Questions for our American friends

[Rogerbh]

I only know about Santa Clara County agriculture in the 1970's - but other than the owners and their families whatever race they may be, the workforce was Hispanic, mostly limited English speaking. When land prices started to rise in later decades, the growers if they continued in that field, moved south where even more Hispanic migrant labor was available. I never saw a white or black paid laborer in the fields back when we owned an agriculture business.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by Decadence

I'm trying to find the downside of this. Where is written that we're obligated to take anyone from anywhere? The tendency to move away from importing poverty, illiteracy, disease, and fanaticism sounds like it's in our best interest. Besides, isn't this only dealing with legal immigration?

Might I ask that you spend some time researching the history of CIA involvement in Central America to understand our moral obligation towards refugees from that area? And please don't forget my desire to execute any MS-13 types who follow and terrorize them here.

Originally Posted by Decadence

That's what we get the most of here in the Great Lakes.. illegals are commonplace in landscaping, roofing, painting, drywall, and power washing crews.. most of which work for cash under the table. The work is substandard. But it's also had a detrimental affect to local small businesses who can't compete with hordes of illegals who will work for a fraction of going wage.

One friend of mine spun this into gold.. as he was on the verge of losing the family painting business, he switched his focus and saved his business by going around and fixing the substandard work done by cheap, undocumented crews.

As did the contractors who did the "rehab and retrofit" in this building. It was well short of union labor standards. Obviously, many inspectors are being bribed to look the other way. I assume that it cost the owner about half of what truly professional work would.

Originally Posted by Decadence

And my mum's people came from Germany just after the civil war. Like yours, they did learn the language, assimilated, served their country, paid their taxes, and were model citizens.

What they didn't do is show up and start demanding preferential treatment. They didn't wave German flags in the streets. They didn't send their untaxed earnings back to Germany. They didn't break the law and then flee the country because the local unit of government didn't have the stones to prosecute them.

My apologies, but I'll never see a lot in common with those who initially came to America for a better life with those who simply jump a fence because they profess "they have a right to be here".

No. They don't.

The Germans were notorious in the Mid-West and Texas for their flag waving beer fests and parades. They became much less common after 1917 and ceased altogether after 1941. Funny, but I actually had an acquaintance who turned out to be a German who had stayed here when his tourist visa expired and was sending part of his untaxed, paid in cash earnings home to Germany.

Originally Posted by Decadence

What's common around here is them being drunk AND driving. With no license. Or insurance. Causing fatalities. Most recently is when a local NFL player and his Uber driver were hit and killed by a drunk illegal after their car broke down along the interstate. Come to find out this illegal had been previously deported more than once and was using fake identities to conceal other DUI arrests.

It seems that most of the time when tragedies like this occur, the illegal had been deported several times but somehow had no problem waltzing back into the country at will. If people who have been deported multiple times have no problem sneaking back in here it does make one wonder just who else is sneaking in here.

It's a problem. One that will not go away without the will to actually control the border and stop the unchecked invasion. Cheap labor be damned.

Agreed, not every immigrant is perfect, but still they are half as likely to commit these crimes as native born American citizens. We have big problems with white meth fiends getting behind the wheel and killing people here.

I don't regard 4% of our population as an "unchecked invasion." But I do think the fact that so many are able to find work here as proof that we need a more rational policy so that folks are here legally. If the policy were better, immigrant communities would be more likely to turn in bad actors.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Since I live in orchard country and work with apple, pear and grape growers every day, I can tell you-- I don't know of a white (or black) guy picking any of these in the county; I'm sure that it happens on occasion, but its so rare as to be irrelevant. You can still find white guys doing tractor work or fixing irrigation systems, but this is simply what it is: white rural america is really old. . . median age of white America is a full decade older than Mexico, and isn't interested in these jobs. When its time to pick apples, the signs up here are exclusively in Spanish; 50 year old guys walking up and down rows of cherry trees taking care to pick them with the stem still attached (in order to get a good price for a cherry, you have to have the stem) . . . not going to happen. Add to it that its a skill and requires physical endurance-- picking fruit quickly and without damaging the fruit all day long isn't something some random unemployed guy can do.

