----- Original Message -----
From: "Lauren J Sullivan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ed Pearl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: Krugman and the Church: Questions and Support of Immigration
Hi, Ed,
With all the words that are published on this issue, none of them go far
enough into the real reasons this is a sticky problem to resolve. They
go as far as saying that growers want low-wage workers in their fields.
That's where they stop, which makes it look like a law enforcement
problem with greedy growers. It is not. It is an economic problem,
caused by our government, that has no solution without getting rid of
'free trade'.
The reason U.S. growers can't just raise their prices and pay their
workers more, thereby enticing American citizens to do the work, is
because the U.S. allows imported produce from other countries -- notably
Mexico, but also South American countries like Chile -- which can grow
these fruits and vegetables much more cheaply than our growers can. It
is already a cutthroat situation with our growers struggling to be
competitive with the foreign imports -- I know this from talking with
California farmers -- and the small farmers rarely have a chance to
compete (without getting really creative, which I will get to in a
minute).
So let's play out this scenario: Farmer Jones decides to raise the
prices on his produce so he can hire American workers and pay them at
least the minimum wage. In due time, he has his produce -- with the new
prices -- trucked to the market where the brokers buy. Result: The
brokers (who also get paid) laugh at him and buy what Farmer Smith is
selling. If someone decides to go ahead and buy Farmer Jones's produce,
when it gets to the supermarket at the new prices, it will be bypassed.
Consumers will choose the lower-priced produce, all other things being
equal. Consequence: Farmer Jones either sells the land to a developer
or goes back to hiring illegal immigrants to work the fields at less
than minimum wage.
In other words, it is the government's new free trade policies that have
created this impasse, at least in the area of agriculture. Heaven help
us if we get to the point where all our growers leave the farming
business (having become real estate developers) and all of our produce
is imported. But this will just be the food equivalent to the other
industries who no longer produce anything in America.
Another consideration: Growers of imported produce have nothing like
the regulations with which our growers have to deal on things like
pesticide use. We literally do not know what foreign growers are using
or how much or whether the applicators are trained to do it correctly,
etc.
One of the creative ways that small farmers have managed to survive is
to abandon the supermarket route of the big growers and form Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups. This makes it possible for them to
stay in business, and those who are doing this with whom I have spoken
absolutely love it. And so do their customers, who subscribe at the
beginning of the season -- paying the farmer up front for what he will
be growing and delivering to them -- which allows him to just get going
and growing. He is growing a widely diverse variety of products so, if
one thing fails, there is still plenty more to deliver. He never has to
worry whether his produce will pass muster with a broker, because there
is no middle-man. He knows how much to grow because he knows how many
customers he has. And all the income from sales goes directly to him.
One CSA with which I was involved started with just 40 customers who
each put up the price for the first three months -- about $250 -- and
our farmer promised to use no chemical pesticides or fertilizers with
the crops. Later on, he also had eggs to sell from his free-range
chickens. Last I heard he was creating ponds to raise catfish to sell.
And he had 80 customers by then and growing. Best of all, he was the
happiest he had ever been since deciding to go into farming; he was
doing what he had loved doing as a little kid -- growing vegetables to
distribute to his neighbors. Only now he was getting paid for it.
And best of all, his customers were getting a large variety of fresh,
naturally and locally raised fruits and vegetables. Flavor and quality
was top-notch. He was always generous -- if something did especially
well, he didn't charge anything extra -- he put it into the boxes he
delivered door to door and told us to share with others for P.R.
purposes. Sometimes we would also find a large bunch of beautiful
flowers on top of our boxes.
His income is about $1,000 a year per customer. His overhead is down
considerably; he is using no chemicals, which are expensive. He and his
wife and kids can pretty much handle it themselves, without a lot of
hired help. His customers are very happy with what they are getting.
Their only complaint was that they were getting too much for their money
-- and they felt guilty about throwing anything away! I don't live in
that town anymore, so I don't know if this 'problem' was ever resolved.
I don't know how well this model would work on a large scale, so I'm not
saying this is the solution. It is one workable solution for individual
small farmers. But the problem for our big growers is that if they have
to raise their prices, they might as well sell the farm. They won't get
those prices as long as free trade is in effect.
Here I am addressing only the situation with growers; I don't know how
it impacts the other areas where immigrants are working, like janitorial
services, carpentry, etc. And money is not the only issue -- working
conditions are something else. Big Ag was finally forced to supply its
workers with portable toilets a few decades ago when the plight of the
farmworkers was publicized. Farmworkers are still exposed to toxic
pesticides and hundreds become sick every year from the poisons.
Because so many are illegal immigrants, we don't hear them complaining.
Maybe they would use less in the way of social services if we refrained
from poisoning them and made sure they had their basic human needs met.
And something else: Everyone knows how hard they work. No one works
harder. And contrary to popular opinion, they are NOT all unskilled
laborers. A large number of them have learned skills in Mexico that
would be well paid in the U.S. if they were citizens. Carpentry, for
example. Horticulture. Cooking. I had a gardener for awhile who was a
landscape engineer in Mexico. Are their professional credentials valid
in the U.S.? Not if they are here illegally -- but illegal status
doesn't make them less skilled or less hard working. My son has a small
carpet cleaning business in the Bay Area. He loves it when he can get
Mexican help, because they work harder than anyone else.
I leave you to ponder this: How many American citizens would put up
with the conditions these immigrants tolerate? Inadequate pay, little
to no housing, substandard sanitary conditions, exposure to toxic
pesticides being sprayed, even being cheated of their pay? There are
many reasons why Americans haven't been competing for those jobs; money
is just one. And we can thank our government for the mess we are in now.
