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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 29, 1992                   TAG: 9203020209
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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TO COMPETE IN TRADE, ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY

THE PEOPLE who originated the complaint about unfair trade policies of the Japanese are the same ones who for the past 20 years have been closing American factories and shipping tens of thousands of jobs out of the United States, across the borders and overseas.

Their salaries range in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars a year - even when times are bad. The little people who work 16 hours a day are left holding the bag.

What I don't understand is why thousands of Haitians, Mexicans and others from the Southern Hemisphere can enter this country annually to harvest crops. I can only guess that, as one writer stated in his letter to your newspaper (Feb. 6): " . . . we don't work for a bowl of rice and fish heads."

Perhaps, just perhaps, if a few more of us had had to eat a few fish heads, our children wouldn't have scored "A" in television-watching and near the bottom in math and science skills. In fact, maybe our education president should consider importing fish heads (we have our own rice) to serve in our school lunchrooms.

Don't laugh: Korea and Taiwan scored at the top in one of the most comprehensive math and science tests in recent years. These skills are key in competing for future jobs, not only in Virginia but in the world.

I think the first step in competing for foreign trade is to accept responsibility. As a character in the comic strip "Pogo" said: "We have met the enemy and they is us." JUAN RAMIREZ EAGLE ROCK

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