Immigration Raid Jars a Small Town

[flashl]

Source: Washington Post

Critics Say Employers Should Be Targeted

POSTVILLE, Iowa -- Antonio Escobedo ran to get his wife Monday when he saw a helicopter circling overhead and immigration agents approaching the meatpacking plant where they both work. The couple hid for hours inside the plant before obtaining refuge in the pews and hall at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, where hundreds of other Guatemalan and Mexican families gathered, hoping to avoid arrest.

...

Current and former officials of the Department of Homeland Security say its raid on the largest employer in northeast Iowa reflects the administration's decision to put pressure on companies with large numbers of illegal immigrant workers, particularly in the meat industry. But its disruptive impact on the nation's largest supplier of kosher beef and on the surrounding community has provoked renewed criticism that the administration is disproportionately targeting workers instead of employers, and that the resulting turmoil is worse than the underlying crimes.

"They don't go after employers. They don't put CEOs in jail," complained the Postville Community Schools superintendent, David Strudthoff, 51, who said the sudden incarceration of more than 10 percent of the town's population of 2,300 "is like a natural disaster -- only this one is manmade."

....

So far, no officials at Agriprocessors have been charged.

Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/17/AR2008051702474.html

---

Is there anyone out there other than me see a conflict in the actions of DHS/ICE that fails to timely process immigration applications, negotiate with the prison industrial complex to build immigration detention centers AND conduct illegal immigrant raids that narrowly target one group of immigrants?

[Selatius]

1. The pro-business Bush Administration was never serious about going after employers directly.

People should've seen that fact coming a mile away like an atom bomb.

[madrchsod]

3. it was posted here at du about the "cattle yard "

several days before the raid....

[cstanleytech]

7. To be fair has any administration ever really gone after the employers?

In my opinion they are atleast as guilty as the people who enter illegally if not more so because they are exploiting them.

[izquierdista]

13. The last one did

Comparing the last administration to the current one, enforcement actions against employers are down 95%.

[cstanleytech]

23. I'm talking for the past say 50 to 60 years for all administrations,

not just cherry pick one that bashes Bush.
Besides there is plenty of other ammo to use to bash Bush with like Gitmo, Iraq, illegal wiretaps, questionable election results, possible abuse of the FBI and DoJ....................you get the point I assume *grin*

[jwirr]

14. They also are not serious about stopping illegal immigration for

the same reason. Wages and benefits are much cheaper for the CEO if he can keep an ample supply of cheap workers. This is all for show. "See we (pugs) are serious about this." :sarcasm: It's election time so it is time to fool the sheeple.

[atreides1]

25. Here's a "What If"

What if the employers are reporting illegals at their businesses? Even with undocumented workers the company would have to provide a raise in pay to keep them happy.

Suppose that instead of giving the current crop of workers a pay raise, the company turns in its illegal workers, providing they get immunity from prosecution. Once that group is taken into custody the company knows that it can get another group of illegals to fill positions.

It would definitely be a cost cutting measure!

[Selatius]

27. That causes liability issues. You'd be admitting you knowingly had illegal immigrants on the payroll

That would most definitely land you in prison.

[primavera]

45. Since when?

It's proving the "knowingly" part that's the tricky bit. Consider what happened when the INS went after Tysons Chicken for not only employing undocumented workers, but actually recruiting them and hiring coyotes to smuggle them into the country. One of the most flagrant violations of immigration law in recent history, and yet virtually nothing came of it. Tysons claimed they had no knowledge of the practice (yeah, right), tossed a couple of low-level plant managers to the wolves as sacrificial lambs, and got off scott free.

[EFerrari]

52. Makes me think they're just holding out for bigger bribes.

Employers will NEVER be penalized while these criminals are in office.

[madrchsod]

2. yes ...anyone can be next.

the dhs will now check hurricane survivors for their "papers".

[DUlover2909]

4. The answer is to target employers.

We shouldn't do anything at all to illegal workers. We should sanction employers. That protects our unions, legal workers' wages, and the innocent undocumented laborers that come here inticed by the employment. Everyone wants a better life: Immigrants, US citizens, and everyone else across the globe, but we have to enforce our immigration laws and protect our people and our economy.

The repukes want a "guest worker" program. They want the cheap, union busting labor, but they don't want to let them vote. The Dems say, "Well hell, if we're not going to do anything to get rid of them (enforce the law) then why not make them citizens and let them have a voice in our electoral process?"

Either enforce the laws or change the laws. One or the other. We can't have it both ways.