Lauren
***
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Attwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ed Pearl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: Initial Responses to Krugman, the Church, and Immigration
We do tend to drift back to our roots, and most of the writers below remind
us that the "progressive" tradition in the US is closely tied to white
supremacy. As the writers document, unions have consistently relied on
racism to limit the labor pool, leading the charge against the Chinese in
the 1870s in the West, generally supporting the ethnic cleansing of black
people in the northern states between 1890 and 1935, and carefully excluding
black workers from union jobs wherever possible before the rise of the CIO
in 1935.
Not coincidentally, the "Progressive Era" was the most viciously racist time
in the US from Reconstruction to this date.
In fact, all of this is the pattern established after Bacon's Rebellion in
1676 - fight for white workers by kicking down at others even more wretched
than themselves for being used by the bosses. Frederick Douglass complained
of this divide-and-rule strategy when he saw it on the Baltimore docks in
the 1830s, and people have still not wised up.
The United Mine Workers and a few others recognized that the answer to black
scab labor was to organize black people in an interracial union, and today
calls for the same answer. The enemy is not wretched people breaking
through the borders to find a way to live but those who drive them off their
land with subsidized US farm products and by imposing other misery on the
subject nations.
If American workers suffer oppression through immigrant labor, it is rough
justice to those workers for supporting the oppression of foreign workers so
that they can enjoy being the world's ubermenschen by supporting the oppress
policies of their favorite empire. Since what goes around comes around, we
should be helping them to connect the dots and stop doing to others what
they don't want done to themselves, not pandering to their desire to take
out their frustrations on others even weaker than themselves.
***
(Leigh has long given me permission to forward all his writings.
WPFW is DC's Pacifica station. This opens the issue of Black
jobs taken away by lower-paid immigrants. Such was the case
with unionized, primarily black janitors, in Los Angeles in the '80's.
Later on, of course, the new immigrant work force organized the
current union and triggered the new shape of LA labor and politics,
but the issues remain unresolved. Just a reality of how capitalism
divides workers, again and again, with similar fallout. - Ed)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Leigh Hauter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:38 AM
Subject: [alliance] Racism on WPFW
All week long wpfw has been taking racist stands on immigration.
Instead of trying to educate the public they have been asking racist
questions on their call in show and then the various 'hosts' have
been making racist comments about 'stealing our jobs' and 'send them
back home'.
We need a committee to investigate this real misuse of our airwaves.
What is the PNB doing about real racism at Pacifica, racism that goes
out over the airwaves?
(I am so fuming right now it's hard to see straight).
My current thought is that all of the hard working people who have
come to this country and who are making it great, constructing the
highways, harvesting the crops, building our homes, whether they are
'legally' sanctioned to be here or not, should be eligible for
citizenship and all of these yahoos, be they white, black or green
with their racists view should be sent back to where-ever - and if
their ancestors have been here for a dozen generations, so be it.
I'm tired of small-minded bigots and there have recently been a
number of them on the air on wpfw recently, and unfortunate many of
them in charge of the microphone.
Leigh
***
From: "evan davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
"Leigh Hauter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: [alliance] Racism on WPFW
Am I correct to observe that the only Pacifica station that has
made great strides in accomodating/including Latino/a/Hispanic
listeners/producers has been KPFK and that at most of the other stations
there are Latino/a community activists clamouring for access and
complaining that their concerns are not being addressed?
Of all of the community loci wouldn't we expect - indeed; don't
we have a RIGHT to expect that Pacifica would be UNIQUE as a place
where the COMMON interests of VARIOUS oppressed communities
would be emphasized instead of relegated to competing camps?
In Columbus, Ohio we're not on the air yet (expected launch
date will be some time this Summer) yet already we are functioning as
a catalyst for bringing together diverse constituencies. We just had a
rally opposing the anti-immigrant bill(s) that drew between 2,000 and
3,000 and although the rallygoers were mostly Latino/as the organizers
of that rally are already in dialogue with the Arab and Muslim
leadership which includes the Somali community thanks to their common
connections through our radio project. We are also developing support on
the Labor front. Columbus isn't the only place that is happening but it
may be one of the few places outside of KPFK-land and Atlanta where a
community radio station is serving as the meeting point for the diverse
constituencies which have a common stake in this issue ( and it is
probably the ONLY place where the community radio station in question
is fulfilling that function without even being on the air - but WHY!!!???
Is our mission so very different from Pacifica's?
Hardly! Check it out; www.ccrfonline.org
Evan
***
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Kay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ed Pearl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: Initial Responses to Krugman, the Church, and Immigration
If you're still on the immigration subject, here are
my 2 cents.
The difference in average wealth and oppurtunity to
get more of it is so great between Mexico and America
that I have my doubts that much can be done to 'solve'
the problem of undocumented workers.
Mexico's government and society operate very
differently than ours. It's set up to help your
families and friends first and last, much less open to
mobility than here, and very difficult to change.
Them that's got aren't about to share with them that
don't.
Therefore, the escape valve of coming to America, and
like a pool of water tilted, it's very hard to stop.
Walls, helicopters, guards, laws, jails,
re-patriation, fines, searches--how much you willing
to spend? It could be our next sink-hole of money,
time and effort for what results?
People are already literally dying to come here and
know that death can meet them on the road, so what
else do they have to lose? Look at the balseros in
Cuba risking all to flee and life there is generally
better for than for the poor of Mexico.
The only hope in the long run is to try and get
Mexican society to change to open up advantages to
more of its people. But I have no idea how to do
that. In the meantime the only solution is to throw
employers of undocumented workers in jail and if you
hire a garderner, or house cleaner that probably means
me and you, baby.
Meanwhile look for a whole lot of huffing and puffing
and ridiculous laws and what not put into place with
very little result.
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