* Posted previously and I thought maybe it needed saying again...
I bet you're thinking, 'What???' Let's take a look at this like it might actually exist.
Name a television entertainment program with a blue collar male that is something other than a dolt, an "Archie Bunker." Or try to find one where such a character isn't based around sloth and irresponsibility. I can think of 2 programs, "Made In America" and "Dirty Jobs" both of which are "reality TV." Regarding sloth and irresponsibility, productivity has increased virtually every year for 20 years. Workers today are getting more done in a work day than in the "good ole days."
Here's some reality to go with TV mindlessness, over a 20yr period most blue collar job wages have remained static or declined. Yes, working harder and better and making less. In that same period corporate profits have increased over 700%. Working for the same employer for an extended period is increasingly unlikely. Blue collar jobs are relentlessly dangerous and harmful to health, lower income health problems are frequently blamed on poor lifestyle choices, the reality is that the nature of the work is frequently the base problem.
A large percentage of skilled blue collar workers require a 2 income household to keep a family of 4 above the poverty line. This is not about extra income to buy expensive toys, this is about reliably keeping a roof, food, and transportation and these people are one health problem from disaster, if they have health insurance (unlikely) they face deductibles nearing 1/2 year wages which is very nearly pointless to have.
Blue collar workers face increasing employment competition with illegal hires. This competition takes two forms, one is direct hiring competition and the other is wage depression. This competition is largely ignored in any debate regarding illegal workers. The divorce between blue collar workers and their fellow citizens is increasingly evident. Debates arise concerning product pricing at market and the legality of the employees producing the product, statements are made to the effect that produce prices would skyrocket if legal hiring were in place, which ignores the fundamental fact that labor is one of the smallest portions of a product's price at market and that the associated costs of illegal employment far exceed the savings of illegal hiring. The educated "progressive" elements commiserate with the plight of illegal aliens and ignore the steady depredation on legal blue collar families. Apparently the ignorant buffoons of TV land are unworthy of concern.
No doubt voting patterns have influenced this trend. There is an apparent disregard of their own economic interest by blue collar voters as they have trended Republican. While this conflict in interest is obvious, many of its roots are not. There has been no evident economic policy benefiting blue collar over the last 20 years and that period is not all Republican. It is not difficult to see blue collar workers regarding their economic best interests as a hopeless case and voting some other interest that feels close to home. When a person has very little, perceived assaults on the few things they do hold are taken very seriously. One of the side effects of the gun control debate was to tell the blue collar worker that he is too ignorant and too irresponsible and too criminally inclined to own a firearm. His "betters" disapproved of the gun owning lifestyle. Accurate? Possibly not, politically potent? You bet.
These people trade their time and their bodies for income, they work long hard hours and get little for it. Little pay, little respect. Many jobs that 30 years ago were held in high esteem are now little regarded. It is not as though the work has changed, it is the point of view that has changed. Maybe it's time to give it a re-think. Maybe it's time to look around and see the things produced with the hands and backs of your fellows and give some regard to their value, all those paper assets and banknotes are derived from those things.
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Flip Flop
***This is a guest piece***
By Steve Culley
The most amazing thing came out of the democratic debate in Las Vegas. When asked, “do you favor driver’s licenses for illegal aliens?”, Hillary Clinton gave a very concise “no” answer.
A little background is in order to illuminate why this answer shows that even though you might think you are wasting your time being an activists you can change the world or at least the course of national history. As some who pay a little bit of attention might recall, we had a great big immigration fight last spring in congress over open borders George’s proposal to legalize the invasion of this country. I referred to it as “comprehensive amnesty” while GWB and the democrats referred to it as “comprehensive immigration reform” so the illegal, undocumented, aliens could come out of the shadows and do jobs Americans won’t do, because they just want to feed their families, and no person is illegal, so they can go to the back of the line and apply for citizenship, before they petition the rest of their family to come too, while the Minute Men, Oregonians for Immigration Reform, Numbers USA and a host of others called it by the true name of invasion while democrats assured us we need to celebrate diversity because we are a nation of immigrants and it is really Mexican territory anyway and yada yada yada to quote Seinfeld.
It was a dog and pony show with the corporate globalist using all the spin they could to convince the average Joe that what’s good for big business is good for him, even if it means outsourcing his job while importing someone who will compete for his new lower paying one. And some might have noticed that the democrats formed a symbiotic relationship with open borders George. You couldn’t slide a piece of paper between them and GWB. Almost all of them were stuck like glue to George. Makes me wonder why people still think they actually don’t like George. GWB is the best president Mexico ever had and the democrats in the senate are the best senators Mexico ever had. Chief among them was Hillary Clinton, all for a path to citizenship, no border fences, quit harassing illegals by raids, easy voter registration etc. Then two weeks ago she was asked about New York governor Elliot Spitzer’s attempt to give out the same drivers licenses to illegal aliens as citizens and she was all for it. That was before Luo Dobbs lead the charge against it and there was serious talk of recalling Spitzer. Hillary’s poll numbers started to drop like a rock and she flip flopped for a week before the Clinton machine turned up the heat on the poor governor and he pulled his proposal. Hillary is now a tough on illegal aliens gal.
Seems like the democrats and Hillary got the message. Americans are fed up with the corporate sanctioned invasion of this country. Illegal immigration is an issue whether the mainstream media wants to acknowledge it or not. Oregon will hold a primary election too and our governor seems to have taken a call from party headquarters. It seems like the illegal alien question tends to hurt democrats. After doing absolutely nothing about illegal immigration in Oregon, in fact actually aiding and abetting the invasion by handing out drivers licenses to illegals and prohibiting the police from being involved in immigration, the governor signed an executive order requiring some kind of proof of citizenship to get a drivers license. Your social security number should match. What a concept! The 175,000 illegal aliens we have now might be inconvenienced but the democratic party machine might be inconvenienced even more.
So Hillary gave straight forward answer to the question. She said “no”. She is against giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens. At least until she is in the White House, at which time I suspect we will again have a comprehensive immigration amnesty plan. Actually if the Republicans nominate the male version of Hillary, Rudolph Giuliani , we will still have a comprehensive amnesty invasion. They both have more immigration positions than a fresh caught trout. If the press would ask Hillary and Rudy more questions about NAFTA and their positions on gun rights it ought to get real interesting. You could see some synchronized flip flopping. It might become an Olympic event.
I would rather have a rattlesnake as a room mate in my house than either one of them as president in the White House.
I always say ballots before bullets but Tom Jefferson kept his options open.
***As a note, I spell check and paragraph these guest posts, I do not mess with them***
By Steve Culley
The most amazing thing came out of the democratic debate in Las Vegas. When asked, “do you favor driver’s licenses for illegal aliens?”, Hillary Clinton gave a very concise “no” answer.
A little background is in order to illuminate why this answer shows that even though you might think you are wasting your time being an activists you can change the world or at least the course of national history. As some who pay a little bit of attention might recall, we had a great big immigration fight last spring in congress over open borders George’s proposal to legalize the invasion of this country. I referred to it as “comprehensive amnesty” while GWB and the democrats referred to it as “comprehensive immigration reform” so the illegal, undocumented, aliens could come out of the shadows and do jobs Americans won’t do, because they just want to feed their families, and no person is illegal, so they can go to the back of the line and apply for citizenship, before they petition the rest of their family to come too, while the Minute Men, Oregonians for Immigration Reform, Numbers USA and a host of others called it by the true name of invasion while democrats assured us we need to celebrate diversity because we are a nation of immigrants and it is really Mexican territory anyway and yada yada yada to quote Seinfeld.
It was a dog and pony show with the corporate globalist using all the spin they could to convince the average Joe that what’s good for big business is good for him, even if it means outsourcing his job while importing someone who will compete for his new lower paying one. And some might have noticed that the democrats formed a symbiotic relationship with open borders George. You couldn’t slide a piece of paper between them and GWB. Almost all of them were stuck like glue to George. Makes me wonder why people still think they actually don’t like George. GWB is the best president Mexico ever had and the democrats in the senate are the best senators Mexico ever had. Chief among them was Hillary Clinton, all for a path to citizenship, no border fences, quit harassing illegals by raids, easy voter registration etc. Then two weeks ago she was asked about New York governor Elliot Spitzer’s attempt to give out the same drivers licenses to illegal aliens as citizens and she was all for it. That was before Luo Dobbs lead the charge against it and there was serious talk of recalling Spitzer. Hillary’s poll numbers started to drop like a rock and she flip flopped for a week before the Clinton machine turned up the heat on the poor governor and he pulled his proposal. Hillary is now a tough on illegal aliens gal.
Seems like the democrats and Hillary got the message. Americans are fed up with the corporate sanctioned invasion of this country. Illegal immigration is an issue whether the mainstream media wants to acknowledge it or not. Oregon will hold a primary election too and our governor seems to have taken a call from party headquarters. It seems like the illegal alien question tends to hurt democrats. After doing absolutely nothing about illegal immigration in Oregon, in fact actually aiding and abetting the invasion by handing out drivers licenses to illegals and prohibiting the police from being involved in immigration, the governor signed an executive order requiring some kind of proof of citizenship to get a drivers license. Your social security number should match. What a concept! The 175,000 illegal aliens we have now might be inconvenienced but the democratic party machine might be inconvenienced even more.
So Hillary gave straight forward answer to the question. She said “no”. She is against giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens. At least until she is in the White House, at which time I suspect we will again have a comprehensive immigration amnesty plan. Actually if the Republicans nominate the male version of Hillary, Rudolph Giuliani , we will still have a comprehensive amnesty invasion. They both have more immigration positions than a fresh caught trout. If the press would ask Hillary and Rudy more questions about NAFTA and their positions on gun rights it ought to get real interesting. You could see some synchronized flip flopping. It might become an Olympic event.
I would rather have a rattlesnake as a room mate in my house than either one of them as president in the White House.
I always say ballots before bullets but Tom Jefferson kept his options open.
***As a note, I spell check and paragraph these guest posts, I do not mess with them***
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Illegal Immigration Storm Rising
Illegal immigration is repeatedly referred to as a Republican issue, maybe in the big public fights in Congress but I am finding a considerable amount of discontent within the liberal.progressive category. It doesn't get to be very high profile and Democratic legislators don't get publicly bombarded by Democrats, but there is a very real discontent with amnesty programs.
At least some of the resistance has its roots in history, Reagan's amnesty was not followed by employer enforcement and opened the gates - again, by demonstrating American impotence on the issue. The progressives who pay attention can see the degradation of wages surrounding the flooding of the labor market, we're talking about a lot wider effect than grass mowing and crop picking; the direct effect runs the gamut of lower blue collar wages from construction to light manufacturing and the indirect effect spread into the middle class. The effects on social services in some locales has been drastic and is spreading widely. The results of an illegal underground society have been making headlines, along with the impotence of local law enforcement. Racism is on the rise, using the cover of a legitimate issue and yet to come are the results of having a disenfranchised serf class living amongst us.
There are several beneficiaries to this mess, racist demagogues get credence, plutocrats widen the disparity of wealth with the worst victims disenfranchised, radical race based organizations - La Raza to KKK build their membership, and ludicrous positions like open borders or police state enforcement get credence in the face of impotence.
Perceived impotence gives rise to stupid legislation like the Kennedy/McCain mess. Employers laugh at "enforcement" and if it shows cry inability to find Americans to do the jobs - which is true, Americans won't do the jobs for those wages; which would be self-correcting minus the illegal flood.
Democrats aren't hearing a large backlash from Democrats and at least a couple reasons seem to be in operation. Democrats tend not to be racist (at least overtly) and recoil from having that label attached to them. This is one of the demagogic tools in the open borders crowd's arsenal, debase all opponents with racism. Another is an appeal to their sense of justice and fairness, it is quite factual to state that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are responsible individuals attempting to improve their and their family's lot with hard work. Another tool is the assertion of impotence to deal with the issue without the institution of a police state and the expense in resources. There is finally local and state inability to do anything in the face of Federal inaction, popular politicians attempt to defuse rising tensions with any tool at hand firing the heat from rabid anti-illegals and shoring the "Party" defences. It is flatly difficult to to push a Democratic local official to take an enforcement stance when he knows there is legally nothing to be done and local problems require action.
The last is possibly one of the most illustrative and the example of "sanctuary" day labor halls shows what local officials are up against. Cheating employers use day labor pools to cut costs in low skill employment by hiring off the streets. This creates a disorderly and potentially dangerous condition of prospective laborers gathering in one place in hot competition for jobs. The local populous will not tolerate these conditions and in face of real tensions the local officials establish a location for hiring, because quite simply they cannot legally do anything to remove the root problem - cheating employers and illegal aliens. This is a Catch 22 solution, it takes the mess off the streets but is exacerbates the problem of illegal hiring and gives ammunition to the opponents of illegal immigration. The real villains in this, Congress and BushCo and employers, don't get attacked, the attack falls on the local official and if that official is Democratic, the Democrats are forced to back their play, whether they agree with unfettered illegal immigration or not.
