The sun never sets on the Grand Old Party

August 27, 2003 4:37 PM

GOP saves a buck or two. Shameless. [via Fark.]
posted by condour75 (32 comments total)

Is this a satire, or a real news story?
posted by thirteen at 4:40 PM on August 27, 2003

Hmm, I was expecting to see that they'd decided to do all their phone soliciting by collect calls on AT&T.

Which would give me another reason to dream fondly of the day Carrot Top dies by falling in a wood chipper.
posted by scody at 4:42 PM on August 27, 2003

oh it's real. Here's another link, from the Business Standard.
posted by condour75 at 4:46 PM on August 27, 2003

Don't volunteers normally do this? Surely the GOP team leadersare looking over their shoulders worrying that they'll be replaced by Indian workers.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:52 PM on August 27, 2003

This shouldn't be a surprise. This administration is all about exploitable resources. Ferengi, the lot of 'em.
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:21 PM on August 27, 2003

I read somewhere that much of AOL's customer service is/was handled by Indians who have been trained in American-English. It was supposedly fairly easy to convince them to reveal your "forgotten" account password, leading to a lot of account jacking.
posted by sharksandwich at 5:23 PM on August 27, 2003

For what it's worth, it's been denied.

The Republican National Committee, through spokesman Kevin Sheridan, completely denies the allegation, telling UPI, "Any report that the Republican National Committee has hired HCL eServe -- the firm mentioned in the original Business Standard article -- is a case of bad reporting, bad business practices or both. The RNC has no affiliation with HCL. Any inference to the contrary is flat out wrong. The RNC has informed both HCL and rediff.com of the inaccuracy of this report." "
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:38 PM on August 27, 2003

Denied, maybe, but they sure are walking a fine linguistic line by not saying they haven't outsourced the jobs to India. They merely state they aren't working with HCL.
posted by willnot at 5:55 PM on August 27, 2003

If it was debunked, why did it get reprinted today, 7 months after the original report?
posted by mathowie at 5:55 PM on August 27, 2003

Maybe their Inquirer is like our Enquirer. (And I agree about the legalistic denial)
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:07 PM on August 27, 2003

hmm... I just noticed that the Business Standard article is from January, so I'm not sure why the Inquirer just published this. Sorry about that -- anyone know any updates?
posted by condour75 at 6:23 PM on August 27, 2003

Gawd bless uhmerika. Bah.

Though I'm leaving, I intend to mantain a legal US address, and will continue to vote in the vain hope of getting these nitwits out of office. But I don't have a helluva lot of hope, there's a bunch of idiots in Nebraska that think Georgie Porgie is the greatest thing since Nixon.

Perhaps the public schools should have a course on how to recognize when you're being sold a bill of goods.
posted by ehintz at 6:27 PM on August 27, 2003

Public schools are for socialists.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 6:57 PM on August 27, 2003

Public schools are for producing tame and compliant fast food workers, assembly line workers, and waiters. But most importantly mindless consumers. Interesting topic on public schools
posted by imlit at 9:57 PM on August 27, 2003

Public schools are for producing tame and compliant fast food workers, assembly line workers, and waiters.

Yeah, I guess that's why I don't do any of those things even though I went to a public school. In fact most people who went to a public school don't do any of those things.

But most importantly mindless consumers.

People who end up as fast-food workers, assembly-line workers, and waiters are not the best equipped to be consumers. To consume conspicuously, one must have disposable income.
posted by kindall at 10:11 PM on August 27, 2003

If competition and the free market are the corner stone of the American economic system (well at least in theory), then surely it would be un-American not to take advantage of companies which can offer equal quality of services overseas at the same price, as with the Indian call centres mentioned here.
posted by biffa at 2:14 AM on August 28, 2003

The company I work for just announced its intention to outsource a significant portion of its engineering to India. To say that my cow-orkers and I are unhappy about this would be a major understatement. First we shipped the factory jobs overseas, now we're busily hollowing-out the white-collar and R&D infrastructure. What's going to be left? Should I start training as a butler so I can wait upon upper-class robber barons?

Have any presidential candidates taken an official stand on this issue? If so, would any of them actually stand up to Big Bidness on this? I have my doubts.

Shit, I'm ready to vote for Gus Hall and Angela Davis at this point (I know I'm really dating myself with that statement).
posted by MrBaliHai at 3:04 AM on August 28, 2003

Welcome to the service sector.
posted by pekar wood at 5:07 AM on August 28, 2003

Welcome to the service sector.

