Mexifornia

[driveby]

Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley

[millerx]

 

Thank you, that was a very interesting read. I especially liked the last few paragraphs:

 

Fresno’s California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president’s announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won’t comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program’s sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.

 

I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.

 

So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, “Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate.” I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?

 

I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed “indifferent.” California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant — no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd — to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta — that California is at once both the nation’s most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.

 

Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California — and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.

[redrumjuice]

In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.

 

By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don’t editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?

 

Exactly. No more taxes. Let that state BURN.

[evil_gop_liars]

Meh, Obama quietly erasing borders

[bpwallace49]

Meh, Obama quietly erasing borders

 

 

But seriously . . people emigrated from Mexico for the jobs . . and now all the jobs have moved to Mexico, but they are stuck here. t

 

Then again, with Mexico practically a failed state due to the desire of Americans for the illegal drugs that are giving enormous crime syndicates more and more power, do ya blame anyone for not wanting to live in Mexico anymore?

 

Should we round up any illegal; immigrant and ship them off into intermnet camps until they can be sent back over the barely secured border? They will just be back. Should we build a great big Berlin-style wall? How would that be patrolled with two pointless wars going on? How will it be funded? Deportments are up, and illegals coming here have been down the last few years . . . but that is a drop in the ocean compared to the overall problems that never get resolved.

 

A whole lotta problems, with no solutions. Just like the author. He has no solutions, no suggestions. Just vapid observations of a desitute area of California, that could easily be located in almost any other state of the union right now . . .

[yo mama]

Seriously? Open the "front door" to anyone who wants to follow the rules, pay taxes, learn English, and become an "American." Then line the border with machine gun turrets for those who continue to try and break in through our back window under cover of darkness.

 

Alternatively, simply limit the receipt of public benefits to those who are in compliance with federal and/or state tax requirements. The benefits of our society should belong first and foremost to those who are in compliance, regardless of citizenship. Frankly, I'll trade a hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding immigrant for a lazy, entitlement-minded American any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Edited December 16, 2010 by yo mama

[westvirginia]

I'm an open borders guy, but if we're going to have the damned laws then yes, we could easily do this.

 

Seriously? Open the "front door" to anyone who wants to follow the rules, pay taxes, learn English, and become an "American." Then line the border with machine gun turrets for those who continue to try and break in through our back window under cover of darkness.

 

Alternatively, simply limit the receipt of public benefits to those who are in compliance with federal and/or state tax requirements. The benefits of our society should belong first and foremost to those who are in compliance, regardless of citizenship. Frankly, I'll trade a hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding immigrant for a lazy, entitlement-minded American any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[Clubfoothead]

The article specefically traces the root of the problem back to the destruction of the family farm and the takeover of corporate farming.

 

The free market has spoken.

[Jimmy Neutron]

The article specefically traces the root of the problem back to the destruction of the family farm and the takeover of corporate farming.

 

The free market has spoken.

 

Anything but free market principles has done in many family famers.

 

Read this.

 

Big business squeezing out the little guy via purchased legislation is not free market.

[Scooby's Hubby]

There is alot of opportunity in America, but the kicker is that if I tell you what I do then you would be my competition and soon everyone would do it.

 

To me, taking a class on Latino studies is a waste of time if you are going to college to learn how to make money.

[Clubfoothead]

Anything but free market principles has done in many family famers.

 

Read this.

 

Big business squeezing out the little guy via purchased legislation is not free market.

 

I have a time-line that is based upon my personal recollection of facts from growing up in North Dakota in the mid 1980s. I know who to blame and I know for a fact those people preach minimal government and a free market. Besides, most people want cheap food.

 

Organics and locally grown and raised food should help the family farm as sustainable agriculture and the requirements to obtain USAD organic certification favor family farmers. Unfortunately Walmart and Aurora Dairies have been trying to f*ck that up since 2007 and the guy I voted for has let me down very much on this issue. I think it should be tough to obtain USDA organic certification and I think you should get more than probation for intentionally undermining both the spirit and letter of the standard. Of course Walmart intentionally violated the requirements in a effort to undermine the standard. The standard does favor family farms and if Walmart can fraud its way into that certification being meaningless then why not just buy their $hitty milk since you can't trust that the organic milk you pay extra for is any different than the cheap crap?

[evil_gop_liars]

why not just buy their $hitty milk since you can't trust that the organic milk you pay extra for is any different than the cheap crap?

 

 

Pssst, it's not any different.

[Yukon Cornelius]

The standard does favor family farms and if Walmart can fraud its way into that certification being meaningless then why not just buy their $hitty milk since you can't trust that the organic milk you pay extra for is any different than the cheap crap?

yup the organic dairy coop here is fighting hard .

[driveby]

Pssst, it's not any different.

I actually heard that organic is worse for you because they use manure as the primary fertilizer resulting in a lot more cases of e coli.

[The Holy Roller]

I have a time-line that is based upon my personal recollection of facts from growing up in North Dakota in the mid 1980s. I know who to blame and I know for a fact those people preach minimal government and a free market. Besides, most people want cheap food.

 

Organics and locally grown and raised food should help the family farm as sustainable agriculture and the requirements to obtain USAD organic certification favor family farmers. Unfortunately Walmart and Aurora Dairies have been trying to f*ck that up since 2007 and the guy I voted for has let me down very much on this issue. I think it should be tough to obtain USDA organic certification and I think you should get more than probation for intentionally undermining both the spirit and letter of the standard. Of course Walmart intentionally violated the requirements in a effort to undermine the standard. The standard does favor family farms and if Walmart can fraud its way into that certification being meaningless then why not just buy their $hitty milk since you can't trust that the organic milk you pay extra for is any different than the cheap crap?

 

These two are antithetical. Our food supply is so heavily subsidized that if truly FREE market principles were in place the cost of food would be waaaaay higher than it is now.

 

And to have the USDA be involved in "organic" certification is an oxymoron, comparable to letting the fox guard the henhouse. The "organic" movement was crazy to let the govenment of big business agriculture have anything to do with setting standards for the certification of the organic food industry. Read/Google some of Joel Salatin's work.

[evil_gop_liars]

I actually heard that organic is worse for you because they use manure as the primary fertilizer resulting in a lot more cases of e coli.

 

That and the hippies think it's pesticide free when in actuality the pesticide load on the environment is greater than conventional methods.

[westvirginia]

Don't go confusing him with the facts. He has his own experience and everyone else's is just like that, dammit!

 

Oh, and +1. The food industry has been anything but free market since the 30's

 

Anything but free market principles has done in many family famers.

 

Read this.

 

Big business squeezing out the little guy via purchased legislation is not free market.

[BeeR]

Seriously? Open the "front door" to anyone who wants to follow the rules, pay taxes, learn English, and become an "American." Then line the border with machine gun turrets for those who continue to try and break in through our back window under cover of darkness.

 

Alternatively, simply limit the receipt of public benefits to those who are in compliance with federal and/or state tax requirements. The benefits of our society should belong first and foremost to those who are in compliance, regardless of citizenship. Frankly, I'll trade a hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding immigrant for a lazy, entitlement-minded American any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

racist.