We invited Mexican farm labor to the West during World War Two, the "bracero" program, and when anglo soldiers came back from WW II, they tended to move to the growing cities-- much easier work than in the orchards. So the Mexicans kept coming, doing the hard work that anglos no longer wanted todo.

Reading you, you described European orchards. In Switzerland we don't get Mexican, we get Portuguese and Polish workers in orchards.
In Spain they get Northern African farm workers, in Italy Romanian ones.

Extreme-right people are glad to buy cheap fruits and vegetables on the shelves of supermarket, because these legal and illegal workers work for a very cheap hourly wage. The same extreme-right people are not disturbed to know that these workers sleep at 12 in dormitories.
But when they can, they vote against illegal immigration.

Pay varied depending on the crop. For instance, some 3,100 vegetable and melon workers made an average of $311 a week; about 1,000 blueberry and other non-strawberry crop workers made about $268

Crop workers make about $9.18 an hour. Vegetable and melon workers were near $7.78. Blueberry workers made about $6.70 an hour.

Based on the most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS)– a report published by the U.S. Department of Labor– the average total individual income of farm workers is $15,000-$17,499. However, this figure includes income that some farm workers earn from jobs outside agriculture. The average family’s total income from farm workers is $17,500- $19,999. Family income has not increased from the level indicated in the FY 2008-09 data.10 The federal poverty level for a family of 3 is $19,790. Twenty-five percent of all farm workers had a family income below the federal poverty line.

Low Wages

“(Farm workers) are involved in the planting and the cultivation and the harvesting of the greatest abundance of food known in this society. They bring in so much food to feed you and me and the whole country and enough food to export to other places. The ironic thing and the tragic thing is that after they make this tremendous contribution, they don’t have any money or any food left for themselves.”

Cesar Chavez

So... what about paying farm workers 50$ an hour instead of 7$ and lawyers, bank officers, managers 5$ per hour?
That would maybe bring more local people in the orchards? Isn't it?

[Arturo2nd]

What's the difference between a snake and a lawyer laying in the middle of the road?

There are skid marks in front of the snake.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

So... what about paying farm workers 50$ an hour instead of 7$ and lawyers, bank officers, managers 5$ per hour?
That would maybe bring more local people in the orchards? Isn't it?

Not a chance. At $50 an hour, you replace people with machinery.

Talking to orchard managers, they're already doing this. Grapes used to be picked by hand, now they're picked mechanically in most places. The higher the labor cost goes, the faster the replacement of human laborers by machines will go.

In Australia, which basically has very little cheap labor, pretty much all the grapes are picked mechanically. The technology was developed in the US, but because labor is more expensive downunder, it actually got deployed more widely in Oz-- but now its becoming widespread here.

At $50 an hour wages, you'd have very few manual farmworkers-- you'd have folks runnning machines, just like you have folks running tractors now, but many fewer.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Not a chance. At $50 an hour, you replace people with machinery.

Talking to orchard managers, they're already doing this. Grapes used to be picked by hand, now they're picked mechanically in most places. The higher the labor cost goes, the faster the replacement of human laborers by machines will go.

In Australia, which basically has very little cheap labor, pretty much all the grapes are picked mechanically. The technology was developed in the US, but because labor is more expensive downunder, it actually got deployed more widely in Oz-- but now its becoming widespread here.

At $50 an hour wages, you'd have very few manual farmworkers-- you'd have folks runnning machines, just like you have folks running tractors now, but many fewer.

That's more or less what explained Pr Jacquard 30 years ago.
Politicians still contribute to human exploitation when we could share the last hard jobs between us (under the form of civil service) and giving the mechanicals ones to robots.
Today the Latinos working in the orchards could play soccer 4 days a week, having their week-end and working one day in the orchards....
Human and animal exploitations could disappear. I don't understand why common people accept that it still exists.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

That's more or less what explained Pr Jacquard 30 years ago.
Politicians still contribute to human exploitation when we could share the last hard jobs between us (under the form of civil service) and giving the mechanicals ones to robots.
Today the Latinos working in the orchards could play soccer 4 days a week, having their week-end and working one day in the orchards....
Human and animal exploitations could disappear. I don't understand why common people accept that it still exists.