While I do not have a comprehensive plan to deal with the mess, and since nobody would do anything with one I developed; I will at least state unequivocally that the Democrats have to face up to this issue and deal with it in a real manner and if that does not address the very real problems facing us they will face a large backlash. The problem has been building since 1984 and Ronnie's refusal to do anything more than an amnesty, some - myself included - have been calling for action for over a decade but this issue is finally hitting its boiling point. The effects have become widespread enough that they are plain to many without demagoguery and politicians that ignore or try to gloss the issue are going to pay in the '08 election. Some on the left have called this a fake issue and wondered why this is now an issue. It is an issue, validly, and even if it were manufactured it would still have to be dealt with, but its validity is demonstrated by articles like this in McClatchy - scarcely a reactionary publication. Some Republicans have already paid for their positions and while that may seem a Republican problem it is not, much of the middle or Independent vote is concerned and upset and within the ranks of Democrats disillusionment is spreading.
A very large portion of the voters are not willing to provide Mexico and other plutocratic racist countries with a safety valve at the expense of Americans. Taxpayers will hold still for some wasteful spending but telling them that they must subsidize plutocrats and corrupt foreign governments will upset them no end. If anyone thinks that Republican candidates will not appeal to this they live in a fantasy world. There is no reason whatever for Democrats to need to appeal to the racist xenophobes, but it is necessary to address the real issues at hand. Americans generally have an inherent sense of fairness, but it takes little to offend that sense - the Kennedy/McCain mess offended it, there is a balance to be struck between reasonable treatment of long term illegals and a total disrespect for law and legal employees - and for that issue - the suffering of legal employers. There also are methods of dealing with largest proportion of illegal aliens, the more recent arrivals, without creating a police state. If one wishes to address such an issue one needs to proceed logically, and the starting point is the reason people engage in an illegal activity, crossing a border without permission. They do not cross that border to sight-see or otherwise vacation, they cross for the improved economic conditions available to them. While some form of control must be provided for the border the actual root cause must be addressed and that is economic. It is not realistic to think that the US can somehow improve the corrupt racist xenophobic plutocratic government of Mexico (and others) short of an invasion, the problem must be most directly attacked domestically and that involves employment and social services short of emergency care. Children born in the US are citizens and must continue to be so, but that need confer absolutely no benefits on the parents - the ability to breed is not somehow a legal entitlement. The ordinary law enforcement contact with illegal aliens occurs at the local level, for the federal government to deny authority and funding for these contacts is ludicrous and encourages illegal activity. It must be recognized that some contacts are very serious and involve people with little to lose and when those people are simply cut loose their behavior is encouraged, that is the most serious outcome, the less serious is the demonstration of simple impotence of law enforcement.
Does this currently rise to the level of crisis? Not in the sense of widespread civil disorder and property damage, but we are rapidly approaching a tipping point in ability to deal with it at all and worse yet the onset of the damages of all the natural outcomes of the creation of a serf class. History holds lessons regarding this type of situation, and the outcomes are universally nasty. Let's see if we can't avoid repeating previous stupidities engaged in here and other countries.
At least some of the resistance has its roots in history, Reagan's amnesty was not followed by employer enforcement and opened the gates - again, by demonstrating American impotence on the issue. The progressives who pay attention can see the degradation of wages surrounding the flooding of the labor market, we're talking about a lot wider effect than grass mowing and crop picking; the direct effect runs the gamut of lower blue collar wages from construction to light manufacturing and the indirect effect spread into the middle class. The effects on social services in some locales has been drastic and is spreading widely. The results of an illegal underground society have been making headlines, along with the impotence of local law enforcement. Racism is on the rise, using the cover of a legitimate issue and yet to come are the results of having a disenfranchised serf class living amongst us.
There are several beneficiaries to this mess, racist demagogues get credence, plutocrats widen the disparity of wealth with the worst victims disenfranchised, radical race based organizations - La Raza to KKK build their membership, and ludicrous positions like open borders or police state enforcement get credence in the face of impotence.
Perceived impotence gives rise to stupid legislation like the Kennedy/McCain mess. Employers laugh at "enforcement" and if it shows cry inability to find Americans to do the jobs - which is true, Americans won't do the jobs for those wages; which would be self-correcting minus the illegal flood.
Democrats aren't hearing a large backlash from Democrats and at least a couple reasons seem to be in operation. Democrats tend not to be racist (at least overtly) and recoil from having that label attached to them. This is one of the demagogic tools in the open borders crowd's arsenal, debase all opponents with racism. Another is an appeal to their sense of justice and fairness, it is quite factual to state that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are responsible individuals attempting to improve their and their family's lot with hard work. Another tool is the assertion of impotence to deal with the issue without the institution of a police state and the expense in resources. There is finally local and state inability to do anything in the face of Federal inaction, popular politicians attempt to defuse rising tensions with any tool at hand firing the heat from rabid anti-illegals and shoring the "Party" defences. It is flatly difficult to to push a Democratic local official to take an enforcement stance when he knows there is legally nothing to be done and local problems require action.
The last is possibly one of the most illustrative and the example of "sanctuary" day labor halls shows what local officials are up against. Cheating employers use day labor pools to cut costs in low skill employment by hiring off the streets. This creates a disorderly and potentially dangerous condition of prospective laborers gathering in one place in hot competition for jobs. The local populous will not tolerate these conditions and in face of real tensions the local officials establish a location for hiring, because quite simply they cannot legally do anything to remove the root problem - cheating employers and illegal aliens. This is a Catch 22 solution, it takes the mess off the streets but is exacerbates the problem of illegal hiring and gives ammunition to the opponents of illegal immigration. The real villains in this, Congress and BushCo and employers, don't get attacked, the attack falls on the local official and if that official is Democratic, the Democrats are forced to back their play, whether they agree with unfettered illegal immigration or not.
While I do not have a comprehensive plan to deal with the mess, and since nobody would do anything with one I developed; I will at least state unequivocally that the Democrats have to face up to this issue and deal with it in a real manner and if that does not address the very real problems facing us they will face a large backlash. The problem has been building since 1984 and Ronnie's refusal to do anything more than an amnesty, some - myself included - have been calling for action for over a decade but this issue is finally hitting its boiling point. The effects have become widespread enough that they are plain to many without demagoguery and politicians that ignore or try to gloss the issue are going to pay in the '08 election. Some on the left have called this a fake issue and wondered why this is now an issue. It is an issue, validly, and even if it were manufactured it would still have to be dealt with, but its validity is demonstrated by articles like this in McClatchy - scarcely a reactionary publication. Some Republicans have already paid for their positions and while that may seem a Republican problem it is not, much of the middle or Independent vote is concerned and upset and within the ranks of Democrats disillusionment is spreading.
A very large portion of the voters are not willing to provide Mexico and other plutocratic racist countries with a safety valve at the expense of Americans. Taxpayers will hold still for some wasteful spending but telling them that they must subsidize plutocrats and corrupt foreign governments will upset them no end. If anyone thinks that Republican candidates will not appeal to this they live in a fantasy world. There is no reason whatever for Democrats to need to appeal to the racist xenophobes, but it is necessary to address the real issues at hand. Americans generally have an inherent sense of fairness, but it takes little to offend that sense - the Kennedy/McCain mess offended it, there is a balance to be struck between reasonable treatment of long term illegals and a total disrespect for law and legal employees - and for that issue - the suffering of legal employers. There also are methods of dealing with largest proportion of illegal aliens, the more recent arrivals, without creating a police state. If one wishes to address such an issue one needs to proceed logically, and the starting point is the reason people engage in an illegal activity, crossing a border without permission. They do not cross that border to sight-see or otherwise vacation, they cross for the improved economic conditions available to them. While some form of control must be provided for the border the actual root cause must be addressed and that is economic. It is not realistic to think that the US can somehow improve the corrupt racist xenophobic plutocratic government of Mexico (and others) short of an invasion, the problem must be most directly attacked domestically and that involves employment and social services short of emergency care. Children born in the US are citizens and must continue to be so, but that need confer absolutely no benefits on the parents - the ability to breed is not somehow a legal entitlement. The ordinary law enforcement contact with illegal aliens occurs at the local level, for the federal government to deny authority and funding for these contacts is ludicrous and encourages illegal activity. It must be recognized that some contacts are very serious and involve people with little to lose and when those people are simply cut loose their behavior is encouraged, that is the most serious outcome, the less serious is the demonstration of simple impotence of law enforcement.
Does this currently rise to the level of crisis? Not in the sense of widespread civil disorder and property damage, but we are rapidly approaching a tipping point in ability to deal with it at all and worse yet the onset of the damages of all the natural outcomes of the creation of a serf class. History holds lessons regarding this type of situation, and the outcomes are universally nasty. Let's see if we can't avoid repeating previous stupidities engaged in here and other countries.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Race, Immigration, and Illegal Immigration-Updated
I just finished reading a NYT article Our Town about Carpentersville and Illinois town whose demographics have undergone a significant change in An estimated 40 percent of its 37,000 residents are Hispanic, a jump from 17 percent in 1990. recent years, "an estimated 40 percent of its 37,000 residents are Hispanic, a jump from 17 percent in 1990." The result has been a backlash with proposed ordinances mirroring Hazelton's. Estimates vary, a priest estimates that 50% of his Hispanic parishioners are here illegally.
The tone of the article is somewhat disapproving of the ordinances and the fallout, tensions between residents have risen and village council meetings are testy. A local businessman, Tom Roeser, president and owner of Otto Engineering thinks the council people driving the ordinances are essentially racists and troublemakers. He states that he is careful about legal hiring and only allows English in the factory, with the goals of assimilation and productivity, but there is an issue, wages on the assembly line range from $7.95 to $10 with some benefits for long term employees. Carpentersville is 40 miles from Chicago which would make those wages rather pathetic, with revenues of $77 million last year from supplying switches to NASA, the USAF and others those wages seem low. The accusation about town is that while he may hire legally his interest in keeping wages low drives his opposition.
The gulf between the more affluent and the low income in town is growing, driven by language, culture, housing conditions and a perception of advantage for those who are illegal. Racism is one of the louder accusations and evidently some opposition to the illegals is race driven or most favorably xenophobic. Legal Hispanics feel discriminated against, in some cases rightfully.
So, this is the straits we're being driven into. Perfectly legal contributors to our society are lumped with law breakers, law breakers are held up as examples of contribution and victimization of racists, wages are depressed and cultural assimilation is brought to a screeching halt by suspicion and fear. Racism is justified by criminal behavior and opposition to criminal benefit of illegal behavior is labeled racism. It goes around and around. It is the natural outcome of the condoning of illegal immigration by the federal government until the numbers become so large that social dislocations begin. It is now beginning to tear communities apart.
As the BushCo ramps up fear of "the other" with its phony war on terror, skin color becomes increasingly relevant in people's lives, this approval of (denied) racism by BushCo becomes a larger approval, brown is bad. The presence of so many "brown" law breaking illegal immigrants fuels the reaction. All this race nonsense obscures the very real consequences of creating a serf culture. Places like Carpentersville demonstrate the beginnings of what may become a tide of behavior.
There is no easy feel good solution to this problem, that is the very first recognition that needs to be made. No matter what approach is taken someone is going to get to suffer for it. It is not a case of some minor sacrifices, any solution is going to result in very real pain. Get over the idea that it won't, there is absolutely no scenario in which that happens. If you brace up to the idea, you can begin to think about realistic solutions.
First of all it is not economically feasible or legally desirable to begin a round-up and deportation of all illegal immigrants, the creation of the required police state apparatus would make this into a country we couldn't recognize - except maybe as a BushCo wet dream. Outright amnesty (a la Ronnie Reagan) would blow social services to pieces and crush wages completely and encourage a further influx, or rather, flood. It would once again leave agriculture as the beginning phase of further illegal hiring.
The "path to citizenship" that ran into so much opposition is a form of amnesty (don't start BS), but if set into motion with some rather stringent requirements and enforcements might have some results; there have been illegals here for an extended period who have paid taxes and maintained an otherwise legal life and an absolute denial of such is both unfair and unrealistic. That bar must be set rather high in order to pass muster with the citizenry and to act as a bar to further incursions. Giving employers a real system of verification and then enforcing very real and painful sanctions for violation is a beginning. The denial of any and all social services beyond actual life threatening ones and the reporting of all such false applications and illegal usages will remove some draw. Placing all law enforcement officers into an enforcement of the applicable federal law will begin to make a dent. Rigorous enforcement of the laws regarding false documentation with stringent penalties will discourage the manufacture of such documentation and its usage. A child born in the US is a citizen and that must not be interfered with, that fact however also must not be linked to deportation of illegal parents, the outcome of such behavior is entirely their own responsibility and decision to make. Any US citizen has a right to be in or enter or re-enter this country regardless of the status of parents. While such a policy may have difficult outcomes it is the only method of ensuring that citizenship cannot be interfered with.
