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| 5/17 |
| 2006/3/27-29 [Politics/Domestic/Immigration] UID:42480 Activity:high |
3/27 I can't stand that mantra that I keep hearing from politicians,
that immigrants do jobs "Americans just won't do". It's such
utter bullshit. Americans aren't doing them under the conditions
that the illegals do them, full stop. Fucking imbeciles.
\_ that just doesn't have the same ring to it.
\_ What gets me about all this is what they're *really* saying is,
"We love slave labor". How can anyone be in favor of a system
that *requires* having an underclass of powerless underpaid
people? In 1986 there was a general amnesty. Did that solve
anything? Here we are 20 years later in the same situation but
with even more people. Will we do this again in 2026? I suspect,
"We love slave labor!" wouldn't have the same ring to it either.
\_ Yep. Without all that slave labor cotten prices will skyrocket!
Wait a minute, why are most of my clothes 100% cotton?
\_ I suggest you start by setting a good example for everyone, going
into the kitchen the next time you go into a restaurant, and
giving 20 bucks to some of the dishwashers, prep cooks, busboys
and other staff, many of whom are likely to be illegals. I think
this is pretty great of you. It probably comes nowhere close to
matching the conditions under which Americans would do them, but
it's a good start, wouldn't you think? -John
\_ Yeah, that's what we need, another "good will gesture" instead
of a real solution. Folks, the primary reason why there are so
many illegal immigrants willing to work for substandard wages
is merely one of supply and demand. An illegal immigrant
costs not merely less in terms of a per hour calculation, but
also in terms of paying payroll taxes and the dreaded workman's
comp. It currently costs an employer at least twice as much to
properly hire an individual vs. an illegal if you were to pay
them the same wage. If you really want to get rid of illegal
immigration then you'd have to get rid of a lot of the tax
that employers have to pay. In addition, you'd have to basically
get rid of the minimum wage laws. Neither, of course, will
happen, and therefore illegal immigration will not merely
continue, but continue to thrive. As the old saying goes
you can't legislate morality, and in a sense, wage laws
are morality laws (for other failed experiments in moral
legislation, check out prohibition, the current "war on drugs",
and software piracy).
\_ Maybe, but you sure can cut it back. People have always
tried to cheat on their taxes too, but somehow governments
have always collected enough to function. Well, not always
but you know what I mean.
but you know what I mean. Most businessmen are not interested
in breaking the law in a serious fashion, so if employing
illegals was made a jail time kind of crime, it would
mostly stop.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0308-20.htm
\_ I was being sarcastic, in reference to my opinion that many
people screaming "get rid of all illegal immigrants" are
probably not aware of how much the prices of a lot of the
goods and services they take for granted are affected by the
willingness of illegal immigrants to provide them for
peanuts. Note that I'm not saying the presence of illegal
immigrants is good or bad, just that this is something
to consider before ranting. -John
\_ No, that isn't something to consider. The prices of goods
and services is completely irrelevant on this issue. I'm
not willing to say "well this is bad but hey, look at the
prices of goods and services!" And besides that, I'm not
convinced that spectre of prices shooting up is even
accurate. In the overall picture the economy may stand to
benefit with more wages in more legal jobs, more consumers,
and more productivity and efficiency. I'm in favor of
strict employment enforcement but no minimum wage. Instead
of min. wage, if we want to ensure a minimum living std.
then that should be done through a welfare program people
can apply for. I don't know where you were going with the
giving $20 to busboys thing. All I'm saying is Americans
WILL get these jobs done, they just need to pay enough and
improve the equipment and working conditions. And all that
effort ultimately benefits everyone. -op
\_ My point with the "$20 to busboys thing" is that
currently, illegals do the work you are so keen on
Americans doing under amazingly crappy conditions, long
hours and low wages, none of which would be tenable
if you got rid of them. Once again, I am not defending,
excusing or impugning what you call a "social evil",
just looking at it as a current given in neutral
economic terms. Getting rid of this phaenomenon will
raise prices, period. Whether it would benefit the
economy is possible, albeit debatable, but prices
_would_ rise. -John
\_ Your point is well-made but should not be used as an excuse
to continue this social evil. Just because something is
hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. --erikred
\_ I'm ok paying twice as much for my lettuce and
strawberries or cutting into a business owner's bottom
line. Slave labor is not the answer.
