The view from above

--- by Dave Buhlman

Last week I saw President Bush give a speech, and then answer questions, at an economic forum. He was asked about something forgettable, but in his response went off on a tangent to describe what he considered to be a great success a few years ago in North Carolina.

He acknowledged that treaties and agreements, such as NAFTA, had caused jobs to leave the country. To counter this dislocation in the garment industry in North Carolina, the President described how the government retrained these garment workers to do something else. For the President, this was a success story.

What he appears unable to imagine is that these garment workers, and many other innocent Americans who have lost their jobs in other industries since NAFTA was passed in 1993, may have actually liked their jobs. Maybe they were the third or fourth generations in their families to spend their lives working at certain jobs. And these were jobs to these people, not careers. And maybe they felt pride in what they did.

But for the President and other members of the elite, one mind-numbingly boring job is as good as any other mind-numbingly boring job for members of the unwashed masses. They may believe that, like monkeys, people can be retrained to perform other tasks to continue to have a role in the economy, to continue to barely survive financially on the margin. Better still, they might be forced to join the military to fill up the ranks for the next undeclared war.

I don’t think the President was being mean or facetious; I believe that, from his perch on high, it’s impossible for him to imagine what life is like for ordinary Americans. So if it suits the men in suits to pass treaties that increase the profits of the men in suits, then the government does that. Ordinary Americans, playing a form of Russian Roulette with their piles of bills, are not a part of the equation. In addition to the treaties with countries who have little to no labor or environmental rules, Congress is trying to increase the number of foreigners who come to America to take our jobs through the H-B visa programs. The fact that we’re in a recession, that there are numerous foreclosures on houses, and people are losing their jobs, cars and their way of life, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans among the decision makers and their controllers. They believe that, as Orwell said, some animals are more equal than others.

We all understand that some people have more money and things than the rest of us, due to a timely birth, special talents, or especially hard work that paid off big, and no one begrudges them their success. We only ask that they stop hamstringing the rest of us with Washington, DC activity that benefits only the relatively few.

Much more important, however, is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has risen and, really, that fact is most important. Happy Easter! Take joy in His Resurrection.

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative, published author, and a supporter of the return to a Constitutional Republic.