It is of the utmost importance that the US get control of entry and residence. It is entirely unlikely that any fence, however tall and long will dissuade illegal entry if the draw is still there. If the lifestyle and benefits of US residency remain open to anyone who can get here we will soon devolve into just another third world nation. At least one foreign policy issue should be the raising of the lifestyle standards of the third world nations near our borders rather than taking advantage of their status as third world countries. Trade agreements that do not recognize the general well-being of US citizenry and the citizenry of the trading partners are not workable in the long run. Under BushCo and previous administrations the US government has turned into a tool of plutocracies in this country and our trading partners, this must stop. The generation of the wealth of this nation is not synonymous with the generation of the wealth of the wealthy and powerfully connected.
As the Hazeltons and Carpentersvilles spread across this nation we risk very real social dislocations that bode ill for the kind of government envisioned in the Constitution and Bill of Rights and Civil Rights. This essay is not considered by myself to be a finished document or a source of all solutions, it is only a beginning point for discussion and rational planning.
***Update***
Please include on your blog as a rebuttal
You mistakenly make a judgment regarding the wage level at OTTO and the effect that a large Hispanic population has regarding wages in the area. Carpentersville is a large community of 37,000 close to many companies such as Motorola, Sears, and a plethora of smaller manufacturing and service companies. OTTO’s ability to hire people ( and we have increased our employment by 44 people so far this year) is only possible if we pay competitive wages. With unemployment at 4.6% it would be unfeasible if not impossible to find employees if wages were not competitive. Our AVERAGE pay for an employee in our assembly area is over $10.35. Our benefit plans include a health care package with a $300 deductible and 90% co-payment. Employees pay 16% of the premium, far below the national average. Allegations that OTTO hires illegal aliens is more mean-spirited that factual.
Tom Roeser
President
2 E Main Street
Carpentersville, IL 60110
847-654-8205
http://www.ottoexcellence.com/
Mr Roeser needs to learn to read completely what is written and not what he assumes. There is not a single statement in my article linking OTTO to illegal hiring although apparently a case of "borrowed" documents resulted in an illegal hire - rather difficult to blame OTTO for and not even mentioned in my article, but since he references it, I am forced to include it now. I did not mention it previously because I considered it immaterial and accidental.
Their benefit package he mentioned is an excellent one, but the wages are still pathetic being less than $5/hour in 1984 dollars. His assertion that flooding a labor market does not depress wages is counter to economic theory and practically demonstrated fact. I stand by my article.
I will always include such "rebuttals" and I do not delete comments unless they are stupidly rude. (or commercial spam) I couldn't do this without making sure I play fair and play straight.
The tone of the article is somewhat disapproving of the ordinances and the fallout, tensions between residents have risen and village council meetings are testy. A local businessman, Tom Roeser, president and owner of Otto Engineering thinks the council people driving the ordinances are essentially racists and troublemakers. He states that he is careful about legal hiring and only allows English in the factory, with the goals of assimilation and productivity, but there is an issue, wages on the assembly line range from $7.95 to $10 with some benefits for long term employees. Carpentersville is 40 miles from Chicago which would make those wages rather pathetic, with revenues of $77 million last year from supplying switches to NASA, the USAF and others those wages seem low. The accusation about town is that while he may hire legally his interest in keeping wages low drives his opposition.
The gulf between the more affluent and the low income in town is growing, driven by language, culture, housing conditions and a perception of advantage for those who are illegal. Racism is one of the louder accusations and evidently some opposition to the illegals is race driven or most favorably xenophobic. Legal Hispanics feel discriminated against, in some cases rightfully.
So, this is the straits we're being driven into. Perfectly legal contributors to our society are lumped with law breakers, law breakers are held up as examples of contribution and victimization of racists, wages are depressed and cultural assimilation is brought to a screeching halt by suspicion and fear. Racism is justified by criminal behavior and opposition to criminal benefit of illegal behavior is labeled racism. It goes around and around. It is the natural outcome of the condoning of illegal immigration by the federal government until the numbers become so large that social dislocations begin. It is now beginning to tear communities apart.
As the BushCo ramps up fear of "the other" with its phony war on terror, skin color becomes increasingly relevant in people's lives, this approval of (denied) racism by BushCo becomes a larger approval, brown is bad. The presence of so many "brown" law breaking illegal immigrants fuels the reaction. All this race nonsense obscures the very real consequences of creating a serf culture. Places like Carpentersville demonstrate the beginnings of what may become a tide of behavior.
There is no easy feel good solution to this problem, that is the very first recognition that needs to be made. No matter what approach is taken someone is going to get to suffer for it. It is not a case of some minor sacrifices, any solution is going to result in very real pain. Get over the idea that it won't, there is absolutely no scenario in which that happens. If you brace up to the idea, you can begin to think about realistic solutions.
First of all it is not economically feasible or legally desirable to begin a round-up and deportation of all illegal immigrants, the creation of the required police state apparatus would make this into a country we couldn't recognize - except maybe as a BushCo wet dream. Outright amnesty (a la Ronnie Reagan) would blow social services to pieces and crush wages completely and encourage a further influx, or rather, flood. It would once again leave agriculture as the beginning phase of further illegal hiring.
The "path to citizenship" that ran into so much opposition is a form of amnesty (don't start BS), but if set into motion with some rather stringent requirements and enforcements might have some results; there have been illegals here for an extended period who have paid taxes and maintained an otherwise legal life and an absolute denial of such is both unfair and unrealistic. That bar must be set rather high in order to pass muster with the citizenry and to act as a bar to further incursions. Giving employers a real system of verification and then enforcing very real and painful sanctions for violation is a beginning. The denial of any and all social services beyond actual life threatening ones and the reporting of all such false applications and illegal usages will remove some draw. Placing all law enforcement officers into an enforcement of the applicable federal law will begin to make a dent. Rigorous enforcement of the laws regarding false documentation with stringent penalties will discourage the manufacture of such documentation and its usage. A child born in the US is a citizen and that must not be interfered with, that fact however also must not be linked to deportation of illegal parents, the outcome of such behavior is entirely their own responsibility and decision to make. Any US citizen has a right to be in or enter or re-enter this country regardless of the status of parents. While such a policy may have difficult outcomes it is the only method of ensuring that citizenship cannot be interfered with.
It is of the utmost importance that the US get control of entry and residence. It is entirely unlikely that any fence, however tall and long will dissuade illegal entry if the draw is still there. If the lifestyle and benefits of US residency remain open to anyone who can get here we will soon devolve into just another third world nation. At least one foreign policy issue should be the raising of the lifestyle standards of the third world nations near our borders rather than taking advantage of their status as third world countries. Trade agreements that do not recognize the general well-being of US citizenry and the citizenry of the trading partners are not workable in the long run. Under BushCo and previous administrations the US government has turned into a tool of plutocracies in this country and our trading partners, this must stop. The generation of the wealth of this nation is not synonymous with the generation of the wealth of the wealthy and powerfully connected.
As the Hazeltons and Carpentersvilles spread across this nation we risk very real social dislocations that bode ill for the kind of government envisioned in the Constitution and Bill of Rights and Civil Rights. This essay is not considered by myself to be a finished document or a source of all solutions, it is only a beginning point for discussion and rational planning.
***Update***
Please include on your blog as a rebuttal
You mistakenly make a judgment regarding the wage level at OTTO and the effect that a large Hispanic population has regarding wages in the area. Carpentersville is a large community of 37,000 close to many companies such as Motorola, Sears, and a plethora of smaller manufacturing and service companies. OTTO’s ability to hire people ( and we have increased our employment by 44 people so far this year) is only possible if we pay competitive wages. With unemployment at 4.6% it would be unfeasible if not impossible to find employees if wages were not competitive. Our AVERAGE pay for an employee in our assembly area is over $10.35. Our benefit plans include a health care package with a $300 deductible and 90% co-payment. Employees pay 16% of the premium, far below the national average. Allegations that OTTO hires illegal aliens is more mean-spirited that factual.
Tom Roeser
President
2 E Main Street
Carpentersville, IL 60110
847-654-8205
http://www.ottoexcellence.com/
Mr Roeser needs to learn to read completely what is written and not what he assumes. There is not a single statement in my article linking OTTO to illegal hiring although apparently a case of "borrowed" documents resulted in an illegal hire - rather difficult to blame OTTO for and not even mentioned in my article, but since he references it, I am forced to include it now. I did not mention it previously because I considered it immaterial and accidental.
Their benefit package he mentioned is an excellent one, but the wages are still pathetic being less than $5/hour in 1984 dollars. His assertion that flooding a labor market does not depress wages is counter to economic theory and practically demonstrated fact. I stand by my article.
I will always include such "rebuttals" and I do not delete comments unless they are stupidly rude. (or commercial spam) I couldn't do this without making sure I play fair and play straight.
Friday, August 03, 2007
McCain, Immigration, and Politics
AP reports that John McCain has brought forward a new immigration bill with fellow Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona as co-sponsors. McCain's support for the failed "comprehensive immigration bill" is believed to have cost him politically. Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, said of this, "It is fairly stunning they have gone from leaders on comprehensive reform legislation to lemmings running over the cliff."
The bill creates an electronic employment check system for employers, makes being in the country illegally a criminal misdemeanor and ups the penalties for re-entering after deportation and that illegal immigrants who commit a crime remain in jail until deported.
I'm not exactly sure what it is that is objectionable in this bill, illegal immigration is a self-defined crime and misdemeanor treatment is scarcely draconian. I can think of no reason employers are held responsible for hiring violations without a system of verification and less reason to encourage criminal behavior by foreigners or our domestic employers. Labor supply is the business of business, not immigration policy, if business finds labor wage rates rising there are perfectly legitimate methods of dealing with it. The US is not a dumping ground for foreign governments nor is it their safety valve for their corrupt plutocratic policies.
None of this makes me a Republican nor a John McCain supporter, but it also doesn't make me a partisan nut case opposition to any Republican legislation.
The bill creates an electronic employment check system for employers, makes being in the country illegally a criminal misdemeanor and ups the penalties for re-entering after deportation and that illegal immigrants who commit a crime remain in jail until deported.
I'm not exactly sure what it is that is objectionable in this bill, illegal immigration is a self-defined crime and misdemeanor treatment is scarcely draconian. I can think of no reason employers are held responsible for hiring violations without a system of verification and less reason to encourage criminal behavior by foreigners or our domestic employers. Labor supply is the business of business, not immigration policy, if business finds labor wage rates rising there are perfectly legitimate methods of dealing with it. The US is not a dumping ground for foreign governments nor is it their safety valve for their corrupt plutocratic policies.
None of this makes me a Republican nor a John McCain supporter, but it also doesn't make me a partisan nut case opposition to any Republican legislation.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Truth in Editorial Writing
*Steve Culley is a friend of mine and sometimes offers me articles and sometimes I use them, whether they reflect my views or not, since they address something that needs discussion*
I think it’s time we had a truth in editorial writing law. One aspect of this law could be the substitution of “Population increase” for such terms as “immigration” Guest workers” or “refugees.”
I predicted several months ago that the turmoil in the middle east would eventually end up as a call to let in more “refugees”. The Oregon today, Monday, July 9th, called for the first 70,000 Iraqi “refugees”. The Capitol Press is pushing an “ag jobs” bill and of course “immigrants” still stream across our borders.
Keeping in mind that problems such as the Klamath basin water problems, salmon kills on the Columbia River, dirty air in our cities, crowded freeways, paving of farm land, destruction of wildlife habitat, mercury in the water, species extinction, over cutting of forests, green house gasses, shortages of electricity, gasoline or a long list of what many people call environmental problems are a direct function of the things we have to do to the environment to feed, cloth and house people. It stands to reason that the more people you have means an increase in these problems.
There fore I propose that editors and pundits substitute “population increase” whenever they refer to “immigrants“, “guest workers” or “refugees“ When ever environmental groups talk about land use laws, regulations protecting the environment, restricting private property rights, saving farm land, forests and rivers and open space they could refer to and clarify why all the problems exist in the first place. A good editorial should start off,….” since we have a national policy of constant, rapid, never ending population increases because of “immigration” , ”guest workers” and “refugees” we need to modify away hard won land use rights. Or “since we have too many people and are adding more “refugees” “guest workers” and “immigrants” and swelling the population we are going to have to ban ATV’s, only permit river rafting for some, restrict country living cut back on gas use, electricity, recycle and more stuff. The list is endless of the freedoms and quality of life you might have to give up is endless to accommodate all the new people but that’s just the way it is.