\_ "Slave labor" is really not an appropriate term.
The illegals want to be here and want to work.
Closing the border and enforcing immigration and
employment laws more strongly would be a negative for
the people who are currently doing the work. There
are aspects of the situation which make it easy to
exploit them, but they are not slaves. If your
concern is really for the workers, the thing to do
would be to loosen the immigration laws so they are
more able to come here legally and have legal
protection. -tom
\_ I agree that this is probably the best solution.
Minimum wage should then be abolished, too. The
resulting wage deflation won't be good for a lot
of Americans, though. Still, that's how our
country was built and what made it so great. --dim
\_ Your free market approach to labor and wages
works only as long as there are still places to
go if you don't want to be a factory-slave
(cf. expansion West as the Great Steam Valve
during the period "our country was built").
We reached the limits of that system at the end
of the 19th century. We need new solutions, not
reversions to feudalism. --erikred
\_ You think the free market is a form of
feudalism?!?!?!
\_ So, what you're saying is that you're a
communist.
\_ So, dim, you couldn't be sufficed with one
pointless retort? You had to do two?
\_ I didn't write both of those, you git.
I am curious how a free market economy
is a reversion to feudalism. --dim
\_ I think "slave labor" is the right term. You can use
"serf" or "indentured servant" or whatever other
euphemism you'd like but they're all just another
way of exploiting people. The H1b program is a
perfect example of that. Bring people here from
other countries, pay them under scale, work them
hard and put them in a position where they have no
job mobility. I don't see how having 'half-way'
citizens who have the right to be underpaid and
overworked is a good thing for anyone but the stock
holders. Let them come here as citizens with full
rights or don't.
\_ There are plenty of exploitative work
relationships which don't involve
slavery. "Slave: 1. A person who is held
in bondage to another; one who is wholly
subject to the will of another; one who
is held as a chattel; one who has no
freedom of action, but whose person and
services are wholly under the control of
another." Immigrant workers are not slaves;
they are disadvantaged in a number of
ways, but they have freedom of action. -tom
\_ Why did you omit the other meanings?
from "dict slavery":
2. A condition of subjection or submission characterized by
lack of freedom of action or of will.
3: work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay
You can claim whatever you want but you're
just plain wrong tom.
4: whatever I want it to mean when I'm aguing with people
so I don't have to be precise or clear in my language.
\_ If you're just going to quote the dictionary
while ignoring what I said, whatever. I made
it clear the issue was not the specific word
chosen to describe the situation so much as
the underlying situation itself, but hey, as
long as you can get cheap produce, anything
goes. Everyone has freedom of action, but some
have more legal freedom of action than others.
\_ pardon me. I interpreted the phrase
"I think 'slave labor' is the right term"
as meaning you think "slave labor" is the
right term.
-tom
\_ "You can use 'indentured servant' ... but
they're all just another way of
exploiting people".
\_ All ways of exploiting people are
equivalent to slavery? -tom
\_ I'm not going to get sucked into
rhetorical games while you duck the
real issues of using exploited
powerless people so Americans can
get cheap lettuce, child care and
unskilled construction.
\_ You must be confusing me with
someone who thinks the current
situation is a good idea.
It's not. It's just not
slavery. -tom
\_ I'm going to side with tom
on this for the following
reason: real slavery still
exists in this country.
If an exploited farm worker
is called a "slave", the word
loses meaning for the sex
slaves who fit the
old-fasioned definition.
\_ You can side with tom's
rhetorical misinterpret-
ation or you can read what
I actually said. If you
want cheap lettuce, that's
on your soul, not mine.
