#''some of it exploits children!'' so does farming. so does meat packing. so does the actual non-pornographic entertainment industry.

[fapangel]

MSM is spinning the proposed immigration reform as a reduction of legal immigration from the Obama era but I've been unable to find numbers of whether there was an increase during the Obama administration. Nonetheless, I do think a point based system for entry to allow for more skilled immigrant to come is overall a better move for the US rather than just a simple lottery. Your thoughts?

Before anything else, I want you to see what I saw on NBC News tonight - skip the biased article and just watch the 1 minute clip from NBC News’s August 2nd 6PM broadcast. Note Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, who’s commentary I will transcribe for posterity: 

“The biggest flaw in this proposal is the notion that there are long lines of Americans waiting to pick fruit, work in hospitals, and hotels, and restaurants, and meat processing plants; exactly the opposite’s true.” 

Let me boil that statement down to its essence: “we need those spics to do the scut-work white people are too good for.” This phrase, “immigrants do jobs Americans won’t do,” is a common utterance on the Left, but it’s still shocking to see a US Senator admit to it in as many words on national TV. I know people who live in rural, poverty-stricken Red America, and you know where they work? They often work in restaurants and meat-packing plants. Not that this asshole would know - to him and Democrats like him, Hispanic immigrants are just cheap labor to maintain the lawns of their expensive homes, to bring them food at restaurant, and to do all the other scut work of society - and cheaply. There aren’t any jobs “Americans won’t do,” if you pay them what it’s worth - ever seen an episode of Dirty Jobs? But that, apparently, would “wreck the economy,” according to reliable RHINO Lindsey Graham, (whom most Republicans would like to see right behind McCain on Musk’s Mars to Stay rocket.) Good thing we’ve got all those Mexicans to do the back-breaking labor on the cheap, eh? 

It’s not just Dickface Durbin saying this - ABC News, and New York Times have also published passionate screeds attesting to the necessity of that poor underclass to maintaining our way of life. From the NYT: 

Why? Immigrant workers aren’t a “cheap labor” alternative, as so many Americans think. They are the only labor available to do many unskilled jobs, and if they were eliminated, most would not be replaced. Instead, whole sectors of the economy would shrivel, and with them, many other jobs often filled by more skilled Americans.

If the spics don’t pick our cotton for us, who will? Not those fucking Americans!

In 1960, half of all the native-born men in the U.S. labor force were high school dropouts eager to take unskilled outdoor jobs in agriculture and construction. Today, fewer than 10 percent of the native-born men in the work force lack high school diplomas. But the economy still generates plenty of unskilled jobs, and most unskilled immigrants don’t displace American workers. They fill niches — not just farmhand, but also chambermaid, busboy and others — that would otherwise go empty. And they support more skilled, more desirable jobs — foremen, accountants, waiters, chefs and more — at the businesses where they work and others in the surrounding community.

It’s almost like they knew it was a waste of time to finish high school when they could get a job paying good money down at the sawmill - but only if they started their apprenticeship now. But that world’s over and done with - having a high school degree makes you physically incapable of flipping burgers, digging ditches, or picking fruit. True story. 

Just raise the wage, you say, and an American would take the job? Not necessarily, and very unlikely if it’s a farm job. Farmers have been trying that — for decades. They raise the wage. They recruit in inner cities. They offer housing and transport and countless other benefits. Still, no one shows — or stays on the job, which is outdoors and grueling and must get done, no matter how hot or cold or otherwise unpleasant the weather.

That’s right - American farmers, already laboring in an industry with narrow profit margins, turned their backs on that vast pool of dirt-cheap, asks-no-questions labor and went to the inner city to hire Americans that’d cost them more money, instead. Nostalgia is powerful, but even if the Red South is as racist as Democrats believe, somehow I doubt lots of American farmers were journeying to the inner city and asking the predominantly black youth there if they were interested in picking cotton on their fucking farms. 