Maybe some inconvenient truths could emerge and then maybe a true discussion on how to save the world solution could get under way.
Steve Culley
I think it’s time we had a truth in editorial writing law. One aspect of this law could be the substitution of “Population increase” for such terms as “immigration” Guest workers” or “refugees.”
I predicted several months ago that the turmoil in the middle east would eventually end up as a call to let in more “refugees”. The Oregon today, Monday, July 9th, called for the first 70,000 Iraqi “refugees”. The Capitol Press is pushing an “ag jobs” bill and of course “immigrants” still stream across our borders.
Keeping in mind that problems such as the Klamath basin water problems, salmon kills on the Columbia River, dirty air in our cities, crowded freeways, paving of farm land, destruction of wildlife habitat, mercury in the water, species extinction, over cutting of forests, green house gasses, shortages of electricity, gasoline or a long list of what many people call environmental problems are a direct function of the things we have to do to the environment to feed, cloth and house people. It stands to reason that the more people you have means an increase in these problems.
There fore I propose that editors and pundits substitute “population increase” whenever they refer to “immigrants“, “guest workers” or “refugees“ When ever environmental groups talk about land use laws, regulations protecting the environment, restricting private property rights, saving farm land, forests and rivers and open space they could refer to and clarify why all the problems exist in the first place. A good editorial should start off,….” since we have a national policy of constant, rapid, never ending population increases because of “immigration” , ”guest workers” and “refugees” we need to modify away hard won land use rights. Or “since we have too many people and are adding more “refugees” “guest workers” and “immigrants” and swelling the population we are going to have to ban ATV’s, only permit river rafting for some, restrict country living cut back on gas use, electricity, recycle and more stuff. The list is endless of the freedoms and quality of life you might have to give up is endless to accommodate all the new people but that’s just the way it is.
Maybe some inconvenient truths could emerge and then maybe a true discussion on how to save the world solution could get under way.
Steve Culley
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Comprehensive Stupidity in Congress
Bob Geiger has some details on just how stupid and politically driven the Immigration debate has been. Suppose I pique your curiosity by mentioning Inhofe as one of the major players. Go read his analysis, it is embarrassing.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Republican Illegal Immigration Woes
I don't suppose anybody that reads here would be surprised to find that Republican Presidential candidate's positions evolve. (or depending on the candidate are immaculately conceived, etc) We all know that the candidate's stands matters the religious right adores have ... ( evolved is so awkward in this context ) ... changed over time to suit the environment and apparently illegal immigration is another, Mitt Romney has taken to calling the Senate attempt the McCain - Kennedy Bill and deriding it although in November 2005 he called them "reasonable proposals" in the Boston Globe. McCain now also wants something different, Pence's go home and come back approach. Brownback has seemed to support some sort of path to citizenship and is having problems with Iowans over it.
Numbers are a problem, 45% of Republicans say illegals should be deported immediately, compared to 36% of the general electorate. Once the serious campaigning starts these amnesty programs are going to run into more opposition as "respectable" individuals start talking about the realities entailed.
Why should you care? Maybe there's no reason, but business sure cares, ask the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, "business has always been skeptical about any requirement to make workers leave the U.S. to obtain legal status,” just in case you thought it was about immigrants, they represent service industries. I wonder why wages are so low...
Numbers are a problem, 45% of Republicans say illegals should be deported immediately, compared to 36% of the general electorate. Once the serious campaigning starts these amnesty programs are going to run into more opposition as "respectable" individuals start talking about the realities entailed.
Why should you care? Maybe there's no reason, but business sure cares, ask the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, "business has always been skeptical about any requirement to make workers leave the U.S. to obtain legal status,” just in case you thought it was about immigrants, they represent service industries. I wonder why wages are so low...
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
The Welcome Mat
Maybe someone will explain to me just exactly how this (New Haven Welcomes a Booming Population of Immigrants, Legal or Not ) will reduce the numbers of people coming to the US illegally. Now, or at any time in the future. Let's just assume for a second, for the sake of argument, that we solve the illegal alien problem by an instant amnesty. Hurry down to the local PD & register and you're good, as of today. Nobody after today is good. There's the nice, nice solution.
New Haven makes it clear that the numbers of immigrants make it imperative that they be nice, so what is going to happen in another 5 years? Will the numbers again make it imperative to be nice? Why would anybody who wants to come on in, not come on in? You certainly are not going to suggest that the stuff won't need picked, houses won't be built, or are you?
Now, splitting the differences 12 million/30 million, you've already added 17 million illegal workers to the labor pool and gotten today's suppression of wages, what is going to happen when you add another 7-10 million to the bottom of the wage pool? Then, just for giggles, toss in the outsourced job losses, although as wages plummet it might slow. It will stop happening when there's no difference between 3rd world wages and our own. I'd rather pull them up, than us rush down, but that apparently is racist xenophobia. Ah hell, throw out the welcome mat, those of us old enough to remember labor as an honest way to support a family will all be dead soon, anyhow. It does pay to remember that when the worker bees ain't got any money to spend, your jobs become superfluous also.
I'd really like to go one week without this issue getting rammed in my face...
New Haven makes it clear that the numbers of immigrants make it imperative that they be nice, so what is going to happen in another 5 years? Will the numbers again make it imperative to be nice? Why would anybody who wants to come on in, not come on in? You certainly are not going to suggest that the stuff won't need picked, houses won't be built, or are you?
Now, splitting the differences 12 million/30 million, you've already added 17 million illegal workers to the labor pool and gotten today's suppression of wages, what is going to happen when you add another 7-10 million to the bottom of the wage pool? Then, just for giggles, toss in the outsourced job losses, although as wages plummet it might slow. It will stop happening when there's no difference between 3rd world wages and our own. I'd rather pull them up, than us rush down, but that apparently is racist xenophobia. Ah hell, throw out the welcome mat, those of us old enough to remember labor as an honest way to support a family will all be dead soon, anyhow. It does pay to remember that when the worker bees ain't got any money to spend, your jobs become superfluous also.
I'd really like to go one week without this issue getting rammed in my face...
Saturday, February 10, 2007
How Could I Agree With National Review Online ??
You don't suppose aliens abducted me and replaced me with another bearded one? I tell you, I am chagrined. But then, here's a Rove quote (attributed to an un-named Republican Congressman's wife) that you've got mull over:
Regarding BushCo amnesty/worker nonsense, "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."
Mark Krikorian poses this conclusion "This is why the president's "willing worker/willing employer" immigration extravaganza is morally wrong — it's not just that it will cost taxpayers untold billions, or that it will beggar our own blue-collar workers, or that it will compromise security, or that it will further dissolve our sovereignty. It would do all that, of course, but most importantly it would change the very nature of our society for the worse, creating whole occupations deemed to be unfit for respectable Americans, for which little brown people have to be imported from abroad."
Am I going to find fault with this? Maybe the security thing is a bit overblown, I don't have a real serious opinion on that, we've had a real hit from people who used visas to get in... How the left cannot get this through their heads is beyond me. There is nothing progressive in crushing blue collar wages. The "progressives" will talk about wealth disparity, they'll note that this "wonderful" economy isn't for the bottom end, and then they'll advocate cutting the throats of the workers because illegals are....special? they're picked on? they're what? They'll parrot the Free Marketers "it's not a zero sum game," when it is just exactly that, in fact it's a negative sum game. The damn jobs are being exported and insourced and there are a decreasing number of them and increasing competition for them.
Sure, right this minute the jobs with health hazards that include eye strain, carpal tunnel, and paper cuts are fairly safe. But if you think your wages aren't going into the toilet when the bottom falls out, you don't realize what your wage/salary is based on. A growing blue collar wage pushes up salaries and drags up low wage earnings. The numbers are all there, what you haven't seen in recent history is the bottom falling out, until the last dozen years, and now lower middle income is starting to slide. The plutocrats are doing well, this is all in their benefit. If BushCo is in favor of an economic model and you're not a plutocrat you'd better object. They're cutting your throats and getting you to smile about it.
What is particularly infuriating is for my stance to be lumped into racism, the major losers in this scenario are minorities! My industry, construction, was the gateway into decent paying work for minorities for decades. Now it's to be avoided unless all else fails. The largest concentration of illegal hirings is in construction. I don't give a damn if they pay taxes or not, the labor glut is killing this work. That's right, Americans won't come out, it's hard dangerous work and it doesn't PAY anything anymore. If you want to do a wage search by job descriptions you will find the same is true of just about anything that is comparably hard dangerous work.
I'm real sorry, there is no feel good solution. It's way past that time. Maybe after Ronnie Reagan's amnesty slamming the jobs shut would've mitigated itself, but that's not what was done, the flood gates were opened and now somebody is going to take a real beating. I feel rotten about this, I understand the plight of people fleeing crap countries, I admire a work ethic, and I don't care the least about ethnicity, but I do care about American workers more.
Regarding BushCo amnesty/worker nonsense, "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."
Mark Krikorian poses this conclusion "This is why the president's "willing worker/willing employer" immigration extravaganza is morally wrong — it's not just that it will cost taxpayers untold billions, or that it will beggar our own blue-collar workers, or that it will compromise security, or that it will further dissolve our sovereignty. It would do all that, of course, but most importantly it would change the very nature of our society for the worse, creating whole occupations deemed to be unfit for respectable Americans, for which little brown people have to be imported from abroad."
Am I going to find fault with this? Maybe the security thing is a bit overblown, I don't have a real serious opinion on that, we've had a real hit from people who used visas to get in... How the left cannot get this through their heads is beyond me. There is nothing progressive in crushing blue collar wages. The "progressives" will talk about wealth disparity, they'll note that this "wonderful" economy isn't for the bottom end, and then they'll advocate cutting the throats of the workers because illegals are....special? they're picked on? they're what? They'll parrot the Free Marketers "it's not a zero sum game," when it is just exactly that, in fact it's a negative sum game. The damn jobs are being exported and insourced and there are a decreasing number of them and increasing competition for them.
Sure, right this minute the jobs with health hazards that include eye strain, carpal tunnel, and paper cuts are fairly safe. But if you think your wages aren't going into the toilet when the bottom falls out, you don't realize what your wage/salary is based on. A growing blue collar wage pushes up salaries and drags up low wage earnings. The numbers are all there, what you haven't seen in recent history is the bottom falling out, until the last dozen years, and now lower middle income is starting to slide. The plutocrats are doing well, this is all in their benefit. If BushCo is in favor of an economic model and you're not a plutocrat you'd better object. They're cutting your throats and getting you to smile about it.
What is particularly infuriating is for my stance to be lumped into racism, the major losers in this scenario are minorities! My industry, construction, was the gateway into decent paying work for minorities for decades. Now it's to be avoided unless all else fails. The largest concentration of illegal hirings is in construction. I don't give a damn if they pay taxes or not, the labor glut is killing this work. That's right, Americans won't come out, it's hard dangerous work and it doesn't PAY anything anymore. If you want to do a wage search by job descriptions you will find the same is true of just about anything that is comparably hard dangerous work.
I'm real sorry, there is no feel good solution. It's way past that time. Maybe after Ronnie Reagan's amnesty slamming the jobs shut would've mitigated itself, but that's not what was done, the flood gates were opened and now somebody is going to take a real beating. I feel rotten about this, I understand the plight of people fleeing crap countries, I admire a work ethic, and I don't care the least about ethnicity, but I do care about American workers more.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Democratic Primary and Illegal Immigration
Apparently not a single Democratic candidate gives a damn about the wage depression caused by labor surplus in blue collar work. I say this because all of them except Hillary & Biden have web statement about providing a path to citizenship for those illegally here. Labor is a commodity and a surplus of a commodity results in downward pressure on its pricing. A lot is said about how Americans won't do jobs that are filled by illegals, and since when is construction one of those? How about since illegal labor surplus has driven wages so low? (Biden's goes no place & Hillary's is typical Hillary fluff and no more)
It's really sad as a progressive to have to chose between people who all dismiss the plight of law-abiding hard working labor. If you haven't figured it out, people who just get by also get to be sacrificed to the interests of foreign law breakers and past governmental policy.
Before you start on me about racism, I'm talking about poor people of every race who just happen to have done everything right and get to be screwed once again. Yep, laid out on the alter of political correctness and plutocratic advantage, one of the few sad moments in history when they coincide.
There's little point in railing against this, the alternative is the thugs from the Republican persuasion and on balance the Democrats are better. But while you're busy patting yourselves on the back for your niceness and realism, you might stop to consider the lives that you're smashing. Or, just deny it to yourselves, the politicos do.
With enough push back on this basis some of the more thoughtful ones would have a re-think going on, there are better ways to do it. I've pushed back, intelligently. I can guess how much company I'll have.