\_ Here is my question of the day. Why not just build a Great Wall
armed with machine gun tower and landmines? At the same time, why
don't we throw employer in jail if we found he/she hires an illegal?
why not implement a database look up so the employer can check the
authenticity of social security number in real time (similar to
what Visa/Master card has done?). I am not disagreeing with John
on the fact that there is a real economic impact on getting rid of
illegal immigrants. But my arguement is that the presence of
illegal immigrants actually makes people look in other way when
deal with real problems.
For example, the issue of child care become less
problematic if I can hire some illegal immigrants to do the work.
If I have to pay 20-30 per hour for a nanny, I probably will harass
my congressman to try to help me to resolve this problem in a real
way, etc.
\_ Been tried, didn't work. The Mongols just brought ladders. -John
\_ I agree with you. However, things should be done gradually.
\_ gradually? haha, very funny. DO you know that there are
US congressmen in China right now demanding devaluating
Chinese Yuan 40% overnight right now?
A sudden elimination of illegal immigrants may majorly
screw up many businesses, causes inflation and interest rates
to shoot up and send the US economy into a shock. It would
also increase the trade deficit.
\_ Except that the Senate subcommittee version of the bill is
not aiming at ending illegal immigration. It seeks to expand
the cheap labor pool and create an 'out' for employers to
*legally* abuse people. The abuse becomes codified in a
system of law. I find this far worse than what we have now
where at least there is a hope some future generation will
figure out the right thing to do since the current system is
such a dismal failure. Codifying failure is just ugh... I'm
done. |
| 5/17 |
|
| www.commondreams.org/views06/0308-20.htm Others want to build a wall around America, like the communists did around East Berlin. But none will tell Americans the truth about why we have eleven million illegal aliens in this nation now (when it was fewer than 2 million when Reagan came into office), why they're staying, or why they keep coming. In conservative lexicon, it's "cheap labor to increase corporate profits." saying that we need eleven million illegal immigrants here in the United States because (in a slightly cleaned-up version of the more blatantly racist comments of Vicente Fox) there are some jobs that "American's won't do." As the modern-day Sago miners, and the 1950s Ed Norton character Art Carney played on the old Jackie Gleason show (who worked in the sewers of NYC) prove, the reality is that there are virtually no jobs Americans won't do - for an appropriate paycheck. It's really all about breaking the back of the most democratic (and Democratic) of American institutions - the American middle class. One of the tools conservatives have used very successfully over the past 25 years to drive down wages, bust unions, and increase CEO salaries has been to encourage illegal immigrant labor in the US. They also understand that this applies just as readily to labor as it does to houses, cars, soybeans, or oil. While the history of much of the progressive movement in the United States has been to control the supply of labor (mostly through pushing for maximum-hour, right-to-strike, and child-labor laws) to thus be able to bargain decent wages for working people, the history of conservative America has, from its earliest days grounded in slavery and indentured workers from Europe, been to increase the supply of labor and drive down its cost. In the 1980s, for example, the increasing supply of labor (both from Reagan-allowed consolidations eliminating redundant jobs, and from illegal immigration, which was around 3 million illegals by the time Reagan left office) fed massive union-busting in industry sectors from those directly hit with illegal immigrant labor (like construction and agriculture) to those who only felt its fallout but nonetheless were pressed (like coal mining). In part, because of these national downward pressures on organized labor, the miners who died in the International Coal Group's Sago Mine didn't have union protection. assets are high quality reserves strategically located in Appalachia and the Illinois Basin, are union free, have limited reclamation liabilities and are substantially free of other legacy liabilities." Similarly, it's estimated that the construction industry enhanced their profits last year by over a billion dollars because the availability of illegal immigrant labor has so significantly pushed down the price of construction labor. "Union free" is good for the CEOs and stockholders of giant corporations. Reagan helped make it possible by reducing enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust and similar acts, by making the Labor Department hostile to labor, and by thus producing an environment into which illegal immigrant labor could step. He busted PATCO and popularized anti-union