[liberal N proud]

6. It will never happen until the lobbyist are run out of Washington

Until the money stops flowing from those very employers and officials in Washington (including Congress), the employers will not be held responsible.

[cstanleytech]

8. I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Course there are those who will claim its a violation of the first amendment and I say BS, first amendment addresses speech it does not address the government putting cash caps on companies spending to buy the votes of politicians which is pretty much whats happening now.

[Spouting Horn]

9. Big Business

loves Illegal immigration.

They would love it even more if Amnesty were granted and the families of those granted amnesty were allowed to come here (more than 100 million).

[flashl]

10. A vaild point. Is it more than just Big Business? Is this to inject fear into potential voters?

There are stories about U.S. citizens who 'look like' an immigrant who were trapped in these sweeps and deported.

[haele]

12. Actually, most businesses don't want Amnesty -

As most of the work by undocumented immigration is physical, task oriented, and low paying - low paying because they are not documented and are working "scared" of immigration authorities, or any other government authority. So long as they're working scared, they won't ask for anything that will cause more expense to the employer, like health care, workman's comp, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, compensated overtime...
Especially in agribusiness - why pay "union wages" and overhead when you can just promise give a worker $20 under the table to work 10 - 12 hours for the day, and they won't complain because if they do, there's always someone else willing to do the work for that little.
In fact, there have been incidents of some employers, generally large subsidiary or contractor employers, who, if working a time-specific large job like construction or renovation, have been known to hire undocumenteds for a month or so, and right before they are supposed to pay them, will call INS to make a raid and pick up half the workforce. In those cases, it is cheaper for them to pay the slap on the wrist fine than it would have been to both pay 50 or 60 workers for 300 - 600 hours of labor and plonk out all the required overhead payroll costs they would pay to the state and feds for those "employees" they had used to get their contract in the first place.
My company almost got burned by a subcontractor (a marine painting and decking company)that operated that way; luckily, we had put in the contract that there was some room after the contract was awarded to back out before they actually started if they didn't pass our pre-inspection to insure that they followed the guidelines for business ethics ( as in, they were operating the way they had told us they were to get the contract in the first place). One of our competitors was caught using that subcontractor a month later and was removed from working government waterfront for 3 months, losing 4 ongoing contracts they had just won over that period. They also spent a year under serious scrutiny, and paid a nasty fine on top of that, and they had only "been lied to".
That subcontractor had made a lot of money previous to this incident, and just turned around and formed a new company after paying the fine. They are rumored to be doing the same thing even now; after three or four years keeping their nose clean, as it was, they've slipped back into their old tricks.


Haele

[amandabeech]

18. For hard-core law breakers, it will take prison time to get their attention.

I wonder if the law provides for it, and if it does, will the Obama administration direct the U.S. attorneys and justice departments to go for the time as well as the fine.

[primavera]

20. Truer words were never spoken

Pitifully inadequate penalties for corporate abuses are a hallmark of government in this country. An industrial polluter saves $100 million by dumping toxic waste illegally and, in the unlikely event that he gets caught, and the even less likely event that he's successfully prosecuted, he's required to pay a $100 fine. Same for immigration. Existing enforcement laws, written very much with an eye to those corporate campaign backers who helped put elected officials in office, require an almost impossible burden of proof for the immigration service to meet in order to hold employers accountable, and, even then, the penalties are laughably paltry. Given that it's invariably cheaper to pay the chump change fines than to modify their business practices, what business is going to elect to obey the law when it's to their financial disadvantage to do so?

[amandabeech]

29. You're right.

That's one reason that I'm willing to restrict 1st amendment rights by going with public financing only for campaigns. I just don't know any other way to put the interest of the people ahead or at least in balance with that of business.

[flashl]

19. Another observation, ICE raids seem to follow UNION activity in meat processing plants.

Rafael Espinoza, a labor representative for United Food and Commercial Workers Union (Local 79) in South St. Paul, said the whole ordeal diminished the union's organizing capacity to improve working conditions at the plant, which had been underway for two years.

[jwirr]

16. Business loses its strangle hold over immigrants if they are given

amnesty. They are then protected under US law and can no longer be treated like virtual slaves.

[LuckyLib]

22. So does small business. Your local roofer, building contractor, and landscapers

will be the first to talk about how hardworking their undocumented employees are.