Just to be on the record once again, illegal employers belong in jail.
It's really sad as a progressive to have to chose between people who all dismiss the plight of law-abiding hard working labor. If you haven't figured it out, people who just get by also get to be sacrificed to the interests of foreign law breakers and past governmental policy.
Before you start on me about racism, I'm talking about poor people of every race who just happen to have done everything right and get to be screwed once again. Yep, laid out on the alter of political correctness and plutocratic advantage, one of the few sad moments in history when they coincide.
There's little point in railing against this, the alternative is the thugs from the Republican persuasion and on balance the Democrats are better. But while you're busy patting yourselves on the back for your niceness and realism, you might stop to consider the lives that you're smashing. Or, just deny it to yourselves, the politicos do.
With enough push back on this basis some of the more thoughtful ones would have a re-think going on, there are better ways to do it. I've pushed back, intelligently. I can guess how much company I'll have.
Just to be on the record once again, illegal employers belong in jail.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Tired Of A Name ?
I've made it pretty clear the I'd have preferred Hillary Clinton to have remained a NY Senator, period. They have their ideas and they seem to like her, since they elected her, but that's it, they like her. Well, NY and the Corporate Media minus Faux like her and even Faux has been going on forever about how she's a lock. She sure does have two things, money and name recognition. How about a voting record Democrats would like? I don't even mean the "looney left" like me, I mean Democrats.
I'll start off with the derailed locomotive of politics, Iraq, some folks have admitted to making a mistake there, some folks never made a mistake there, and Hillary? Try tracking the national polls on the subject and setting those beside her stands right afterward. I can barely get along with the idea that intelligent well-informed people went for the lies, shortly thereafter the lies became transparent, not Hillary.
Civil liberties rank a touch higher in my considerations, not because I minimize death and destruction, but because you'll play holy hell getting them back once the government has gotten hold of them, but I'm playing this card second. Check Mrs Clinton's votes in this regard. Not so hot. Then toss in her public statements regarding gun control, she'd like very much to stomp a mud hole in that particular civil liberty. For those of you enamoured of that stance, I'll just point out to you, once again, that BushCo's arguments and yours are identical and that should inform your philosophy. (if you feel insulted, ask yourself why)
Regarding guns and elections, Kerry would have won with a decent chunk of the middle politics gun owners. He didn't get it, Hillary won't either.
This is the lady who took such a beating over health care, but take a look at her stances regarding corporate advantages. Let's just take a look at her stance on illegal immigration amnesty and just how interested she is in holding employers to the law regarding hiring, can you get any deeper in the corporate pocket? Fine, lose the rest of the picture, but who do you think has been making money hand over fist off the backs of the serfs? She and her allies aren't trying to be nice to the poor oppressed brown people, they're playing to their corporate sponsors, if you get sucked along for the ride, that's wonderful for them.
On the topic of the health care debacle, she didn't get her head handed to her for working on health care so much as she got whacked for doing it in secret. There's a road I want to go down again. The loon right has its opinions on the matter, but the wide spread push back was over the secrecy. You are conveniently supposed to forget this stuff.
If you're on this page the chances that you're a fan of the DLC are pretty small. She's their darling. If you're wondering a little about that comment, consider where the dust up with DNC and DLC started and think a little about why it started. Hmmm, who is the corporate wing of Democratic politics? Just to pile on DLC a little harder, they try to take credit for the '06 election results, but a close check of election results makes that claim entirely specious.
I've run for office, it's a really trying exercise. There are a lot of aspects to it that aren't much of any fun at all, you have to do them, but nobody in their right mind would like it. Getting out and meeting people and having your say are actually the fun though defending yourself from preconceived notions and false claims are aggravating. The point is that this is a lot of hard difficult work and requires a real drive to win at it, so what's at the bottom of that drive? Is it to take a real good shot at improving your fellow citizens' lives or is just the ego thing about power? If playing in that league involves a policy agenda then you're going to have to push hard for it, no matter what you try, it is going to get watered down and compromised in some form before it gets through. If you start out the process most of the way over to the "other guy's side" that diluting process is still going to happen, triangulation is nonsense, that's what happens by the time it's done, not where you start. Hillary is proud of her triangulation, she should be ashamed of it.
If you're wondering who is a good model for triangulation, look no farther than GWB circa 2000. He worked that really hard, remember "compassionate conservative" and "uniter" as mantras? What we've found is that the citizenry can go screw itself, power and plutocracy are the name of his game. People noted that GeorgeII had good Conservative credentials and a good record of working with TX Dems, and Hillary seems to be getting the play of good liberal credentials and working with R's. BushCo wasn't Conservative, he was a small "c" theocrat and big "C" corporatist and in the end, a power junkie. What exactly are Hillary's liberal credentials? They don't exist as a record, they exist as an image.
As a hard working DPO I'll make myself clear, if she wins this Primary I might vote for her, depending on what kind of idiot the RNC runs, but I won't knock on a single door, pick up the telephone, or cough up $0.02 for her. I'll work my butt off for OR candidates, but that piece of political work can go hang. If you're wondering, I'm DPO and I wouldn't work against her in a General Election. Oh; about the name, that's a stupid reason to vote for or not, almost as meaningful as her gender.
I'll start off with the derailed locomotive of politics, Iraq, some folks have admitted to making a mistake there, some folks never made a mistake there, and Hillary? Try tracking the national polls on the subject and setting those beside her stands right afterward. I can barely get along with the idea that intelligent well-informed people went for the lies, shortly thereafter the lies became transparent, not Hillary.
Civil liberties rank a touch higher in my considerations, not because I minimize death and destruction, but because you'll play holy hell getting them back once the government has gotten hold of them, but I'm playing this card second. Check Mrs Clinton's votes in this regard. Not so hot. Then toss in her public statements regarding gun control, she'd like very much to stomp a mud hole in that particular civil liberty. For those of you enamoured of that stance, I'll just point out to you, once again, that BushCo's arguments and yours are identical and that should inform your philosophy. (if you feel insulted, ask yourself why)
Regarding guns and elections, Kerry would have won with a decent chunk of the middle politics gun owners. He didn't get it, Hillary won't either.
This is the lady who took such a beating over health care, but take a look at her stances regarding corporate advantages. Let's just take a look at her stance on illegal immigration amnesty and just how interested she is in holding employers to the law regarding hiring, can you get any deeper in the corporate pocket? Fine, lose the rest of the picture, but who do you think has been making money hand over fist off the backs of the serfs? She and her allies aren't trying to be nice to the poor oppressed brown people, they're playing to their corporate sponsors, if you get sucked along for the ride, that's wonderful for them.
On the topic of the health care debacle, she didn't get her head handed to her for working on health care so much as she got whacked for doing it in secret. There's a road I want to go down again. The loon right has its opinions on the matter, but the wide spread push back was over the secrecy. You are conveniently supposed to forget this stuff.
If you're on this page the chances that you're a fan of the DLC are pretty small. She's their darling. If you're wondering a little about that comment, consider where the dust up with DNC and DLC started and think a little about why it started. Hmmm, who is the corporate wing of Democratic politics? Just to pile on DLC a little harder, they try to take credit for the '06 election results, but a close check of election results makes that claim entirely specious.
I've run for office, it's a really trying exercise. There are a lot of aspects to it that aren't much of any fun at all, you have to do them, but nobody in their right mind would like it. Getting out and meeting people and having your say are actually the fun though defending yourself from preconceived notions and false claims are aggravating. The point is that this is a lot of hard difficult work and requires a real drive to win at it, so what's at the bottom of that drive? Is it to take a real good shot at improving your fellow citizens' lives or is just the ego thing about power? If playing in that league involves a policy agenda then you're going to have to push hard for it, no matter what you try, it is going to get watered down and compromised in some form before it gets through. If you start out the process most of the way over to the "other guy's side" that diluting process is still going to happen, triangulation is nonsense, that's what happens by the time it's done, not where you start. Hillary is proud of her triangulation, she should be ashamed of it.
If you're wondering who is a good model for triangulation, look no farther than GWB circa 2000. He worked that really hard, remember "compassionate conservative" and "uniter" as mantras? What we've found is that the citizenry can go screw itself, power and plutocracy are the name of his game. People noted that GeorgeII had good Conservative credentials and a good record of working with TX Dems, and Hillary seems to be getting the play of good liberal credentials and working with R's. BushCo wasn't Conservative, he was a small "c" theocrat and big "C" corporatist and in the end, a power junkie. What exactly are Hillary's liberal credentials? They don't exist as a record, they exist as an image.
As a hard working DPO I'll make myself clear, if she wins this Primary I might vote for her, depending on what kind of idiot the RNC runs, but I won't knock on a single door, pick up the telephone, or cough up $0.02 for her. I'll work my butt off for OR candidates, but that piece of political work can go hang. If you're wondering, I'm DPO and I wouldn't work against her in a General Election. Oh; about the name, that's a stupid reason to vote for or not, almost as meaningful as her gender.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ideological Purity
David Sirota writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that there is a real problem with people in power not owning what they said about the Iraq War, this is certainly true. He holds John Edwards up as an example of how it should be done - I made a mistake and I regret it. He goes on to note that there definitely is a massive case of CYA going on. This is where it gets sticky, why is this going on?
We all know why the President of the US would state that he never said, "Stay the course." It's politically stupid to do it, but he does have the semantic dodge of what course he was talking about, Nostradamus works well in that respect. There is however the matter of pundits and other pols who beat the warm drum enthusiastically. It is now a generally unpopular stand to take and those who take it publicly will be held to account for that stance. There is such a thing as Conservatism that isn't about god, gays, and guns; I don't subscribe to the philosophy but one of its tenets is military adventures aren't to be done. That used to be a Republican deal, but ideological purity requirements of the past decade silenced that. The political price to be paid for opposing the Iraq adventure on philosophical grounds outweighed principle. You weren't pure in the Bush ideology.
The responsibility for this falls on Parties and voters. Politicians can count. If philosophy loses to Party line the fault is not solely the Party's. This notion of ideological purity driving political discourse is harmful to Parties and to national policy and Republicans are not the only guilty party. There are, of course, issues that in voter's mind's trump ideology. Joe Lieberman is an example, his stance on Iraq cost him the Democratic Primary despite the rest of his political stances. There does, however, remain a blindness to policy and reasoning due to ideology. I will make a personal argument in this arena, I am intimately familiar with it and thus competent. During the Democratic Primary for OR 02 CD I set up policy statements and my reasoning for them, The Oregonian took those and attributed "the most conservative" of the candidates to me. As far as I can tell, there were 3 policies that contributed to that, strong support of the 2nd Amendment, opposition to illegal hiring/illegal immigration, and a stance that one size fits all environmental regulations is doomed. Now I'd be real surprised to find that conservatives exactly agree with my rationales for those stands, they are in fact based on hard left politics. Anybody that hasn't gotten the idea that I regard the 2nd as the final block against people like BushCo hasn't paid attention - and yes, I regard that bunch as exactly that dangerous. Sounds left to me. Illegal hiring crushes labor - I oppose fervently any actions to debase labor, and I don't mean just organized labor and in the 1920's that would've gotten me arrested. I'll fight the establishment of, enhancement of, and enabling of a plutocracy in this country tooth and nail and serfs are a part of that. That's damn left. Environmental policies that are created with the one size fits all philosophy are doomed, public backlash will occur and the very people you need to be partners become enemies. I want success in that arena, long term meaningful success. Left again. That is not the measure that was taken of me as a candidate. I failed the ideological purity test on the surface. Drivng drag cars fails completely.
Reasoning and motive become buried under simplistic labels, the fact that racist xenophobic nutcases oppose illegal immigration has nothing to do with the matter as far as the health and well being of labor is concerned. It certainly is not progressive politics to oppose something on the basis of race, neither is it progressive to participate in the oppression of labor. Pay attention. The fact that the NRA seems to have fallen in bed with some of the worst aspects of the Republican Party has exactly not one thing to do with owning firearms. The fact that Sen Chuck Schumer (D) sees a difference between interfering with the 2nd and interfering with the 1st does not make it progressive to do so, it is in fact absolutely oppressive to restrict liberty. It is not reasoning to ignore contradictions in the name of ideology, it is the pursuit of ideological purity that you've been told exists.
Do the Hillary Clintons pass ideological muster? Certainly on name alone, debate ceases if the surname and (D) becomes all important. The question really should fall on the balance of policy statements, their reasoning and their motives. The timing of her opposition (post mid-term) to Iraq is suspect in my eyes, her stances on gun control have shown no reasoning in light of the Constitution, in point of fact I find her very nearly the most poll driven pol I've seen. I cannot find a single iota of respect for labor in any of her stances beyond the minimum wage and that has yet to play out. Do I find Hillary's ideological purity in question? Not really, I have no idea what her ideology is by definition of action. I don't care if it doesn't look ideologically pure, I care about the outcomes and the reasons for them. Ideological purity is all about appearances and those who'll pass its muster should be deeply suspect. If you've 'stuck your foot in it' apologize for it, state why you were wrong then and why you're right now, people will take the measure of that and make an informed decision. If you're right, stand up for it, the heck with how pure it looks.
