industry from last good eight years.I have not got anything ,I mean i have purchased a small car for myself and thats it,however that was my gain and my loss huge.In last eight years i have flirted with my health, i have to work in night , i am a smoker , drinks on every weekend like fish,once admitted to hospital as i fainted due to fourteen hour compulsory shift , and a mild depression for six months , to end a lot of night shift side effects i am about to see in my remaining life.American companies and their CEO’s are the people who made most out of outsourcing, we be it be american or indian/chinese people we have only suffered in many ways.I firmly believe that american or british jobs should go to their respective countries. However in return I would want our politicians should put some sort of taxes on foreign companies.If you think we indians are helping foreign companies to grow their multinationals and ignoring our potential companies,how i tell you me any my wife are call center employees earn salary which if revealed is a joke to most of westerners.Taxes on companies which outsource manufacturing goods to China cannot help in any ways It will infact kill that company how for example an american company manufactures an ipod it will sell it for ten dollars and an indian or chinese will sell it for one dollar,how because obviously what an american would earn as wages to produce that ipod till it is sold in a shop will be six alteast six months salary of a chinese or indian worker.And any customer from any part of the globe will buy one dollar ipod not ten dollar one . That was the case of taxes imposed on companies which outsource manufacturing jobs ,for american companies which outsource backend or call center work to india would want to save millions of dollars by outsourcing not beacause it’s cheap but the quality is also good , I believe it’s a racial comment when i read in some american blogs that companies outsource because it’s cheap as dirt there however accent is a problem it’s all crap. I personally have never faced any accent problem from any customer ever neither it has been report by any of my customer it’s plain english nothing else.You have to be a CEO of a company to understand what millions of dollars saving means.We in return are helping US multionals to grow We go and eat at Mc donalds or KFC’s on weekends buy clothes like levies jeans/ Wrangler or any foreigner brand occasionally we buy electonic goods like cd’s laptops or ipod’s made in China to reach a near by mall i drive a car which is of Japanese company it need fuel which comes from Gulf countries .I can keep on writing the list of our dependence on each other is endless.I want the way Obama and americans think only about their countries we as Indians or it be chinese think about us and our people. Because at this point and at this stage i don’t think indians need anything from any country infact they need us to survive and be competitive globally.Like Mc donalds can be taken over by Haldirams for what ever food items they make we make jeans/ Wrangler or GAP so why their labels why not indian name we make cars , TATA and Mahindra are finest examples and on top of it we have ever growing middle class to buy it which is our main strength unlike americans.If we think about it we can be America or maybe China of tommorow.
By sumit · Posted on Mar 3, 10:22 AMYou are right Sumit, this is indeed the right time for India to make the most out of recession.
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By Richard · Posted on Jun 30, 11:54 PMRichard
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