[primavera]

21. The employers ARE the key

So long as employers are offering jobs to undocumented immigrants at wages vastly higher than those they can hope to earn at home, and, in some cases, the employers are even retaining the services of coyotes to smuggle the undocumented aliens into the country, there will be poor people who will avail themselves of that invitation. If the jobs were to go away, so would the undocumented aliens. How do I know that? Because when the Immigration Control and Reform Act first introduced the concept of employer accountability for illegally hiring undocumented workers in 1986, there was a brief but sharp reduction in illegal immigration as employers stopped offering jobs to undocumented workers. It was only once employers figured out that the new laws contained no teeth and the executive branch demonstrated that they had no intention of enforcing the new employer sanctions that the hiring of undocumented labor resumed and steadily grew, bringing us at long last to where we are now.

[JCMach1]

5. Punish the employers first...

:grr:

[UpInArms]

11. contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) to "support ICE facilities"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_concentration_camps

On January 24, 2006, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) to "support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency"—in essence, American concentration camps—Business Wire reported.

"With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005." <1>

"The contract, which effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.

"The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts," Business Wire wrote.

...more...

[VP505]

15. It figures that this mis-admin

would find a way to turn this into another crony cash cow giveaway!

[Zorra]

17. Wow. That's scary, especially because the Halliburton/KBR/Blackwater

"cabal" is involved.

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. There are several very important topics on this page

can we get enough recs to make the information more visible?

In the discussion about employers not having to pay labor taxes, the implication is huge for Soc. Sec., Workman's comp, and income taxes.
The country loses on many levels, while the bosses/regime makes out big.

[primavera]

26. Actually, most do pay taxes

... and make Social Security payments, they're just made under bogus Social Security Numbers. SSA has what they call an "earnings suspense" account into which go all of the contributions made under fake SSNs. It contains half a trillion dollars. It's kind of ironic when you think about it that many Americans are concerned about the presumed drain on social services posed by undocumented workers, yet it's the contributions made by those same undocumented workers that are keeping our Social Security program afloat.

[Alameda]

28. Yes, targeting illegals is BIG business

there are all those facilities to build and man, then there are the wages they won't get. What about the Social Security payments they won't be able to claim?

Then there are the Prison Industries.....uniforms to be made, and who knows what else?

[ohio2007]

30. 12 die in South Africa anti-foreigner violence

12 die in South Africa anti-foreigner violence


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Emmerson Ziso fled hunger and repression in neighboring Zimbabwe, but now he wants to go back. Even his violent, chaotic homeland seems a haven compared to Johannesburg, where weekend attacks on foreigners left at least 12 dead.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080518/ap_on_re_af/south_africa_immigrant_attacks

I don't think these folks have a chance at getting ssi $ in that part of the world.


Spain: Italy accused of 'racist' measures against immigrants




http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2169463562


Italy offerred welfare benifits but wants to stop paying those benefits to foreign workers also.

global economy

[flashl]

35. Sounds Familiar?

Newspaper editorials have called the outbursts a matter of using immigrants as scapegoats for South Africa’s problems. The official unemployment rate is 23 percent. Food prices have risen sharply. The crime rate is among the highest in the world.

Immigration 'issues' in the U.S. is the 'red scare' of the 21st century. Although, immigration numbers into the U.S. dropped significantly the 'scare' tactic is still used, anger is directed towards the immigrants and NOT the policy makers.

[ohio2007]

36. symptom of peak population but with so many going with the rose colored glasses approach

they forgot the dire predictions they were quik to post in articles on just this symptom;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3315296

They can't see their nose despite their face.
but hey, remember; being the strongest means being the last to fall.

[aquart]

39. Don't need the workers anymore.

Hello, worldwide depression.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Those meatpacking plants fired their U.S.-born union workers

and encourage illegal immigrants to come in as cheap labor.

[Alameda]

32. Yes, unions have to be international

As long as they can export to cheaper labor markets and still have us purchase the goods, they will. Look, I've been in the garment business for years. In fact my whole family was. I can not make a living with the skills I have here. The only way I could would be to design for manufacturers who would manufacture abroad....so I work in another field for a fraction of what my skills would get on a fair skill based market. Unions only work when they are respected by all other union members.

Do not cross union lines. Respect labor.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. I don't cross picket lines

Sad to say, the last time I had the opportunity to put that principle into action was when the grocery workers at the Fred Meyer stores in Portland went on strike in the early 1990s.

The nearest FedEx office was in the Fred Meyer building, so I had to go in there to send packages for my business, but I'd call out to the picketers, and they'd wave back.

It seemed that most of the so-called "liberal elites" in the neighborhood honored the picket line as well.