We all know why the President of the US would state that he never said, "Stay the course." It's politically stupid to do it, but he does have the semantic dodge of what course he was talking about, Nostradamus works well in that respect. There is however the matter of pundits and other pols who beat the warm drum enthusiastically. It is now a generally unpopular stand to take and those who take it publicly will be held to account for that stance. There is such a thing as Conservatism that isn't about god, gays, and guns; I don't subscribe to the philosophy but one of its tenets is military adventures aren't to be done. That used to be a Republican deal, but ideological purity requirements of the past decade silenced that. The political price to be paid for opposing the Iraq adventure on philosophical grounds outweighed principle. You weren't pure in the Bush ideology.
The responsibility for this falls on Parties and voters. Politicians can count. If philosophy loses to Party line the fault is not solely the Party's. This notion of ideological purity driving political discourse is harmful to Parties and to national policy and Republicans are not the only guilty party. There are, of course, issues that in voter's mind's trump ideology. Joe Lieberman is an example, his stance on Iraq cost him the Democratic Primary despite the rest of his political stances. There does, however, remain a blindness to policy and reasoning due to ideology. I will make a personal argument in this arena, I am intimately familiar with it and thus competent. During the Democratic Primary for OR 02 CD I set up policy statements and my reasoning for them, The Oregonian took those and attributed "the most conservative" of the candidates to me. As far as I can tell, there were 3 policies that contributed to that, strong support of the 2nd Amendment, opposition to illegal hiring/illegal immigration, and a stance that one size fits all environmental regulations is doomed. Now I'd be real surprised to find that conservatives exactly agree with my rationales for those stands, they are in fact based on hard left politics. Anybody that hasn't gotten the idea that I regard the 2nd as the final block against people like BushCo hasn't paid attention - and yes, I regard that bunch as exactly that dangerous. Sounds left to me. Illegal hiring crushes labor - I oppose fervently any actions to debase labor, and I don't mean just organized labor and in the 1920's that would've gotten me arrested. I'll fight the establishment of, enhancement of, and enabling of a plutocracy in this country tooth and nail and serfs are a part of that. That's damn left. Environmental policies that are created with the one size fits all philosophy are doomed, public backlash will occur and the very people you need to be partners become enemies. I want success in that arena, long term meaningful success. Left again. That is not the measure that was taken of me as a candidate. I failed the ideological purity test on the surface. Drivng drag cars fails completely.
Reasoning and motive become buried under simplistic labels, the fact that racist xenophobic nutcases oppose illegal immigration has nothing to do with the matter as far as the health and well being of labor is concerned. It certainly is not progressive politics to oppose something on the basis of race, neither is it progressive to participate in the oppression of labor. Pay attention. The fact that the NRA seems to have fallen in bed with some of the worst aspects of the Republican Party has exactly not one thing to do with owning firearms. The fact that Sen Chuck Schumer (D) sees a difference between interfering with the 2nd and interfering with the 1st does not make it progressive to do so, it is in fact absolutely oppressive to restrict liberty. It is not reasoning to ignore contradictions in the name of ideology, it is the pursuit of ideological purity that you've been told exists.
Do the Hillary Clintons pass ideological muster? Certainly on name alone, debate ceases if the surname and (D) becomes all important. The question really should fall on the balance of policy statements, their reasoning and their motives. The timing of her opposition (post mid-term) to Iraq is suspect in my eyes, her stances on gun control have shown no reasoning in light of the Constitution, in point of fact I find her very nearly the most poll driven pol I've seen. I cannot find a single iota of respect for labor in any of her stances beyond the minimum wage and that has yet to play out. Do I find Hillary's ideological purity in question? Not really, I have no idea what her ideology is by definition of action. I don't care if it doesn't look ideologically pure, I care about the outcomes and the reasons for them. Ideological purity is all about appearances and those who'll pass its muster should be deeply suspect. If you've 'stuck your foot in it' apologize for it, state why you were wrong then and why you're right now, people will take the measure of that and make an informed decision. If you're right, stand up for it, the heck with how pure it looks.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Casey Jones...Better Look Out...Blow Your Horn
There's a train wreck ahead, six years of BushCo neglect and a bit more of other's and we've got some problems that don't have good solutions. When you let things go on for too long the consequences keep building up and multiplying until however you deal with them, it hurts.
We've been stupid in Iraq until we now are caught in the middle of a civil war in a disintegrating country. We can stay and bleed and help Iraqis blow their country up or we can leave and watch them blow it up. Either way, the standing, reputation, and honor of the US is blasted and people and soldiers become casualties of meaninglessness. Probably the only two questions unanswered are how many American casualties and which Party gets blamed. Well, there's money, too.
Illegal immigration has become an issue with no good solution - in massive terms. The utter indifference of the US government has led to a situation where there are 12-20 million people in this country with no business being here. Wages have become dislocated, education is over-stressed, social services are hammered, the tax structure is a joke, organized and disorganized criminal behavior is rampant, employers are criminals and the legal ones are losing their butts. Somewhere around 6% of the population is a disenfranchised criminal serf class and that class has citizen children. It no longer makes any difference what solution is applied, someone is going to get hugely screwed and most solutions only encourage the problem.
The US debt, here's cause for real tears. The United States of America is not only broke, it's bankrupt if anybody flinches. There's no money for the programs that exist, much less adding new ones, there just plain isn't the income to cover the interest and run all our existing programs. This debt is so huge that if the Iraq war ended at New Years and you taxed the wealthy to the point of confiscatory taxes there still wouldn't be money. If you sunk the tax shovel deep into corporate soil there isn't money. Even driving down to poverty level income with harsh taxes won't do it. Going to the point of pain for earners above poverty will only start a turn around if there's fiscal sense in Congress. BushCo has guaranteed that a progressive social agenda is unaffordable and at some point taxes become economic disincentives. Then there's the Veto and the "tax and spend Democrats" label to be avoided.
Reasonable health care? See above. All three mean there's no escape from the status-quo slide, the Fed has huge liabilities for war casualties, there are 12-20 million serfs, and we're broke, anyhow.
Folks, the wheels are coming off, we're running out of track, and there's no nerve anywhere to deal with it. Casey, blow your horn...
We've been stupid in Iraq until we now are caught in the middle of a civil war in a disintegrating country. We can stay and bleed and help Iraqis blow their country up or we can leave and watch them blow it up. Either way, the standing, reputation, and honor of the US is blasted and people and soldiers become casualties of meaninglessness. Probably the only two questions unanswered are how many American casualties and which Party gets blamed. Well, there's money, too.
Illegal immigration has become an issue with no good solution - in massive terms. The utter indifference of the US government has led to a situation where there are 12-20 million people in this country with no business being here. Wages have become dislocated, education is over-stressed, social services are hammered, the tax structure is a joke, organized and disorganized criminal behavior is rampant, employers are criminals and the legal ones are losing their butts. Somewhere around 6% of the population is a disenfranchised criminal serf class and that class has citizen children. It no longer makes any difference what solution is applied, someone is going to get hugely screwed and most solutions only encourage the problem.
The US debt, here's cause for real tears. The United States of America is not only broke, it's bankrupt if anybody flinches. There's no money for the programs that exist, much less adding new ones, there just plain isn't the income to cover the interest and run all our existing programs. This debt is so huge that if the Iraq war ended at New Years and you taxed the wealthy to the point of confiscatory taxes there still wouldn't be money. If you sunk the tax shovel deep into corporate soil there isn't money. Even driving down to poverty level income with harsh taxes won't do it. Going to the point of pain for earners above poverty will only start a turn around if there's fiscal sense in Congress. BushCo has guaranteed that a progressive social agenda is unaffordable and at some point taxes become economic disincentives. Then there's the Veto and the "tax and spend Democrats" label to be avoided.
Reasonable health care? See above. All three mean there's no escape from the status-quo slide, the Fed has huge liabilities for war casualties, there are 12-20 million serfs, and we're broke, anyhow.
Folks, the wheels are coming off, we're running out of track, and there's no nerve anywhere to deal with it. Casey, blow your horn...
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Racist Vote Pandering and Illegal Immigration
If you've read me you will know that I am an opponent of people living and working in the United States illegally. I have repeatedly made myself clear that these are the problems:
Flooding a labor market and depressing wages
Creation of an underground society of disenfranchised workers
A drain on social and educational services
The encouragement of criminal behavior
Now that may seem to put me into the Conservative whacko Republican camp, but we are actually hardened enemies. This is exactly why:
The Republican response to this problem is to blame illegal aliens which is nonsense, people take the chance of illegally entering this country to work for better money than they can get at home. They cannot get that money unless someone hires them - illegally. The root of the problem is employers. The solution is employers, not a 700 mile un-funded fence. Republicans know this, but action in this regard would hurt their contribution base and scarcely stir their vote base. Instead they make a stink about Mexican flags, terrorists, crime, essentially RACE. And yes, the largest segment of illegal aliens are Mexican. And that makes not one bit of difference to the actual problems I listed above, the illegal hire of Russians is not one iota of an improvement. Know and understand that unless a politician who speaks about Illegal Immigration makes clear statements about employers, he's shilling for a vote.
Speaking of voting, I'm sure some handful of illegal aliens is stupid enough to try to vote while they are in the midst of a criminal activity, their numbers pale beside forged petition signatures, dead voters, unverifiable machines, and frankly, the outright lies of politicians.
The other "solution" to this mess is some form of amnesty - regardless of how "path to citizenship" is dressed up it is amnesty. That amnesty simply proves to employers and prospective illegal aliens that all that they need do is get here. The labor market is already flooded (don't kid yourself about the UE figures, bad pay trumps starvation), there is absolutely no incentive to declare one's self and pay fines for a crappy job and get hit with all the taxes. FICA is the biggest hit to low income wages. Current employers would be acknowleging illegal hires and tax avoidance (sure let's give them an amnesty also...).
Because the plutocrats have had their way on this issue for so long there is no "nice" solution. There are only hard questions and hard answers. Any incumbent politician that takes either of those two courses is a liar and cheat, because they know. I'll give challengers on the amnesty side the benefit of good will, but they are wrong.
Ron Saxton is a liar and cheat, Greg Walden is a liar and cheat, Gordon Smith is a liar and cheat (too bad nothing can be done about him this cycle), George W Bush is the liar and cheat in chief. Take a good look at your local State House and Senate in cumbents and know them for what they are.
When you propose to blame and denigrate and entire group for something that is not their doing you are a racist and bigot, Ron and Greg.
Flooding a labor market and depressing wages
Creation of an underground society of disenfranchised workers
A drain on social and educational services
The encouragement of criminal behavior
Now that may seem to put me into the Conservative whacko Republican camp, but we are actually hardened enemies. This is exactly why:
The Republican response to this problem is to blame illegal aliens which is nonsense, people take the chance of illegally entering this country to work for better money than they can get at home. They cannot get that money unless someone hires them - illegally. The root of the problem is employers. The solution is employers, not a 700 mile un-funded fence. Republicans know this, but action in this regard would hurt their contribution base and scarcely stir their vote base. Instead they make a stink about Mexican flags, terrorists, crime, essentially RACE. And yes, the largest segment of illegal aliens are Mexican. And that makes not one bit of difference to the actual problems I listed above, the illegal hire of Russians is not one iota of an improvement. Know and understand that unless a politician who speaks about Illegal Immigration makes clear statements about employers, he's shilling for a vote.
Speaking of voting, I'm sure some handful of illegal aliens is stupid enough to try to vote while they are in the midst of a criminal activity, their numbers pale beside forged petition signatures, dead voters, unverifiable machines, and frankly, the outright lies of politicians.
The other "solution" to this mess is some form of amnesty - regardless of how "path to citizenship" is dressed up it is amnesty. That amnesty simply proves to employers and prospective illegal aliens that all that they need do is get here. The labor market is already flooded (don't kid yourself about the UE figures, bad pay trumps starvation), there is absolutely no incentive to declare one's self and pay fines for a crappy job and get hit with all the taxes. FICA is the biggest hit to low income wages. Current employers would be acknowleging illegal hires and tax avoidance (sure let's give them an amnesty also...).
Because the plutocrats have had their way on this issue for so long there is no "nice" solution. There are only hard questions and hard answers. Any incumbent politician that takes either of those two courses is a liar and cheat, because they know. I'll give challengers on the amnesty side the benefit of good will, but they are wrong.
