Guthrie's song is not about limiting immigration but about the shabby treatment given migrants after their hyperexploitation by agribusiness. To effectively limit immigration would mean not allowing them into the US labor market in the first place. Of course, this would ultimately have a negative impact on agribusiness profits, which is why the current compromise exists, of which Woody sings: first abuse them then discard them. But if effective enforcement were to prevent the migration and/or hiring of this low wage labor, it would necessarily bid up the price of labor for those onerous tasks, and indigenous unemployed and underemployed would be the only resource available. It would have to meet AMERICAN wage expectations, which would be considerably higher. Though some of this would be cost-push, adding to the price of the commodity in question, it would inevitable result in decline of profits for agribusiness. Hence, enforcement against migratory foreign labor is slac! k -- until, as Woody writes it, the "crops are all in." Then it's another story. When I was up in Maine I learned that Mexican migrant labor is shipped that far northward to rake blueberries every year. And what the Mexicans don't rake, is sometimes harvested byed by (believe it or not) Canadian migrant labor. Yet unempoloyment is extraordinarily high in Maine. Who should be doing this work? Why are the wages of this kind of work kept so low as not to attract them? For anyonwe who knows the fundamentals of capitalism, the question answers itself. The capitalists and the foreign laborors "conspire" together to keep the price down to where profits are maximized for the capitalist, and a living wage is unavailable to indigenous labor. I guess it's that old "invisible hand" up to its efficient work again . . . Peace, Ken >Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 17:45:17 -0500 >From: Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Tony Abdo wrote: > >> Ken, you state the case succintly..... immigrants must be stopped from >> arriving, otherwise all us US workers are going straight to Hell. And >> you quote the Book of Marx to do it! > >[For anyone who didn't read the original, Tony is being sarcastic] > >After making the decision to stop immigration, the next problem is >how to do it. Guthrie had a suggestion.(He wrote the words after he >had become too ill to perform. No music by Guthrie himself exists for >the piece.) > > DEPORTEE > > The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting, > The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps. > You are flying them back to the Mexican border > To pay all their money to wade back again. > > Goodbye my to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, > Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. > You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane > And all they will call you will be deportee. > > My father's own father he waded that river, > They stole all the money he made in his life. > My sisters and brothers come working the fruit trees > And rode the truck til they took down and died. > > Goodbye my to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, > Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. > You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane > And all they will call you will be deportee. > > Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted. > Our work contract's out and we have to move on > Six hundred miles to the Mexican border. > They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves. > > Goodbye my to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, > Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. > You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane > And all they will call you will be deportee. > > We died in your hills, we died in your deserts, > We died in your valleys and died on your plains, > We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes, > Both sides of the river -- we died just the same. > > Goodbye my to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, > Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. > You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane > And all they will call you will be deportee. > > The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon -- > ` A fireball of lightning which shook all our hills, > Who are all these friends all scattered like dry leaves? > The radio says they are just . . . deportees. > > Goodbye my to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, > Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. > You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane > And all they will call you will be deportee. > > Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards? > Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit -- > To fall like dry leaves, to rot on my topsoil > And be called by no name except deportees? > > Goodbye my to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita, > Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. > You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane > And all they will call you will be deportee. > >_______________________________________________ >Crashlist mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist ------------------------------------------------------------ Nettaxi.com in the News ((( Video by ON24 ))) http://vuwin.on24.com/vuwindow/scripts/vuwin.asp?id=30279&type=av&ref=NTX&cb=NTX _______________________________________________ Crashlist mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