However, the poor and working class people seemed to walk through the doors of the store as much as ever. I wonder if they had been fed anti-union propaganda by right-wing media. I know that the right-wing sound machines were always after the public employees' unions: "Look at them, they have good wages and benefits that you don't have! What are they complaining about?" In other words, trying to incite the bitter, begrudging kind of envy, the kind that says, "No other working class person should have what I don't have (although it's fine for rich people to be rich)." The kind of envy that says, "Hey, why can't I have that, too?" is absent.

My grandmother used to read The Reader's Digest, and that rag has always been anti-union.

[ohio2007]

37. Tell it to the Chinese labor force

preaching to the choir .
When the door of opportunity swings open.... union reps must exploit the situation .
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080518/BREAKING01/80518020/0/BREAKING05

I'm sure they would be called CIA spies by some posting here though ;)

[primavera]

40. Therein lies the rub

As things stand in this country now, if you take away business' access to cheap labor, they won't start paying higher wages - they'll simply close down their facilities here and open up a plant in Mexico or China or the Philippines or Sri Lanka or wherever. Hell, in this country, Congress will even give them a tax break and our beloved Fuehrer will give them a medal for doing so. And, in fairness, our free trade policies don't leave them with many options: if an American company can't produce goods and services for pennies, American consumers will unhesitatingly buy goods made in undeveloped countries with no labor laws, no environmental protection laws, etc., where the cost of production is lowest. Importing a lot of goods isn't necessarily bad, provided you're investing in education to provide your population with the skills to compete in more highly skilled markets. But, of course, we don't believe in public investment in education in this country, so companies hire staff from those countries which do invest heavily in education and produce grads with those cutting edge skills. If we're not going to invest in education, then the only other way to keep from hemorhaging jobs is to implement more protectionist trade policies, so that the domestic market isn't flooded with cheap imports and American made goods can compete. Which in turn means that American consumers would have to pay more for goods, which, of course, is going to affect the poor most heavily, which gets us back to the whole quandary of income inequality and wealth distribution in the US, progressive taxation, etc, etc.

In this sense, immigration is sort of a halfway house. It provides a supply of cheap labor, but since it keeps the labor here in the US, at least we derive some partial secondary benefits from taxes paid, consumer spending by migrant workers, etc. It's not a great option, but it beats the alternative of outsourcing, where the jobs and any taxes and secondary economic activity go to the foreign country.

[flashl]

42. Info Technology is one of the best recent example where there wasn't a direct consumer's need cheap

correlation to business alleged need to export jobs or import cheap labor. The consumer want cheap paradigm didn't explain shipping the entire IT industry overseas. Businesses and education institutions were both caught off guard during the dot-com boom.

Americans seeking a bright future in IT filled technical schools to overflowing capacity. Places similar to Control Data Institute, Microsoft, Oracle, and Novell had waiting lists while producing thousands of students a month with various Computer Engineering certifications. This period clearly demonstrates there wasn't a lack of Americans willing to pay for their own education and there was an abundance of trained IT professionals in American.

The only places where one could hear that American had an IT workforce shortage in Congress and Businesses. Today, the same type business meme is targeting U.S. teachers. Congress is expanding visas for teachers! Where is the American want cheap correlation?

Businesses harping on American's lack of education levels has just about played out. In recent years, more and more college graduates are earning and competing for poverty level wages. Many reports point to waiting lists at colleges and universities as some REDUCE the enrollment levels and project that this crisis be resolved around 2012.

Projecting onto Americans that its THEIR fault because they wanted cheap goods while holding their salaries stagnate for years is just more big business and the 'bought and paid for' politicians 'blame the victim' meme.

[primavera]

44. So how do you explain it?

Honestly, the cases you mention don't convince me that the "Americans want cheap hypothesis," as you put it, doesn't hold water. You mention teaching, for instance. We pay teachers in this country insulting wages, ask them to work long hours, fill their classrooms to overflowing, and impose assinine requirements like no child left behind on them. Is it any wonder that people in this country quip "Well, if I can't find a decent job, I can always teach"? Compare that lamentable state of affairs to that which prevails in Germany, where, when a person drives by in a Mercedes, onlookers remark dryly "Hmm, must be a teacher!" In Germany, teaching is an extremely rigorous, respected, and highly-compensated profession. And what is the difference between them and us? Germany invests heavily in their educational system; here, we balk at having to pay taxes for anything, even for the education of our children. In the case of education, okay, it's not American consumers who want cheap, it's American taxpayers who want cheap, but the same idea holds: we don't want to have to pay for anything. Again, it's small wonder that there is a nationwide teacher shortage - who in their right mind would want to be a teacher in this country, given the meagre rewards and crushing constraints we impose upon teachers? Answer: someone from a less developed country for whom those insulting wages are attractive relative to where they came from.