And of course, at some point, there are limits to how high a wage a grower or dairy farmer can pay before he is forced out of business by a farmer who produces the same commodity in another country, where the labor actually is cheap. 

Which we could handle easily with import/export controls, if not for those fucking free trade proponents - like most Democrats, eh? Of course that doesn’t do you any good when the cheap labor is already in the country and being used by your own domestic competitors.

But worst of all would be the jobs lost for Americans. According to economists, every farm job supports three to four others up and downstream in the local economy: from the people who make and sell fertilizer and farm machinery to those who work in trucking, food processing, grocery stores and restaurants. 

A harvest-season fruit picker isn’t a fucking farm job. A farm job is a year-round thing, and there aren’t many of them. I live in rural Michigan, a very agriculture-heavy state, and I have a pony. An actual, living, breathing pony, who eats hay, hay that we purchase from a local farmer. He and his wife run a huge farm and they run it alone, as their sons are too young to do any of the serious work. He does this via automation - the shed under which he stores the hay that we buy also shelters two massive farm tractors, three bale wagons, a combine, and various other attachments and heavy equipment. In our own barn we have a Farmall Cub and a Farmall Super C, two crop-row tractors from yesteryear. They’re about one-quarter the size of those modern New Holland tractors. In fact you can watch the size progression, from the Farmall C to the beefier Farmall H to the imposingly large Farmall M. Tractors increased in size as farms got bigger and more corporatized, and as smaller farmers had to reduce labor and increase automation to stay competitive. For those crops that aren’t harvested en-masse by combines, I’m sure we’ll find some way to pick the fruit. That Farmall Super C in my barn was owned by my great-grandfather - the 3-point implements it used to haul around his farm are still in our possession. My mother picked fruit - for a dime a bushel basket - so she could earn money to buy hay for her own pony. Somehow, they managed. Hell, I managed - I was 12 years old when I was helping my folks put up hay we cut and baled off our own property to help feed our animals. 

Arguments so facile that even someone with third-hand knowledge can see through them is one thing, but this is so obvious that the fucking Washington Post, of all places, has a relatively level-headed and informed article covering the matter that perilously resembles actual journalism. It both acknowledges the miserable conditions and low pay of the workers, and dismisses the sweeping claims of absolute economic necessity with actual numbers, provided by subject matter experts.

In absence of established economic necessity, how else are we to interpret statements like Dickface Durbins, but as endorsing class-based systems of oppression? The phrase “jobs Americans won’t do,” the NYT columnist’s equating having a high school diploma with the willingness to do unskilled labor, and Dick Durbin’s own commentary all speak to the same basic hubris: that Americans find these jobs beneath them. I have a 4 year college degree - but I’ve worked manual labor myself, and I never considered burger-flipping to be beneath my dignity. I guess the elite class, the ones that grow up in fabulously wealthy communities and adore their Nature Hikes in the National Parks but let the poor people mow their lawns on a hot day, see things differently. When you combine the Left Wing’s passionate and frequent arguments to the necessity of unskilled, underpaid immigrant labor to supporting our way of life, the inherent elitism that colors their tone and worldview of Americans who “won’t” do these jobs, and above all their unstinting efforts to inhibit the enforcement of immigration law or any initiative to halt illegal immigration, it’s impossible to see their position as anything but encouraging the formation of a permanent underclass of second-class citizens. What happens when those immigrants, or their children, get educated? Get those high school - or even college degrees - that so inhibit their willingness to work menial labor jobs? What happens to our economy then, if we have no cheap, miserably desperate people to exploit for the labor that our economy apparently depends so heavily upon? By their own logic, it would be bad for the country if those poor Hispanics ever worked their way out of the poverty ghetto. 

This is the true import of what Dickface Durbin openly stated on national prime-time television. It’s also the strongest argument I can possibly make in favor of Trump’s proposed immigration reform - it is anathema to the class-based exploitation the “progressive left,” self-anointed champions of the poor and down-trodden, argue for so passionately. 

