Here’s the audio of a speech Barack Obama gave today discussing the Virginia Tech massacre:

“There’s also another kind of violence that we’re going to have to think about. It’s not necessarily the physical violence, but the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways,” he said, and goes on to catalogue other forms of “violence.”

There’s the “verbal violence” of Imus.

There’s “the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country.”

I don’t know what’s dumber… equating a business decision to outsource work as ‘violence’ against employees… or equating this whole stupid line of reasoning with the massacre that occured yesterday.

Nice work, Barry, I’m sure Hillary’s thank you card is already in the mail.

1. AFTERMATH

   Image by MzMullerz [Latest News on Top] [Previous Coverage HERE] Obama Compares Massacre to …. Outsourcing? (Texas Rainmaker) Cho’s Parents Reportedly Hospitalized “With Shock” (ninemsn) Jilted Lover/Admirer Theory Debunked: Emily Hilscher’s bes…

   Trackback by Pajamas Media — 2:35 am
   

2. I don’t care for that kind of argument either. But you sure hear it enough. Blaming violent crimes on a “culture of violence” is very popular. And there certainly is some truth to it, but it is almost always used to justify unrelated stuff. Pro-lifers drag in abortion, moralists drag in sex or violence in movies and religious purists drag in high school dress codes. It just stretches the argument too much.

   A few years back I was in a tech company that “restructured”. A few thousand jobs were lost over the course of about 18 months, many of them outsourced. After the first few rounds of layoffs, the place turned into a bloomin’ morgue. Several of these people were laid off after 15 or 20 years with the company, with a mortgage and kids in college. Most of them (although certainly not all) were working their butts off, but the team as a whole was just not competitive with similar teams in France and the UK. I don’t doubt that it was a sensible business decision to expand the French and British R&D teams at our expense, but it was certainly painful. Some divisions saw their jobs go to an Indian company (software development mainly), which was perhaps even more painful because that company was largely unproven. But of course, it was much, much cheaper.

   If you believe the big companies, it makes less and less sense to do research and development in the US, or software development, or tech support, or backoffice work. But what will that leave in the end? Sales and management?

   For the record, I don’t think that outsourcing internationally is a bad idea per se. Without it, India and China would not be developing so fast. There is no other way to transfer advanced technology and know-how to these two countries in such vast quantities. Without that direct transfer, it would take them decades in stead of years to catch up to us in science and technology. In some fields, they’re slowly pulling ahead (chip manufacturing, wireless network infrastructure and perhaps biotech). Globally speaking, this is absolutely great. But you have to wonder what the end result will be.

   Comment by endorendil — 3:58 am
   

3. Mourning the Victims, Searching for Answers

   [Latest News on Top] [Previous Coverage HERE] Boing Boing has the results of all the obsessive “Ismail Ax” research being conducted across cyberspace with everything from sororities to obscure sects to little-known novels. Obama Compares Massacre to…

   Trackback by Pajamas Media — 4:54 am
   

4. […] Filed in: Democrat Presidential Candidates by Kathy at 07:56 on Apr 18th, 2007 | | Trackback URL | Print This Post | No Comments» […]

   Pingback by Hang Right Politics - Archives » There Is VIOLENCE, and then there is violence… and then there is a stupid analogy — 5:56 am
   

5. Obama: Insults, Outsourcing ‘Violence’

   The culture of victimhood has a new champion, according to the Texas Rainmaker, and that champion is Barack Obama. Faster than someone can say “Ismail Ax”, Obama used the Virginia Tech massacre to decry violence in American lives — but…

   Trackback by Captain's Quarters — 6:02 am
   

6. […] The culture of victimhood has a new champion, according to the Texas Rainmaker, and that champion is Barack Obama. Faster than someone can say “Ismail Ax”, Obama used the Virginia Tech massacre to decry violence in American lives — but as it turns out, “violence” covers a lot of ground in Obama’s political lexicon: Dem presidential hopeful Barack Obama condemned a violence obsessed culture in his first Wisconsin campaign stop, reflecting on the shooting deaths of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech earlier in the day. … […]

   Pingback by Obama: Insults, Outsourcing ‘Violence’ at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source. — 6:07 am
   

7. Amateur Hour for Obama

   Perhaps we need to impose a seven-day waiting period on politicians before they’re allowed to make idiotic comments following tragic events.

   Trackback by JammieWearingFool — 6:56 am
   

8. Obama on VA Tech

   I’m shocked. Seriously, I thought he was different. You know, smarter. And decent. Or at least shrewder. Maybe I was wrong.

   In a speech yesterday, Barack Obama compared what happened at Virginia Tech to Don Imus’s “verbal violence,” and the…

   Trackback by Dean Barnett — 7:18 am
   

9. We can only hope that Hillary will start to self-destruct too!

   Comment by Panhandle Poet — 8:34 am
   

10. […] UPDATE II: HAH! […]

    Pingback by LeatherPenguin » The Magic Negro Riffs on V-Tech — 8:43 am
    

11. […] No class Obama on Virginia Tech: “There’s also another kind of violence that we’re going to have to think about. It’s not necessarily the physical violence, but the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways,” he said, and goes on to catalogue other forms of “violence.” There’s the “verbal violence” of Imus. […]

    Pingback by Snarky Bastards » Blog Archive » No class — 9:54 am
    

12. […] All it took to kill Geoge Allen was one slip of the tongue.   Well, ff the attributed quote is accurate, Barack Obama has just had his Macaca moment.  According to Texas Rainmaker, Obama said: “the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country.” […]

    Pingback by BitsBlog » Barry’s Macaca — 10:39 am
    

13. Grow hair with propecia

    find out how you can grow hair with propecia.

    Trackback by propecia — 6:36 pm
    

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

You must be logged in to post a comment.