"Would you like fries with that?"
posted by amberglow at 5:23 AM on August 28, 2003

So does this mean my raised level of rhetoric against these thieves was correct and justified all along? :-)

[thunk!]
[2x4 finally hitting sheep across side of head]

No one saw this one coming! Ha!
posted by nofundy at 7:01 AM on August 28, 2003

"Public schools are for producing tame and compliant fast food workers, assembly line workers, and waiters"

I went to a private high school, and a public University. I ended up as a blue collar worker in a large factory (though not an assembly line worker). Your ignorant elitism is an eyesore imlit.
posted by Eekacat at 7:16 AM on August 28, 2003

People who end up as fast-food workers, assembly-line workers, and waiters are not the best equipped to be consumers. To consume conspicuously, one must have disposable income. - kindall

I disagree. Granted, the blue collar set aren't the people buying expensive durable goods, like Volvos and McMansions, but they buy non-durable goods at a much higher rate. The reason being, cheap durables...such as shoes, clothes, etc., are crap quality and fall apart quickly...hence needing to be replaced not long after initial purchase. Expensive non-durables, on the other hand, are higher quality and designed to last longer.

Terry Pratchett gives a good example of this. In one of his Discworld novels, he talks about how the common cop can't afford good boots, so he buys cheap boots every 6 months for about $30 a pair. A good pair costs $200 and lasts for 5 years...so in the same five year period, the poor cop will have spent $300 on boots vs the rich man's $200...and he will still have had wet feet the whole time.
posted by dejah420 at 7:44 AM on August 28, 2003

Everything manufactured the past 20 years seems to have the idea of planned obsolscence built in.

As for the topic on hand, I wouldn't be surprised. After all, global competition spurs Americans to offer a better product at a lower cost, right? Right?
posted by infowar at 8:20 AM on August 28, 2003

Public schools are for producing tame and compliant fast food workers, assembly line workers, and waiters. But most importantly mindless consumers.

This is a snobbish, ignorant and untrue statement.
posted by Bonzai at 9:00 AM on August 28, 2003

Public schools are for producing tame and compliant fast food workers, assembly line workers, and waiters. But most importantly mindless consumers.

This is a snobbish, ignorant and untrue statement.

No, it isn't. /Feeding the derail.
posted by jaronson at 9:27 AM on August 28, 2003

Public schools are for producing tame and compliant fast food workers, assembly line workers, and waiters. But most importantly mindless consumers.

Is this statement based on the article in the current issue of Harpers?
posted by thirteen at 9:32 AM on August 28, 2003

Nevermind, I followed the link and found the connection.
posted by thirteen at 9:33 AM on August 28, 2003

So does this mean my raised level of rhetoric against these thieves was correct and justified all along?

And which thieves would you be referring to? Seems to me that both parties have allowed US jobs to be funneled away to other countries without taking any effective action whatsoever to rein it in. Are you proferring an alternative solution?

[2x4 finally hitting sheep across side of head]

This kind of smug self-righteousness is what turns people off to you, nofundy. Grow up. You don't have all the answers and neither does anyone else.
posted by MrBaliHai at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2003

I have all the answers.
posted by scody at 12:53 PM on August 28, 2003

It appears MrBaliHai hasn't had his medication today.

"All the answers", huh? Well, duh! I bet you could write a book on all the things I don't know! /snark

Which thieves
The thieves I have been calling corporate whores here at MeFi for a spell. Short term memory not working like it used to?

Nofundy loves MrBaliHai! He's so cute when he's being mean!
posted by nofundy at 1:22 PM on August 28, 2003

I spend a lot of time wondering how we can rectify these outsourcing and corporate problems fromt he ground up. How possible is it for I, a fairly angry American, to start and run a local business with the intention of replacing a corrupt national industry on a local level? For example, if I'm angry at Microsoft, is it viable for me (or anyone) to start a software company on the premise of making a cheap, usable office platform so that MS won't get away with charging another $100 every time they throw out a new OS? I think we need to take our land and economy back from those who have misused them. The question is where and how to start...
posted by kaibutsu at 3:28 PM on August 28, 2003

Nofundy, I've been reading Metafilter for many months and have yet to remember anything you've commented on so its not just MrBaliHai.

And there is a distinct air of superiority on Metafilter that's incredibly off putting. I know several people who refuse to surf through here because of the snobbery that's been raised up.

That and the really childish flame wars people like to engage in.

Kaibutsu, if you figure it out then please don't forget to let the rest of us know how. I'd love to take back America and turn it away from the corporate greed head driven sham of a country.

And what is the deal with the article anyway? Is it real or just a reprinted old article made new? If its old then the "reporter" should have done his/her work better and verified sources before publishing it. Or is just sensationalistic reporting to get a rise out of the Yanks?
posted by fenriq at 3:52 PM on August 28, 2003