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Yo!Chingo
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: Seoul Korea
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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 Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject: Re: American Citizens lined up out the door |
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I don't think the argument is every job they do is a job Americans in large numbers don't want. I'm sure an industry like meat packing prefers illegals because a) they're not aware of their rights b) they'll work for less c) longer hours d) won't unionize etc. It is, however, encouraging to see American born (or if this was in Canada, Canadian born), willing to take such hard jobs. |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject: Re: American Citizens lined up out the door |
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Fret not, as the US economy goes mammaries-up this situation will resolve itself. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| I don't think the argument is... |
The argument generally runs like this: Americans are lazy but Mexicans are noble and hard-working...Indeed, Americans could not even survive without Mexican labor...and Americans are racist oppressors but Mexicans just want to help us out...
Sound familiar?
It should. It is the usual Third-World self-romanticizing schtick. Especially in Latin America and the Caribbean where they tell themselves and their children that they are Caliban to our Ariel.
This attitude especially comes to the surface in Arevalo's diatribe, The Shark and the Sardines.
So just because so many Mexicans, coming from such a disorganized and corrupt political economy, so uneducated and illiterate that they only know bracero work, are so desperate to get into the United States that they sell themselves as a slave-wage earning working class, this does not make them especially noble or hard-working -- it merely makes them a horde of desperate people, systematically searching for whatever argument and propaganda angle might work best for them...
Last edited by Gopher on Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Say what you want, I really doubt that the "new blood" is going to maintain as low of a turnover rate as the Mexican population managed. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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Say what you want, I really doubt that the "new blood" is going to maintain as low of a turnover rate as the Mexican population managed.
Lining up to work a slaughterhouse job should be a sad indication of the state of things for the mid-lower/lower classes. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| ...I really doubt that the "new blood" is going to maintain as low of a turnover rate as the Mexican population managed. |
That is mostly because "the new blood" was never conditioned to keep their mouths shut and obey the patr�n in all things...or has not been a peasantry since the Middle Ages, for that matter...
We must be careful in making comparisons not to present ourselves or the Mexicans as inferior or superior in virture or anything else.
We come from different historical trajectories -- no more, no less. And I personally feel Mexican immigrants should be welcome into the United States -- provided they do so legally and once here, learn English and pay taxes, etc. And they are generally not doing that now. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| We must be careful in making comparisons not to present ourselves or the Mexicans as inferior or superior in virture or anything else. |
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| Quote: |
It should. It is the usual Third-World self-romanticizing schtick.
Just because so many Mexicans, coming from such a disorganized and corrupt political economy, so uneducated and illiterate that they only know bracero work, are so desperate to get into the United States that they sell themselves as a slave-wage earning working class, this does not make them especially noble or hard-working -- it merely makes them a horde of desperate people, systematically searching for whatever argument and propaganda angle might work best for them... |
Intellectual dissonance or obfuscation. You only want to believe whatever feeds your arguement. You can't see the forest for the trees. If you truly believed the former, the latter would not ever so much as cross your wires....
Please see...
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm
DD
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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LOL Ddeubel.
No need to debate (or, in your case, lecture). Tens of millions of Mexicans have confirmed this by voting with their feet on the issue already...and millions more are almost certianly en route.
Mexico is broken. It has almost always been. Period. Not a comparison of who is "lazy" or "hard working" but rather the most plausible explanation for the exodus.
You who would apologize for or deny this are the ones guilty of obfuscation. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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The issue isn't that Joe America won't work these jobs, it is that he won't work the jobs for the wages the Mexicans will. The Mexicans undercut the minimum wage or the trendy "living wage" so aggressively advocated by the left.
My opinion, well, let them work but make them legal. They ought to pay taxes and be held to the minimum wage that the rest are. One of the strangest aspects of this whole debate is that if the Mexicans are made legal (or provided an easy route to legality/legal employment) their numbers would drastically decrease as their comparative advantage (working below minimum wage) would be abolished. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| khyber wrote: |
| ...I really doubt that the "new blood" is going to maintain as low of a turnover rate as the Mexican population managed. |
That is mostly because "the new blood" was never conditioned to keep their mouths shut and obey the patr�n in all things...or has not been a peasantry since the Middle Ages, for that matter...
We must be careful in making comparisons not to present ourselves or the Mexicans as inferior or superior in virtue or anything else.
We come from different historical trajectories -- no more, no less. And I personally feel Mexican immigrants should be welcome into the United States -- provided they do so legally and once here, learn English and pay taxes, etc. And they are generally not doing that now. |
I'm curious who claims that, beside you claiming people claim that. The reasoned debate doesn't make such a claim. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| I'm curious... |
You are free to take it or leave it, Mindmetoo.
Cannot be more specific because I am not sure exactly which claim you are challenging. Crow discusses "Ariel and Caliban" as a Latin American worldview in his text; and I've not only read Arevalo but a host of other similar Latin American writers who explicitly make the same emotionally-driven case.
Not to mention Vicente Fox's endorsing the "they-only-want-the-jobs-African-Americans-won't-even-take..." or something similar position.
Here is a link to Crow, who summarizes much of what I have alluded to above.
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/2721.html
Crow is a good read. Also on Mexico, two stellar reads are Distant Neighbors and Oscar Lewis's Five Families. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:34 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Mexico is broken. |
Very true. Revenues from NAFTA slipped away when they went to corruption instead of investment. Mexicans may supply cheap labor, but so do a lot of other countries in the world.
At any rate, the American gov't is also not serious on cracking down on corporations who hire illegals. I'm going to say that it isn't a good situation, but it has as much to do with Mexico City and Washington's inadequacies, and I symphathize with those streaming over the border risking quite a lot for unquestionably higher pay. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:46 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Not to mention Vicente Fox's endorsing the "they-only-want-the-jobs-African-Americans-won't-even-take..." or something similar position. |
I will grant you that. One black comedian had a great response something along the lines of "Right. We won't pick crops. I think my people have done our share of pickin'." |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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Mexico is broken. It has almost always been. Period. Not a comparison of who is "lazy" or "hard working" but rather the most plausible explanation for the exodus.
You who would apologize for or deny this are the ones guilty of obfuscation. |
Please read your words again and see how you are painting a very old and settled culture as "broken". A culture is not made only of its economy and Mexico has much to offer of itself , now and in the past and in the future. You don't pay much attention to your own suppossed "ethic".
Seeing you are busy giving other people books to read -- on Mexico I'd recommend Labryinth of Solitude, El Laberinto de la Soledad EL - Octavio Paz. Let's read about Mexicans through the eyes of a Mexican (and no need to mention it but I will, Nobel Laureate. ) Not .....
DD |
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