I’m not American, but isn’t there an underground adage something like, “The country runs on migrant workers”?
And from what I see from beyond its borders, whenever it breaks—sometimes in such a way it impacts globalisation and foreign economies—its always been the rich.
Kind of, but that’s not even very “nice.” Yeah, there’s a lot of things that migrant workers do, primarily in agriculture and service work, but they’re still taken advantage of. If we’re being honest, the relative comfort of the first world relies on the exploitation of the global poor.
So much of this sentiment comes down to ethnic alignments. People see the billionaire as a white, Christian patriarch who shares a set of cultural values and beliefs that overlap with their own. The billionaire advertises on the shows I listen to. The billionaire runs the businesses that I shop at. The billionaire sponsors the entertainment - the sporting events and the TV shows and the local festivals - that I enjoy attending.
Yeah, sure, all that money comes from my surplus labor. And maybe the Six Guns Over Grade School celebration, where eight year olds fire long rifles at biology textbooks while saying the Our Father prayer is a bit off-putting. But by God, that’s our tradition!
Meanwhile, the hispanic migrants who cross the border to pick fruit doesn’t celebrate Six Guns. They don’t watch Border Patrol Bloopers or Rich Kids In The City or Loud Guy Radio. They don’t root for the Fightin’ Oil Spigots or eat Fried Cheese. They don’t even speak American! Every time a new hispanic family moves into town, they make the town a little less homogeneous. And that makes me feel unsafe. If they feel about me the way that I feel about them, how long until they break into my house and murder me?
I have no idea what this Rich Kids In the City is, or Loud Guy Radio, and I am not a sports fan, but I think I’d like to try some of that fried cheese!
I have no idea what this Rich Kids In the City is
Friends
Loud Guy Radio
Rush Limbaugh / Sean Hannity / Tucker Carlson / take your pick
I think I’d like to try some of that fried cheese!
It’s all fun and games until you find out you’re lactose intolerant.
OK so I did watch Rich Kids in the City… and I actually don’t remember much about the show because it didn’t impact me much (blasphemy, I know!). And I am aware of who Alex Jones is and have watched his downfall with much pleasure… and I am not lactose intolerant! So bring on the cheese!
Fucking seriously… We have this goddamn obsession with hating immigrants and blaming them for wage stagnation in a lot of sectors, but we NEVER talk about going after the people hiring them or putting the squeeze on us in every way imaginable…
Not to mention everyone I know bitches about “illegals” but wants to to fuck-all about solving the issue of immigration wait times… If it takes a decade to get through the process then maybe jusssssst maybe we address that?? Nahhh… That’s communisocialivenezuela or something.
don’t forget that the locals don’t want to do the “stolen” jobs anyway
https://www.mic.com/articles/8272/alabama-illegal-immigrant-crackdown-destroys-farm-business
That’s an absolutely valid point. I’m not American but in Ireland we get the same “foreigners are stealing our jobs” bullshit. I work in a meat processing plant. Most Irish new starts don’t last the first week.
What jobs are they stealing? Jobs we won’t do? We need immigrants, we aren’t far away from a declining population. I don’t understand how people thing that’s an issue when our entire economy is propped up on migrant workers.
Maddox from the internet prehistory talked about it.
holy shit, that dude is still around and posting content! Albeit, just 5 times in the past 4 years, but still.
I believe stiffer penalties for employers WAS part of the bipartisan immigration bill that Trump killed, but I don’t have a source for that.
I think the reason this doesn’t get addressed is because Republicans actually want to keep the status quo where they can employ illegal immigrants to depress wages. They just want to use immigrants as a scapegoat to rile people up.
“Wants to pick apples.” Come the fuck on. I agree with the point that billionaires are the true threat, but treating migrant labor like it’s fulfilling their life dreams is racist and gross. They undoubtedly want many things, but they’re desperate and they’re being exploited. Let’s not insult them further by pretending they want to be treated that way.
Sure it is. They could’ve said “wants to make a living” or “is willing to do hard labor”, but they didn’t. They framed it as just “picking apples”, and that it’s what the migrant “wants” to do while focusing on the problems that affect them. It might not be what they meant, but it’s absolutely what they said.
But the billionaires are white, so we can’t get mad at them. /s