I keep telling you that most people are stupid and keep electing politicians that screw them over, but you seem to have a hard time accepting that truth. In fairness to the voters, the media and advertising industries collude in keeping them distracted and misinformed. And the capitalist class sees to it that most of us can't miss many pay checks and to dole out our wages in drips and drabs.

[Decadence]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Since I live in orchard country and work with apple, pear and grape growers every day, I can tell you-- I don't know of a white (or black) guy picking any of these in the county; I'm sure that it happens on occasion, but its so rare as to be irrelevant. You can still find white guys doing tractor work or fixing irrigation systems, but this is simply what it is: white rural america is really old.

I guess to be fair, the USDA numbers that said half of all farm workers are either legal immigrants or citizens reflected the entire country, not simply northern California. Oddly enough, here in the midwest, agriculture is still huge and most of it is still performed by old white guys (as you put it).

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Might I ask that you spend some time researching the history of CIA involvement in Central America to understand our moral obligation towards refugees from that area? And please don't forget my desire to execute any MS-13 types who follow and terrorize them here.

Ah.. the sins of the father. Did you have something specific in mind? Noriega, the Contras, and similar? What's the time frame you're talking about? I can only imagine what our government is capable of-- knowing that we have been just as ruthless as anyone else on the planet.

It also seems there's a difference to be made in terms of actual refugees, and people who simply hop the fence because they feel they have the right to be here.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

The Germans were notorious in the Mid-West and Texas for their flag waving beer fests and parades. They became much less common after 1917 and ceased altogether after 1941. Funny, but I actually had an acquaintance who turned out to be a German who had stayed here when his tourist visa expired and was sending part of his untaxed, paid in cash earnings home to Germany.

Touche. There had to be one.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I don't regard 4% of our population as an "unchecked invasion."

Let's work some numbers here.

The four percent you reference is the same 12 million figure that's been in use for the past 10 years. After 8 years of Obama's open border policies, nobody in their right minds thinks that number didn't rise dramatically. It's probably doubled by now.. but we'll never know because we have no bloody idea who is here. I wonder how many are here that have been deported more than once and are back yet again.

Suppose one million Mexicans crossed the border during the Obama years. If they'd all come across at once instead of in smaller groups, it would be nothing short of an invasion. The end result is the same.

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Extreme-right people are glad to buy cheap fruits and vegetables on the shelves of supermarket, because these legal and illegal workers work for a very cheap hourly wage. The same extreme-right people are not disturbed to know that these workers sleep at 12 in dormitories.
But when they can, they vote against illegal immigration.

You know I struggle to make any sense whatsoever of your posts.

Are you saying extreme left people are not glad to buy cheap fruits and vegetables? Not to mention the concept of extreme right people voting against illegal immigration... ?

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I keep telling you that most people are stupid and keep electing politicians that screw them over, but you seem to have a hard time accepting that truth. In fairness to the voters, the media and advertising industries collude in keeping them distracted and misinformed. And the capitalist class sees to it that most of us can't miss many pay checks and to dole out our wages in drips and drabs.

I remember an interview of Pr Jacquard made by a female journalist, she told him:

- "But it seems to me that you repeat again and again the same theories."

He replied:

-"I'll do that, again and again, until everybody will understand them."



Slavedrivers have to be unmasked and using your own terms: "We just need to drive the selfish bastards out of town in a hail of rocks to die alone on the prairie like ancestors used to do."

[SanteeFats]

xyzd---
You have made many statements about what is wrong or what you think needs to be done. Just which, if any, type of government would you prefer??
Anarchy doesn't count as sooner or later a strong person comes along and starts government all over again.