As for the IT industry, I don't pretend to know much about it, so I'm just guessing, but my understanding is that some countries, most notably India, have invested heavily in computer science education, and graduates from their computer science programs are consequently now considered to be among the most highly qualified computer scientists in the world. Again, I don't know very much about this, maybe US universities are turning out equally qualified computer science graduates, but, even if they are, I can think of one comparative disadvantage they have which Indian graduates do not have: our graduates had to pay for their educations out of their own packets, so emerge from school heavily indebted. Since students in India do not have to assume that level of debt to obtain their educations, they are able to accept lower starting salaries than a US graduate encumbered by $100K in student loans would be able to accept. So that may play some role in why companies like Microsoft tend to hire a lot of Indian computer scientists.

But, again, that's consistent with the Americans want cheap hypothesis. If you can hire a qualified graduate for less, who's not going to take advantage of that opportunity? That's what the free market is all about - get more for less and who cares about the consequences? I was in a department store just this weekend and was overhearing a customer grumbling to his wife about the price of some item and he was telling her they should go to Mal Wart, where they could get the item cheaper. This guy obviously either doesn't know or doesn't care that Mal Wart is offering lower prices by outsourcing its production jobs to slave labor camps in China, all he cares about is saving an extra fifteen cents on his cheap plastic crap. Wander through the produce department at your local grocery store and watch how many people will pay extra for organic, local produce as opposed to the cheaper produce from Chile or Mexico. Face it, we want cheap everything. And that's only to be expected: with 80% of the wealth of this country owned by the richest 10% of the population, we can't afford to be any other way!

So, anyway, it makes sense to me. I could be wrong, I'm certainly no economist, but what I didn't hear in your reply was what your explanation was for why we're so busily outsourcing jobs and importing cheap goods if the Americans want cheap hypothesis doesn't provide an explanation. What other hypothesis is there to explain the behavior? I eagerly look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter.

[flashl]

47. Its called propaganda.

Realities:

Working Americans have experienced lost of benefits and wage stagnation as business rightsize, downsize, and outsource. And, the coveted college degree that suppose to give us the magical bootstrap levitation hold little value:

College degree may not be enough to protect against poverty
April 2007

A rise in college attendance coupled with downsizing, outsourcing and a shortage of high-paying jobs is bolstering the ranks of the educated poor, people with college degrees who don't earn above the national poverty line, economists said.
...
According to recent U.S. Census estimates, the number of college graduates earning below the poverty line has more than doubled in the past 15 years to almost 6 million people.
...
Jared Bernstein, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said about 16 percent of U.S. college graduates are working jobs that don't require a degree.

The ruse for H-1B visas is exposed:

Debating H-1B visas: A ruse exposed
An ingenious new analysis exposing the myriad of myths about foreign engineers and scientists -- and the supposed labor tech shortage -- is another reason for a temporary moratorium on immigration.

[primavera]

48. What's called propaganda?

Agreed, a college degree doesn't impart job security anymore, and yes, companies are outsourcing jobs and downsizing. But the question still stands, why?

Incidentally, speaking of propaganda, the source cited in the "H-1B ruse" article you reference is the infamous Center for Immigration Studies, the "think tank" branch of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a rabidly anti-immigration group. FAIR and its affiliates receive their monies from the ultra right-wing Scaife Mellon Foundation and the Pioneer Fund, a nazi eugenics foundation dedicated to carrying on the good work of Joseph Mengele. Which is not to say that there aren't legitimate criticisms of the H-1B program, but you should know that the Center for Immigration Studies is one of the most notorious disseminators of warped and distorted disinformation, in other words, propaganda, in the country.

[flashl]

49. The why? The transference of business greed and profit motives

to underpaid and beleaguered American workers/consumers, portraying them as THE beneficiaries of cheap labor/products.

As this oil crisis reveals, American consumer's reduced consumption but the prices continue to go up. The American worker/consumer on the consumption end is not the driving force for prices in the global market place.

The "H-1B ruse" article source is the Pittsburgh Tribune. It also states:

Norman Matloff, computer science professor at the University of California, Davis, had a simple premise: Follow the money. If foreign workers truly are the outstanding talents that some American employers insist they are, they would be paid accordingly.