rhetoric, at a time when union membership was one of the primary boundaries that keep illegal labor out of the marketplace. Today, this fundamental economic rule of labor supply and demand is most conspicuous in the conservative reluctance to stop illegal immigration into the United States. All those extra (illegal) workers, after all, drive up the supply - and thus drive down the cost - of labor. Even in areas where there are not high populations of illegal immigrants, their presence elsewhere in the American workforce drives down overall the cost of labor nationwide. And when the cost of labor goes down, there's more money left over for CEOs and stockholder dividends. Conservatives can't just come out and say that they are pleased with the estimated eleven million illegal workers in the United States driving down wages. They can't brag that, behind oil revenue, Mexico's second largest source of income is money sent home from illegal "cheap labor" workers in the United States. They can't point out that before Reagan declared war on working people in 1981 we didn't "need a fence" to keep out illegal immigrants from the south, in large part because the high rate of unionization in America at that time, and enforcement of laws against hiring illegal immigrants, served as barriers to the entry of illegals into the workforce. They won't acknowledge the corporate benefits of a workforce whose healthcare is paid for by taxpayers but whose productivity belongs to their corporate masters. But conservative strategists have noticed that the workers - and the voters - of the United States are getting nervous about nearly 10 percent of our workforce being both illegal and cheap. This has led conservative commentators and politicians to resort to classic "wedge issue" rhetoric, exploiting Americans' fears -- while working to keep conditions relatively the same as they are today. They worry out loud about brown-skinned Middle Eastern terrorists slipping in amongst the brown-skinned South- and Central Americans. They warn us of all the social security money we'll lose if illegals have to leave the country and stop paying into a system from which they'll never be able to collect. They even find themselves obligated - catering to both working-class fears and to the bigots among us - to promote the idea of giant fences around the country to keep illegals out. plan failed to protect the rights of immigrant workers, who they argue deserve a clear path to citizenship. And the AFL-CIO warned that a guest worker program of unlimited scale would depress wages and working conditions while creating a perpetual underclass of foreign workers." None of the various con proposals - from a fence to amnesty - address the fundamental truth of the situation: Conservatives and the businesses they represent want to maintain a large, illegal or marginally legal, and thus powerless workforce in the United States, to keep down the price of labor and help them finally destroy the union movement - and, thus, that politically pesky middle class. The reason for all these lies and obfuscations is simple, and found in the core notions of conservatism, articulated from Burke in the late 1700s to Kirk in 1953 and Greenspan over the past two decades. It's all about power, and since wealth equals power, about the control of wealth in society. Conservatives believe that what John Adams called "the rabble" - you and me - can't really be trusted with governance, and therefore that job should be kept to an elite few. The big difference between the old-line Burke conservatives and modern conservatives is that Burke and the cons of his day felt that an hereditary ruling class was desirable (because it would inculcate rulers with a sense of "noblesse oblige"), whereas modern cons like Adams, McKinley, Kirk, and Bush believe that the ruling class should be more of a meritocracy - rule by the "best." And - in the finest tradition of John Calvin (who suggested that wealth was a sign of God's blessing) - what better indication of "best" could there be than "richest"? They believe there should be a thin veneer of democracy on these old conservative notions of aristocracy in order to placate the masses, but are quite certain that it would be a disaster should the rabble ever actually have a strong say in running the country. This is, at its core, why conservatives embrace the idea of eliminating the American middle class and replacing it with a Dickensian "working poor" class, and are working so hard to use illegal immigrant labor as the lever to bring this about. As the '60's and '70's showed - during the height of the American middle class's economic and political power - a strong middle class will challenge corporate power and assert itself economically and politically. This represents a very real threat to conservative ruling elites. "The people" may even suggest that the most elite of the elites should pay stiffer taxes on the top end of their income, so that money can be used to provide the economically most disadv... |