Agriculture Sings the Blues About the Shortage of Serfs
I stumbled across this little video that consists of a bunch of Texas farmers whining about not being able to find enough illegal aliens any more. No mention of the fact that the ones that used to work the fields have moved on to compete with American workers in other less strenuous workplaces. The flow of the farm-worker brigage of the illegal alien invasion is dwindling and it can do nothing but shrink even if the we left the borders wide open and paid the illegals' transportation fees. Create a guest-worker program and watch them all bypass stoop labor for other jobs.
The farmers have nobody but themselves to blame for their predicament. They've spent so much money on lobbyists to keep farm subsidies high instead of planning for a different, less labor-intensive future. As I watched the video listening to the same sad, defeatist refrain from different speakers. It becomes redundant and irritating. Then, just as I was about to nod off, up pops illegal alien pimpstress Tamar Jacoby, who has never seen an illegal alien she didn't want to make an instant citizen. But alas, it's the same refrain from her...with one twist. She makes the asinine claim that the majority of Americans actually would prefer a faster pathway to legal residency and citizenship than a guest worker program as part of "comprehensive reform." That is the message she claims to be getting from the broad opposition to a guest worker program shown by most polls. Talk about lame efforts at reframing an issue!
My bottom line: There has been a dearth of investment in planting and harvesting technology. While the rest of the world's major commercial enterprises have flourished thanks to new ideas and inventions, the farmer still depends on stoop labor. This is all they talk about. It defines their very existence. The late Sam Francis had this all figured out. (I have to note that I wrote the part about the stupid spending on lobbyists before if found Sam's old article.)
The farmers threaten to move their operations to the other side of the border if they don't get their labor. They don't define it as "cheap labor." They define it as "the only labor they can get." My first question for them is what they plan to do after the last Mexican willing to work in the fields to crosses the border. And if you think about the raw math involved, that time would not be far off if a guest worker program were established. Alien labor of any sort is just a short term fix. Of course there are 5 billion some-odd people in the world at or below our standard of living, so I guess the farmers would want to import new blood from somewhere else. And, ultimately, we'd have to share the franchise that our ancestors built with even more people who don't even have words in their language or concepts in their culture that equate to Americanist "liberty" or "freedom."
What it comes down to here is: Do we allow our leaders to cave into the farm lobby, and the other cheap-labor lobbies, or do we put a stop to the insanity and demand? "Go find another way." That's what Americans do. We put men on the moon in eight years thanks to what, one paragraph in a presidential speech? We cure "incurable" diseases, increase life spans, have robots running around on Mars but we need uneducated Mexicans with poor saniation habits to feed us? That's just nuts.
This nation has always been cutting-edge on these things, but today's farmers...and I come from a farm family...have themselves convinced of their own inadequacy. Now, I'm all for government giving these guys tax breaks for investing in R&D to build new machines that will allow one man to do the work of many. If we don't kill each other off or allow political correctness to lead us to dhimmitude, these machines are inevitable: Total mechanization of the entire farming industy will happen. It isn't a question of if, but a question of when. These guys are just too lazy themselves to seek their own futures. It sickens me to listen to this crap.
As I write this, there are 166 THOUSAND links in Google to the exact term "mechanical harvesting." So, farmers...and especially you whiners in the video...get off your asses, act like real Americans and go invent your way out of your addiction to compliant serfs. I'm already skittish enough about my spinach and lettuce and I know you guys have to be getting to the bottom of the bottom of a pretty filthy barrel already as far as the IQ and knowledge of human sanitation by your field hands is concerned. Tell me, Mr. Farmer, what happens when ALL of your produce is suspect for contamination and the spread of infectious disease?
So, Mr. Farmer, listen up. I'll support you if you go to Congress and say "give me tax breaks" for innovation. Say to them, " help me and let me work with the best and brightest minds at America's universities to develop the future of farming." You work with me to close the borders and allow for a timed, gradual ratcheting up of employer sanctions and I'll work with you to build a better future and a better America that doesn't "need" help from anybody to sustain itself. Just the thought that there are, apparently, so many of you who are stuck in a "we can't" mode makes me want to lose my lunch faster than Popeye after a visit to a salad bar.