Ron Saxton is a liar and cheat, Greg Walden is a liar and cheat, Gordon Smith is a liar and cheat (too bad nothing can be done about him this cycle), George W Bush is the liar and cheat in chief. Take a good look at your local State House and Senate in cumbents and know them for what they are.
When you propose to blame and denigrate and entire group for something that is not their doing you are a racist and bigot, Ron and Greg.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Illegal Hiring, Prices, Fences - Marquez
Marquez' questions were intelligent and reasonable, you can see "Comments" in "Smoke & Mirrors if you like, so they deserved a thoughtful response. A comment blew up into an essay, so I'll share it.
Marquez, (and others)
Until a little while ago, one of my employee's surname was Hispanic, his father was a Reagan amnesty. He's a good guy, did good work, and made more than he ever had, see, I don't care as long as the hire is legal. And we're friends still, because I do give a damn.
What I care about, and if you read back through this Blog's history, what I've written is about flooding the labor market and depressing wages. There is labor avaliable, legally, now. What isn't available is wages and it's not available because the cheating forces the market down.
In actual reality, a real wage impact on prices is small, the effect on farmers, ranchers, construction contractors, and anyone else in competition with illegal hiring is catastrophic. If the criminal hiring were ended, orchardists (for ex) would be playing on a level field, everyone's wage costs would increase as would the price of the end product - but there's the catch - the effect on the end product's price at the store is small, the catastrophy occurs on the production end if the field is not level. I am in the business of providing labor - framing, roofing, siding, finish carpentry and I am paid per square foot, I get what is left over after everybody is paid wages, insurance is paid, etc. I have no place to go with my prices, my company is replacable with one that is cheaper. My guy's wages are impacted and so am I.
GWB's plan is to "legally" flood the labor market to keep wages down. This is why minimum wage increases at the Federal level haven't happened. If we have an actual labor shortage, it's no trick to raise the limits for immigration. That's why this is BS. It's legally addressable already.
The fence is nonsense. The fence that will work is serious sanctions on illegal hiring - with a verification system - and serious action regarding document fraud - real jail time followed by immediate deportation.If "I" believed that I could get out of the corruption, racism, and feudal plutocracy that's Mexico into the US I'd find a way around that 700 mile fence. The cure for what ails Mexico (and other states) is for those people to have to change that place not run away to our place. I really don't care if they find 1776 a good example, either. GWB&CO are despicable, but those guys make them look good. It needs changed and it won't be as long as the US is the safety valve. That would certainly be hard on those who would come here instead, but the responsibility does not lie with the blue collar workers they replace or whose wages are depressed. It's one of those choices between two ills.
Do the 12-20 million illegal aliens here need to leave? Yes. I prefer a voluntary exit with some form of inducement and the alternative of immediate deportation and confiscation of all assets, a second offense carrying jail time. It is easier to induce people to leave when their employment has evaporated and other avenues are closed.
An argument is made that they've earned or deserve something, they deserve to be treated humanely, they've earned the money they've gotten. Humane means allowing them time to wind up their affairs and go, with a chance to sign up for a "first up" for work visas or something like that.It is not a simple thing, nor is it an easy thing, but the alternative is throwing up our hands and saying, "oh well" and thus demonstrating that all you have to do is get here to all those who aren't already here. As long as this is a better alternative, they will come, until parity is achieved - not good for the US.
Marquez, (and others)
Until a little while ago, one of my employee's surname was Hispanic, his father was a Reagan amnesty. He's a good guy, did good work, and made more than he ever had, see, I don't care as long as the hire is legal. And we're friends still, because I do give a damn.
What I care about, and if you read back through this Blog's history, what I've written is about flooding the labor market and depressing wages. There is labor avaliable, legally, now. What isn't available is wages and it's not available because the cheating forces the market down.
In actual reality, a real wage impact on prices is small, the effect on farmers, ranchers, construction contractors, and anyone else in competition with illegal hiring is catastrophic. If the criminal hiring were ended, orchardists (for ex) would be playing on a level field, everyone's wage costs would increase as would the price of the end product - but there's the catch - the effect on the end product's price at the store is small, the catastrophy occurs on the production end if the field is not level. I am in the business of providing labor - framing, roofing, siding, finish carpentry and I am paid per square foot, I get what is left over after everybody is paid wages, insurance is paid, etc. I have no place to go with my prices, my company is replacable with one that is cheaper. My guy's wages are impacted and so am I.
GWB's plan is to "legally" flood the labor market to keep wages down. This is why minimum wage increases at the Federal level haven't happened. If we have an actual labor shortage, it's no trick to raise the limits for immigration. That's why this is BS. It's legally addressable already.
The fence is nonsense. The fence that will work is serious sanctions on illegal hiring - with a verification system - and serious action regarding document fraud - real jail time followed by immediate deportation.If "I" believed that I could get out of the corruption, racism, and feudal plutocracy that's Mexico into the US I'd find a way around that 700 mile fence. The cure for what ails Mexico (and other states) is for those people to have to change that place not run away to our place. I really don't care if they find 1776 a good example, either. GWB&CO are despicable, but those guys make them look good. It needs changed and it won't be as long as the US is the safety valve. That would certainly be hard on those who would come here instead, but the responsibility does not lie with the blue collar workers they replace or whose wages are depressed. It's one of those choices between two ills.
Do the 12-20 million illegal aliens here need to leave? Yes. I prefer a voluntary exit with some form of inducement and the alternative of immediate deportation and confiscation of all assets, a second offense carrying jail time. It is easier to induce people to leave when their employment has evaporated and other avenues are closed.
An argument is made that they've earned or deserve something, they deserve to be treated humanely, they've earned the money they've gotten. Humane means allowing them time to wind up their affairs and go, with a chance to sign up for a "first up" for work visas or something like that.It is not a simple thing, nor is it an easy thing, but the alternative is throwing up our hands and saying, "oh well" and thus demonstrating that all you have to do is get here to all those who aren't already here. As long as this is a better alternative, they will come, until parity is achieved - not good for the US.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Smoke and Mirrors or Saxton Down a Rabbit Hole
Boy, there's a nice little tempest over at Blue Oregon, Kari Chisholm seems to think this picture has something to do with Ron Saxton's credibility. So we're clear on what this image is (I know, there's one below) this is the assessor's photo of "farm building" on Ron Saxton's Cherry Farm, er, Vineyard where migrants "lived" while they did something - Ron called it his cherry farm long after it was a vineyard - so who knows what they picked. (why it stayed a cherry orchard in verbiage when it had grapes in fact is not known - maybe orchard sounds better than vineyard). Since I don't pay by the foot, I can digress further - image plays a more important Saxton role than facts. Anyhow, Ron Saxton doesn't know if the migrants were im-migrants or not or illegal im-migrants, since "it wasn't an issue at the time" (apparently pre-1997). He does know it's an issue now, since he attacks the Governor and Sec State Bradbury on the illegal immigration issue. So we're still clear, Form I-9 is a US form, previously INS, rebranded to DHS (Homeland) which identifies the legal status of an employee and it was legally required, and carries some stiff penalties for mis-use or non-use, so it was an issue, then, as well as now.
So there are two issues about this housing, a) did it house legal or illegal workers and b) does this look like something a Governor of Oregon ought to find acceptable as housing for his employees. Now some folks have made an issue of Ron's $586,000 beach house, I don't care if it is a $40,000 beach house, he can afford a "vacation" home and he can afford a lot of things that do not include reasonable housing for employees.
So you see, something is not an issue when it makes Ron Saxton money, but it is an issue when it makes Ron Saxton votes. Alice, are you paying attention, there's more, Smile...
Here's the real rub, illegal workers depress legal worker's wages - badly. Now maybe a couple of these folks are stupid enough to try to vote, but that's an immaterial percentage. Every one of these illegal workers is taking a job and depressing wages and they're getting these jobs from *GASP* employers. Illegal employers. Now there is all manner of damage inflicted on society by an illegal subculture of disenfranchised serfs but quite simply, they come here to have those jobs. And while Ron wants to do things to those nasty illegal aliens he doesn't want to do anything to the Illegal Employers. Now here's two mutual criminal enterprises going on and Ron figures we need to whack the party who benefits least. Why? Well I do know they're primarily brown and don't speak English and they're not rich enough to donate to Republican campaigns (evidently they DO vote - the ad says so), that would seem to be the dividing line between the criminals. Do not misunderstand me, I say they're all criminals and deserve exactly that treatment. But I'm not a rich Republican running for Governor.
The Party's still on Alice - pass the tea, please.
Frequently migrant workers travel with their families - you know - spouse, kids - family. I'm not real sure I'd want my children in there. But Ron Saxton cares about the kiddies. Like School Board Chair cares about the kiddies. Ron knows how to save money in eddykashun, you bet he does, this is why his Board had to go crying to Portland for more money, lots of more money. Now, don't look away, the schools are all paid on a per-student basis, yes, all of them all over the state. I live in 5J School District - most of Baker County does - um - 3500 square miles of winter, mountains, intense sun, expensive gasoline, unpaved roads with a fairly small school population with all the same required programs and student needs and - Baker City doesn't give us money. So we make do. Remember the economies of scale and all the savings Ron can find - none of that here - well, evidently he couldn't find it in Portland either. So now he wants to do it for all the schools in all the State. Baker City can't bail out 5J from Ron's type of management. Just so you don't think Ron would skirt the rules for a favored few, he might go rent an apartment in another district with a school he likes for his kiddie and use the house in the other district to run for School Board. Legal? Yes. Like it? I think it stinks, but I'm not a rich Cherry Farmer, so maybe I just don't see.
Alice, if you will go following white rabbits...
Ron offered you 10 seconds to list Ted Kulongoski's accomplishments, you could list Ron's in less than one second, none. Ted has made the hard decisions, at times offending his base, for the good of the entire State. Ron is just plain offensive. He tells you he will cut taxes, and he tells you he will restore services. Now he can cut taxes (primarily for the rich - sound familiar?) but that means something has to go away. Don't forget, Initiatives have created some Constitutionally required expenditures- no give there. He doesn't tell you what goes away, he tells you eliminating waste and private contracting will take care of it, does anybody know who his Halliburton is?
All that's left is the Cat's smile,
It's smoke and mirrors, folks, all of it. That's the real shame, six years of George Bush's smoke and mirrors and Oregon comes late to the table? All the same old tired rhetoric and double dealing features in every one of Ron Saxton's so called policy positions. It wouldn't be so bad if he were goofy on just one thing, but analyze his whole deal and it's goofy (sorry Walt - this was supposed to be Alice's deal)
Here's a PS
Ron Saxton has more campaign funds than the incumbent governor, TK was a shoo-in, not now. There are a whole bunch of "liberals" that don't care for Ted, well maybe you haven't been paying attention, but this much ought to be clear, Ron Saxton is a train wreck and you don't want to be a part of it. Link to Ted's site and see what he's actually been up to. If you like GeorgeII and Waldenbush, then Ron Saxton is for you, but there's no hope for you anyhow, so flame away, you certainly can't make that decision look more stupid.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Greg Waldenbush Endorses Saxton's Idea of Housing
Hey Ron Saxton, where's the I-9s ?
Picture pulled from Riddenbaugh Press, if you don't know this site, get acquainted for good writing and great political analysis.
C'mon, Walden endorses - School Board Chair, Rural Issues, Forest Safety, he'd be a Governor who'd look out for Oregonians...
Well this is the kind of housing he thinks is adequate for workers in Oregon, it's his Migrant Housing, you know, where they kept the workers they don't know the "legality" of. I'm sure the schooling was reasonably priced. It'd be unfair to pick on the forestry practices of whacking down the cherry trees to plant grapes, I suppose...
But really, I do better by my dog, and all he produces is slobber and dog poo. Then again, I do like him and don't accuse him of over-running the State and trying to vote. I can't get him to give up with his political persuasion - though I do know he's dead-set against UPS trucks, Coyotes, and illegal immigrant cats in his yard - and yes, 150 pounds of white dog persuades those illegal cats to leave, suddenly.
Somehow it seems as if waldenbushandsaxton ought to make a real nice couple, they both serve a very narrow set of interests and seem to be able to kid the general Republican voter that they have their interests at heart. Not that either of their records would indicate such a thing, but you don't have to give accurate information in your political ads, just not let your lies get so outrageous that they're actionable.
Here's how this works, waldenbush stands on a dike with Klamath farmers for some photos and goes back to DC and does absolutely not squat about it, saxton cries about illegals after he's a part of the problem - it wasn't an issue, then; and some of the public buys into it.
I do not agree with everything Ted Kulongoski has done, but he's been a man of principle, he's made the hard choices when they had to be made and owned them. He hasn't ducked - it wasn't an issue, then - he doesn't lie to Oregonians, and he doesn't try to scare them. When he says he cares about Oregonians nobody has a picture like this to stick in his face, he does care. He's been there, he's made something out of a very difficult beginning, he didn't inherit wealth and influence - he earned it and didn't get very rich in the process. When Ted talks about work, you hear a construction worker talking to you, and I'll flat out guarantee you that it is work.
