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is simply incomprehensible to me that those who advocate and extol the so-called "benefits" of offshoring the manufacturing and R&D infrastructure of the country fail to grasp a fundamental axiom of geopolitical/military strategy

Incomprehensible indeed. There seems to several possible conclusions that can be drawn from this

1) They think this is merely a light manufacturing issue. This is incompetent.

2) They do not understand how High technology works either as a business and or as a national resource from the point of view of Human resources. This too is incompetent.

3) They do understand but are are projecting out a new tech thrust. This ignores changes that have occurred in the nation that made the last three build out possible (those periods being roughly WW@, the mid 50s to the mid 60s and the 80s.) Whatever they think it may be they are not telling us, are not developing the labor pool and somehow assume it will not reqquire the same fundemental skills like software engineering we have now. Not only is this dubious, but no one else in the world know about this new thrust either. (and please do not tell me about "nanotechnology.") At any rate, if this work can be done at a desk they have not solved anything.) This is arrogant - and stupid.

4)They understand but they have given up on the country and do not feel we are up to. This is treason.

5) They are globalists pure and simple and do not care. This is treason.

The rhetorical tacks the GOP takes are truly odd. The "retraining" issues bespeaks of being completely out of touch with reality. This issue is not about light manufacturing. The GOP came out the other day and said that they would include "more math and science" in their little "retraining initiative." This is very strange for 1) those sorts of jobs are just the ones that are going overseas so "math and science traing" (what ever that means will not help much, and 2) These area require years of education not "training." "Training" in this context is about "skills" not higher level knowledge. To talk like this is as silly as it is insulting to the intelligence -it is just window dressing. The other strange rhetoric is a constant remarking on "how does one pick winners?" in the next productivity cycle. This to is odd because of course one must try to pick winners in a technological economy that relies in great part to government funded R $ D and government funded education. It is also odd to imagine that mainstay industrial areas like software engineering, IC design and aerospace are not obviously "winners." It leads one to thing that they are either completely in a fog or are trapped in ideology and abstraction.

It is very strange.

These area require years of education not "training." "Training" in this context is about "skills" not higher level knowledge.

What, do you mean that Washington elite can only relate to people as cogs in a factory wheel?

I'm perplexed too about this "training" -- is it Bush's version of the WPA? What exactly are these people going to be trained to do?

And what about the college educated people whose jobs are going overseas, are they going to be retrained to do something new?

The government's sole purpose in this scheme is to get people to lower their expectations, to take that dead end job they've been "retrained" to do, and to assume that all thinking jobs are going to go overseas, except those of the CEOs and politicans who are the only ones benefiting from this.