But by computing the ratio of salary to prevailing wage stated by the employer, Mr. Matloff discovered that the alien worker typically is just of average talent.

[primavera]

50. Agreed

Our culture of "greed is good" and our willingness to accept a state of affairs whereby a tiny handful of CEOs "earn" hundreds of millions in compensation while everyone else has to go without is the underlying disease. My point is that immigration is but a symptom of that disease, not the disease itself. And as long as we limit our discussion to the symptom as opposed to the disease, we're not going to cure the illness. Stomping on immigration is only going to produce an even more virulent symptom of the disease, such as outsourcing or downsizing. Relative to those alternatives, immigration at least carries with it some benefits to offset its costs, whereas outsourcing and downsizing are total losses to the economy. Now, if you'd like to discuss how we're going to get Americans to move away from believing that greed is a good thing and people like Rupert Murdoch deserve to be richer than kings for screwing the public, now that is a discussion I would truly relish!

p.s. btw, I realize the article you mentioned appeared in the Pittsburgh paper you cite, but the source they cite was Center for Immigration Studies, and I just think everyone needs to know that CIS has a bias a mile wide. It pisses me off that they get away with passing themselves off as a think tank just because they traded in their hoods and sheets for Italian suits: it takes (or ought to take) more than a wardrobe to make someone a scholar.

[flashl]

53. Agreed immigration is a symptom

In many ways, the failing economy hopefully will render the immigration issue moot. As Americans are having this heated debate about immigration, many immigrants, seeking employment and/or economic opportunities, have left and warn others not to come.

As for, getting Americans to move away from believing that greed is good? Is it not actually about being in a perpetual state of survival? For many Americans, it is now 'normal' to work two jobs to meet basic needs. The past seven years has shown me that Americans are acutely aware the government they were taught to trust do not exist. Many have fought bravely to resist the undermining of American principles and I am proud of that. How can we make it better? I am open to that discussion.

And, thanks for the heads up about CIS.

[primavera]

54. You're right, for most of us, it is about survival

But that's a problem we need to be working on. The flip side of the fact that 80% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the population is that the remaining 90% of us have to struggle to get by with only a fifth of the economy's resources. The US is an affluent nation, but that fact isn't very meaningful to the vast majority of the population when the overwhelming majority of that affluence is reserved for a tiny minority. In this country, on average, CEOs earn over 400 times the average salary of the workers employed by the companies they oversee (417 times as much in 2004, and the figure has been skyrocketing under the Bushista junta, so I'm sure it's much higher now). In contrast, CEOs in Europe typically earn between 10 and 15 times as much as the average worker salary. There was a scandal recently in Germany in which the German government uncovered documents showing that some company executives were squirreling away monies in Swiss accounts to avoid paying taxes. In response to this revelation, Germans took to the streets in protest, outraged that these guys (some of whom were making as much as 25,000 euros a month!) were trying to get out of paying their fair share of taxes. I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, the 25,000 euro monthly salary they're so pissed off about amounts to about $400K a year, and Germans are incensed by such income inequality. Here, CEOs can make tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars a year, on which they pay virtually no taxes, while an ever growing percentage of the population has to work multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates, and it never occurs to Americans to think there's anything at all wrong with that state of affairs. And still we wonder why there are so many working poor? Get a clue, guys, when all of the rewards of your economy are going to line the pockets of a tiny minority, it is a mathematical inevitability that there are going to be a hell of a lot of poor people paying the price for all of those billionaires.

[ohio2007]

38. They are in a position to put up the help wanted sign or go out of buisness now.

the country is watching their human relations department now ;)

[High Plains]

41. They broke the packing house unions in the 70s and 80s

I remember lots of red-blooded All-American scabs taking those jobs.

Not too many Mexicans around back then.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. Yup, the idea of working class solidarity is pretty much dead

Make people desperate enough and don't let them learn about their history, and they will work as scabs and cross picket lines.

[sofa king]

46. High Plains, a question for you.

Was the breaking of the packing house unions before, after, or during the first oil crises?

My own recollection of the situation is dim and distorted by youth, so I really don't know and I've never read anything about it. I remember at the time thinking they were both cartels that were intentionally raising prices--but I'm pretty sure that was way too simple an explanation.

I'd really appreciate it if you could suggest a few searchable terms to get me started. Thank you in advance!

[Indenturedebtor]

34. They're just practicing for the great "round up" n/t

[lumpy]

51. Dept. of Homeland Security has become the power and the

State Police of the US, the 'strong arm' of this government