If you like those two guys, then George II is your kind of guy and mismanagement, lies, fear, no principles, and corruption are your milk and honey.
This picture ought to be everywhere Saxton goes, too bad I'm only a little read lefty blogger...
Monday, October 09, 2006
Illegal Immigration "Crap"
There are better adjectives than "crap" for the nonsense bandied about but they tend to very rude.
Ron Saxton would like to make you very afraid that "illegals" are going to vote. Keerist! This comes from the guy who made statements about trying to make his "migrant" camps legal. Now just who were these "migrants." Were they I'm-Migrants? Were they Legal I'm-Migrants? We're to suppose that the flood of Illegal Immigrants is happening because they just can't wait to get to use a ballot. Maybe, just maybe, it has to do with economics. Like the economics of bad pay and poor housing to pick cherries beats what's at home.
My "liberal" or "progressive" counterparts bemoan my stance that illegal immigration is a serious problem. I get to hear about xenophobia and closet racism. Illegal immigration is part and parcel of illegal hiring. It's got absolutely squat to do with country of origin, culture, race, or any other damned guilt trip. It is very simply a method of depressing wages engaged in by liars and cheats and encouraged by the plutocrats running this country.
Somehow I'm supposed to give a rat's patoot that racists, xenophobes, and vote pandering Republicans think it's a bad idea. It is a bad idea. Not for their reasons. It is a bad idea because legal hard working men and women have their wages depressed so that wealthy or near wealthy can profit. The mantra is that one should feel bad for those fleeing their economically unfair nations, that somehow making those just above poverty pay for the malfunctions in foreign nations or the crap trading agreements entered into by our elites is how it should be dealt with. If this argument gets torpedoed, the next is "what ever shall we do with (x) million illegals? I know, let's encourage even more to come so that argument will really hold water. "oh but we'll plug up the border," sure you will, just like it's already been done, big fences (ummm, tunnels??). Besides, the masters of rhetorical crap - Congress - won't fund a real barrier, war, torture, and domestic spying are much more fun - and for real fun, Gay Marriage Amendments.
This stops when employers have a method of verification and then are held to real and certain consequences, like fines that'll give them an appreciation for Food Stamps and jail if they can't get the idea. This stops when illegal entry has real and certain consequences, you're gone and your property is seized as income from criminal activity. You're gone and you can either take your anchor babies with you or leave them, not very good for children - either way - but also not an excuse for illegal behavior. You're gone if you haven't committed fraud with Social Security or other, then there's jail & you're gone. There are ways beyond draconian punishment to encourage an outflow, like first up for legal entry for voluntary repatriation or...
"You're awfully harsh, you must never have done anything against the law, like speeding," well, yes I have, and I've taken the consequences for it. So what? Since a lot of people speed, we should just forget about speed limits and enforcing them? 90 mph in a school zone will then make perfect sense. About 35% of illegal employment occurs in construction, construction wages have been flat or declining since Ronnie R did his Amnesty, odd? The gateway out of poverty is now poverty, but the top 1% is getting real fat. Raise the minimum wage, well sure do it, what's that got to do with construction wages and illegal hiring?
Here's the scoop, labor creates wealth, doesn't matter if it's grown, mined, or paper, if it's worth dollars there's labor underneath it. Labor is a commodity, like any commodity if you flood the market, its value goes in the toilet. The market is flooded and worse, much of that flood isn't paying taxes, getting minimum wage, or being subject to all the other legal costs.
The argument is made that Americans won't do the jobs, no, not for substandard wages they won't. "If real wages are paid nobody could afford (x)," nonsense, labor is a small part of the cost of items in the US. Housing costs might go up a few percent, materials costs are the vast majority of the cost of a house, rising mortgage rates add considerably more. Yes, your cherries would cost more, a matter of cents not dollars. You just buy into the plutocrat arguments without doing the math, without adding in the social costs and social program costs.
We have a growing percentage of society that is underground, disenfranchised, flatly illegal and prey for every liar and cheat who'd extort them. Somehow the "nice" thing to do is just make them "legal," so nobody has to deal with it. Then what do you do with those who'd follow their example, another "legalization" in ten years? What exactly do you propose to do with the labor that slides into poverty? Tell them "tough, we've got to help these poor illegals out?" Maybe they won't like being told "tough." Maybe they'll make their objections known. No, they won't burn the houses of the namby-pamby do nothing legislators, they'll go right after the ones who "stole" their jobs, the illegals. Then you'll have racism and xenophobia enough to suit your clapped out rhetoric and "nice guy" legislation.
There's about a snowball in hell's chance this will be dealt with, it suits the plutocrats and instead of inflaming the left, leaves them fumbling and thus, the tools of the George II winners. This never gets discussed on its merits, instead it's always race and guilt, race and guilt. Too bad, there's hell to pay on its way.
Ron Saxton would like to make you very afraid that "illegals" are going to vote. Keerist! This comes from the guy who made statements about trying to make his "migrant" camps legal. Now just who were these "migrants." Were they I'm-Migrants? Were they Legal I'm-Migrants? We're to suppose that the flood of Illegal Immigrants is happening because they just can't wait to get to use a ballot. Maybe, just maybe, it has to do with economics. Like the economics of bad pay and poor housing to pick cherries beats what's at home.
My "liberal" or "progressive" counterparts bemoan my stance that illegal immigration is a serious problem. I get to hear about xenophobia and closet racism. Illegal immigration is part and parcel of illegal hiring. It's got absolutely squat to do with country of origin, culture, race, or any other damned guilt trip. It is very simply a method of depressing wages engaged in by liars and cheats and encouraged by the plutocrats running this country.
Somehow I'm supposed to give a rat's patoot that racists, xenophobes, and vote pandering Republicans think it's a bad idea. It is a bad idea. Not for their reasons. It is a bad idea because legal hard working men and women have their wages depressed so that wealthy or near wealthy can profit. The mantra is that one should feel bad for those fleeing their economically unfair nations, that somehow making those just above poverty pay for the malfunctions in foreign nations or the crap trading agreements entered into by our elites is how it should be dealt with. If this argument gets torpedoed, the next is "what ever shall we do with (x) million illegals? I know, let's encourage even more to come so that argument will really hold water. "oh but we'll plug up the border," sure you will, just like it's already been done, big fences (ummm, tunnels??). Besides, the masters of rhetorical crap - Congress - won't fund a real barrier, war, torture, and domestic spying are much more fun - and for real fun, Gay Marriage Amendments.
This stops when employers have a method of verification and then are held to real and certain consequences, like fines that'll give them an appreciation for Food Stamps and jail if they can't get the idea. This stops when illegal entry has real and certain consequences, you're gone and your property is seized as income from criminal activity. You're gone and you can either take your anchor babies with you or leave them, not very good for children - either way - but also not an excuse for illegal behavior. You're gone if you haven't committed fraud with Social Security or other, then there's jail & you're gone. There are ways beyond draconian punishment to encourage an outflow, like first up for legal entry for voluntary repatriation or...
"You're awfully harsh, you must never have done anything against the law, like speeding," well, yes I have, and I've taken the consequences for it. So what? Since a lot of people speed, we should just forget about speed limits and enforcing them? 90 mph in a school zone will then make perfect sense. About 35% of illegal employment occurs in construction, construction wages have been flat or declining since Ronnie R did his Amnesty, odd? The gateway out of poverty is now poverty, but the top 1% is getting real fat. Raise the minimum wage, well sure do it, what's that got to do with construction wages and illegal hiring?
Here's the scoop, labor creates wealth, doesn't matter if it's grown, mined, or paper, if it's worth dollars there's labor underneath it. Labor is a commodity, like any commodity if you flood the market, its value goes in the toilet. The market is flooded and worse, much of that flood isn't paying taxes, getting minimum wage, or being subject to all the other legal costs.
The argument is made that Americans won't do the jobs, no, not for substandard wages they won't. "If real wages are paid nobody could afford (x)," nonsense, labor is a small part of the cost of items in the US. Housing costs might go up a few percent, materials costs are the vast majority of the cost of a house, rising mortgage rates add considerably more. Yes, your cherries would cost more, a matter of cents not dollars. You just buy into the plutocrat arguments without doing the math, without adding in the social costs and social program costs.
We have a growing percentage of society that is underground, disenfranchised, flatly illegal and prey for every liar and cheat who'd extort them. Somehow the "nice" thing to do is just make them "legal," so nobody has to deal with it. Then what do you do with those who'd follow their example, another "legalization" in ten years? What exactly do you propose to do with the labor that slides into poverty? Tell them "tough, we've got to help these poor illegals out?" Maybe they won't like being told "tough." Maybe they'll make their objections known. No, they won't burn the houses of the namby-pamby do nothing legislators, they'll go right after the ones who "stole" their jobs, the illegals. Then you'll have racism and xenophobia enough to suit your clapped out rhetoric and "nice guy" legislation.
There's about a snowball in hell's chance this will be dealt with, it suits the plutocrats and instead of inflaming the left, leaves them fumbling and thus, the tools of the George II winners. This never gets discussed on its merits, instead it's always race and guilt, race and guilt. Too bad, there's hell to pay on its way.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Ron Saxton for Dog-catcher
Ted Kulongoski is Governor of the State of Oregon and he's had to make some decisions that haven't pleased every one, or even most of his base. Well, gee, and you want what from your Governor, that he'll just go a long to get along as the State goes in the ashcan?
Well if that's what you'd like I have just the guy for you, Ron Saxton. This guy has taken all the stands, mutually exclusive though they might be. Cut your taxes, raise your services. Fix education by spending smarter, he's proven he can spend a lot and beg for more and then raise nothing. He can fix education for his kid, he'll just move and keep the previous address for his political convenience. He really likes George II, maximum donation likes him, but he's an independent thinker (George II and thinking in the same sentence??) Boy illegal immigrants are a problem for him (not because they depress wages, but they're furriners who might vote) but when them cherries need a pickin he knows how to build an immigrant camp. He'll give you ten seconds to come up with something the Governor has done, but won't spend ten seconds telling you what the Party he represents has done to obstruct the State's business or what he's actually done. He cares about kids, he's proved he cares about his, now his little work around cost some other kid but that don't count - they're probably poor and poor people don't vote. Speaking of vote, he's all worried about votes, but he sure hasn't had a negative word about the House Voting Security Bill that'll strip you of your vote if you can't manage their BS. It's definitely in the Republican Party's favor to depress the general vote, then their narrow ideological base counts for more. See Saxtonwatch for more details on why this guy would be a disaster as dog-catcher, much less Governor. (hey Ron, G - O - V - E - R - N - O - R, Mr Eddykashun) That's not nice, it's really hard to get good help, especially with that base to work from - maybe try an immigrant for spell checking.
By the way, Ted Kulongoski is a hell of a guy, that's a story that ought to be good fiction instead of fact, and you're damn right he cares, a lot. Too bad for Ron, it's tough to run against that kind of character with so little ammunition. Hell, my dog ain't even scared.
Well if that's what you'd like I have just the guy for you, Ron Saxton. This guy has taken all the stands, mutually exclusive though they might be. Cut your taxes, raise your services. Fix education by spending smarter, he's proven he can spend a lot and beg for more and then raise nothing. He can fix education for his kid, he'll just move and keep the previous address for his political convenience. He really likes George II, maximum donation likes him, but he's an independent thinker (George II and thinking in the same sentence??) Boy illegal immigrants are a problem for him (not because they depress wages, but they're furriners who might vote) but when them cherries need a pickin he knows how to build an immigrant camp. He'll give you ten seconds to come up with something the Governor has done, but won't spend ten seconds telling you what the Party he represents has done to obstruct the State's business or what he's actually done. He cares about kids, he's proved he cares about his, now his little work around cost some other kid but that don't count - they're probably poor and poor people don't vote. Speaking of vote, he's all worried about votes, but he sure hasn't had a negative word about the House Voting Security Bill that'll strip you of your vote if you can't manage their BS. It's definitely in the Republican Party's favor to depress the general vote, then their narrow ideological base counts for more. See Saxtonwatch for more details on why this guy would be a disaster as dog-catcher, much less Governor. (hey Ron, G - O - V - E - R - N - O - R, Mr Eddykashun) That's not nice, it's really hard to get good help, especially with that base to work from - maybe try an immigrant for spell checking.
By the way, Ted Kulongoski is a hell of a guy, that's a story that ought to be good fiction instead of fact, and you're damn right he cares, a lot. Too bad for Ron, it's tough to run against that kind of character with so little ammunition. Hell, my dog ain't even scared.
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