funnyman — thanks for you brilliant insights. I’m sensing that Sharpton and Jackson have more in common in Rush and Beck than I ever realized. We have self-appointed spokesmen claiming to speak for groups whose members, as a rule, do not take them very seriously — at least not all the time. But group outsiders think these spokemens speak for their communities. When they make inflammatory remarks, they get criticized by outsiders (sometimes in a way that offends the group), which leads to defensiveness and polarization. This is good business for the spokesmen but bad for individual members of the groups. Spokesmen have vested interest in division.

Does he want to run? Does it matter to him that he will be ripped to shreds by white liberals on TV as selling his soul for money and power and as a race traitor by messers Jackson, Sharpton and Farrakan? What are his policy positions? Would he appeal to a broad swath of the electorate on the basis of his ideas?

These are questions that have to be asked because they make the difference between defeat and victory.

What happens to blacks that enter the Republican Party Richard? What happens when they have to gather together with their families that vote 95% of the time for a Democrat? What names do they get called by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Perhaps things such as:

“Get back on the porch boy”
“Uncle Tom”

“Oreo”
“Race sellout”

Blacks that join the Republican Party and embrace its ideals are demonized. When the Republican Party nominates blacks it they are characterized as Uncle Toms and the Republican Party is said to be promoting tolken blacks that white Republicans will actually control. The very basis on conservative ideology is race neutrality. The Republican Party should push every candidate that wants to run and who is qualified for the position regardless of race. Where does the Republican Party find such blacks when 95% of the population votes Democrat, believes in Democrat ideas on government and responsibilty and the remaining 5% is demonized? Can you understand the dilemma?

If increased competitiveness isn’t the answer, what is?

Increased competitiveness and capitalism are part of the answer. A reflexive GOP response of tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts won’t do it.

We could try building two or three fewer F-22 type planes (that are going to engage in dog fights with whom Al Queda?) and create a real system for retraining. Tell Exxon that they will have to struggle on without subsidies for exploration and direct that money to helping to bring about 4G & 5G networks everywhere.

I’ve worried about my job being outsourced as much as anyone. But I’ve concluded there is no such thing as job security anymore.

Want a more secure job? Make health insurance universal and comprehensive like in every other advance country on the planet so workers can pick and move anywhere there’s a job without worry about pre-existing conditions and things like wildly unfair denials of coverage for rape victims????

Change the education system so that the scam that is the current vocational school patchwork ceases being a bad joke burdening the poorest among us with loans they can never repay for courses that well over 50% of students never finish.

End payday lending.

Lots to do, none of it having a thing to do with lightening the tax bill of the top 5% even more.

Sorry it takes me so long to respond, but I live on the West Coast and must wait until evenings to submit comments. If you see this, please consider responding to this question: How should America respond to growing competition from the global economy? If capitalism isn’t the answer, what is?

Let me say that while I believe in free markets, I acknowledge unbridled capitalism is often brutally savage. Government has a legitimate role regulating markets to assure competition is fair and to intervene and prosecute when laws are broken. I am no more enamored of insurance companies or financial wizardry or short-term-profit-driven corporations than the next guy.

But as hard as capitalism is, I know of no other economic system that gives consumers the best choices or gives corporations incentives to improve. I see Wall Street as treacherous but necessary. I think the business world should be like the NBA whose players attain (through cutthroat competition) phenomenal levels of basketball talent. Rewards should be based on merit alone as determined in a free, competitive market. Government’s job is to referee the players. But if the referees start scoring points themselves, whose going to referee the referees?

I’m not happy that our factories have all but disappeared, but what can we do about it? The last three Presidents (including Clinton) promoted NAFTA. Why? Because their experts and advisers decided it was the best thing to do for America, despite protests from ordinary folks. Were all those government officials who pushed NAFTA dumb, unpatriotic crooks? I hardly think so. I think the truth is much harder to swallow — we are in a new economic age where the old rules don’t apply. This age was ushered in when the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall fell.

I’m not saying I like things as they are. I belong to a union and I’ve walked a picket line. I’ve worried about my job being outsourced as much as anyone. But I’ve concluded there is no such thing as job security anymore. We’ve got to stay competitive. Like you, I’m sure, I wish there was more emphasis on firing the bozos who run good companies to the ground. But I also recognize that unions are often part of the problem. And bailouts just reward bad behavior.

If increased competitiveness isn’t the answer, what is?

What is needed there is a bipartisan radical shake-up of the whole system.

I agree.

Hopefully when Obama is done with the health care debate and has made his choice on Afghanistan he can turn his attention to education. Both parties have failed inner city kids especially. The Democrats need to stand to to the unions and the Republicans need to forget about eliminating the Department of Education and public schools.

I am confident that sometime within the next three years there will be a major shift as important as health insurnace for all is going to be.