Got it?
Technorati tags: illegal alien, agriculture
The farmers have nobody but themselves to blame for their predicament. They've spent so much money on lobbyists to keep farm subsidies high instead of planning for a different, less labor-intensive future. As I watched the video listening to the same sad, defeatist refrain from different speakers. It becomes redundant and irritating. Then, just as I was about to nod off, up pops illegal alien pimpstress Tamar Jacoby, who has never seen an illegal alien she didn't want to make an instant citizen. But alas, it's the same refrain from her...with one twist. She makes the asinine claim that the majority of Americans actually would prefer a faster pathway to legal residency and citizenship than a guest worker program as part of "comprehensive reform." That is the message she claims to be getting from the broad opposition to a guest worker program shown by most polls. Talk about lame efforts at reframing an issue!
My bottom line: There has been a dearth of investment in planting and harvesting technology. While the rest of the world's major commercial enterprises have flourished thanks to new ideas and inventions, the farmer still depends on stoop labor. This is all they talk about. It defines their very existence. The late Sam Francis had this all figured out. (I have to note that I wrote the part about the stupid spending on lobbyists before if found Sam's old article.)
The farmers threaten to move their operations to the other side of the border if they don't get their labor. They don't define it as "cheap labor." They define it as "the only labor they can get." My first question for them is what they plan to do after the last Mexican willing to work in the fields to crosses the border. And if you think about the raw math involved, that time would not be far off if a guest worker program were established. Alien labor of any sort is just a short term fix. Of course there are 5 billion some-odd people in the world at or below our standard of living, so I guess the farmers would want to import new blood from somewhere else. And, ultimately, we'd have to share the franchise that our ancestors built with even more people who don't even have words in their language or concepts in their culture that equate to Americanist "liberty" or "freedom."
What it comes down to here is: Do we allow our leaders to cave into the farm lobby, and the other cheap-labor lobbies, or do we put a stop to the insanity and demand? "Go find another way." That's what Americans do. We put men on the moon in eight years thanks to what, one paragraph in a presidential speech? We cure "incurable" diseases, increase life spans, have robots running around on Mars but we need uneducated Mexicans with poor saniation habits to feed us? That's just nuts.
This nation has always been cutting-edge on these things, but today's farmers...and I come from a farm family...have themselves convinced of their own inadequacy. Now, I'm all for government giving these guys tax breaks for investing in R&D to build new machines that will allow one man to do the work of many. If we don't kill each other off or allow political correctness to lead us to dhimmitude, these machines are inevitable: Total mechanization of the entire farming industy will happen. It isn't a question of if, but a question of when. These guys are just too lazy themselves to seek their own futures. It sickens me to listen to this crap.
As I write this, there are 166 THOUSAND links in Google to the exact term "mechanical harvesting." So, farmers...and especially you whiners in the video...get off your asses, act like real Americans and go invent your way out of your addiction to compliant serfs. I'm already skittish enough about my spinach and lettuce and I know you guys have to be getting to the bottom of the bottom of a pretty filthy barrel already as far as the IQ and knowledge of human sanitation by your field hands is concerned. Tell me, Mr. Farmer, what happens when ALL of your produce is suspect for contamination and the spread of infectious disease?
So, Mr. Farmer, listen up. I'll support you if you go to Congress and say "give me tax breaks" for innovation. Say to them, " help me and let me work with the best and brightest minds at America's universities to develop the future of farming." You work with me to close the borders and allow for a timed, gradual ratcheting up of employer sanctions and I'll work with you to build a better future and a better America that doesn't "need" help from anybody to sustain itself. Just the thought that there are, apparently, so many of you who are stuck in a "we can't" mode makes me want to lose my lunch faster than Popeye after a visit to a salad bar.
Got it?
Technorati tags: illegal alien, agriculture
Labels: Immigration