[aportraitofthecityasayoungman]

Day 24

The overnight bus was comfortable but I still only managed a few hours of sleep. At 5 AM we were treated to incredibly loud and terrible house music to alert us to the arrival of our destination and rouse us from precious sleep. We were promised the ability to sleep on our bus for an extra few hours until our tour guide arrived but the bus driver had different plans and kicked us off. He let the Vietnamese passengers stay on though so that was kind of him.

We were in a sleepy mountain town called Sapa. The entire town is coated in mist and spends much of its time in a thin drizzle of rain. When the fog clears you catch glimpses of the mountains surrounding and towering over us, including Mt Fansipan, the highest mountain in Indochina.

We sat in the rain for a little over an hour wondering when our chariot would arrive when finally out of the mist a bus appeared! He took us to a hotel where they served us some more bland Pho for breakfast and let us rent rain boots for the future trek. After much more waiting we finally met our guide Tsai and fellow tour mates.

We were joined by an entire group of women from the Black Hmong village we would be visiting led by our tour guide Tsai(spelling unsure as they don’t have a romanized version of their language). She’s an adorable woman who was no more than 4'10 and spoke her local language, Vietnamese, and had taught herself English just to be able to run the tour. Truly remarkable.

We began our walk down the very wet and misty mountain towards the rice paddies. As the day warmed the fog began to clear and we began to see the amazing vistas and steps of rice paddies that make the region so famous. While walking we met the local women who were accompanying and aiding us. Along with numerous women I didn’t have the chance to meet or speak to, I spoke with Tsai, Chi, Lan, and my favorites Zu and her infant son Mu. Zu carried her son either in her arms or in s traditional pack on her back the entire 12km down to the village. She did this while practically carrying members of our group down the slick and dangerous mountain while elegantly scampering about in the mud. I am without words for the admiration I have for these strong women. They walked miles to come to Sapa to sell their wares and lead tour guides, have an incredibly fierce intelligence and yet are some of the kindest and sweetest women I’ve ever met.

The long trek was mystifyingly beautiful. Down steep and icy-slick hills past rice paddies and bamboo towering meters above our heads. We would cross through the jungle to amazing wide vistas of the entire valley, with mountains high above us peeking through the mist. Crossing across the very rice paddies we had just been in awe of seeing, with the occasional water buffalo chomping on the grass.

We stopped about 9km into our trek once we finally reached the Black Hmong village at the bottom of the valley. We ate a well deserved lunch of rice, tofu, bananas and mystery(yet delicious) meat. Afterwords we walked through the various villages housing the Dzi and Red Dzao people as well. Along the way we learned about the traditional dying and sowing process of clothing. And how these differed along with fashion among the local people's. She also showed us some of her hemp plants with their all too characteristic appearance(from the media only of course). She told us that the local people never smoked it because it wasn't traditional, but did smoke tobacco and opium. However about two years ago some westerners showed them how to make tea out of it which she reports they very much like to drink "for their health" with a giant grin on her face. Small anecdotes and sights continued until finally finding our “homestay” which is really a large two story building. The top floor was comprised of cots surrounded by mosquito nets, the bottom floor was a large dining room. Outside we could sit on a patio to look over the rice paddies and the serene landscape in front of us.

The trek was amazing and I learned a great deal about the local three tribes that we visited. On the flip side was the very obvious nature of the fact that we are wealthy westerners walking into an incredibly impoverished community to briefly visit how they lived. The women who walked us down had an honor system in which as soon as they helped you on the mountain whatsoever(which they were very quick at grabbing your hand as you slipped) you had to buy something from them at the end. Along the path were dozens of young girls chanting to buy bracelets from them. I was more than happy to pay their very overpriced(for Vietnam) cost for some of their supposedly handmade goods. However the entire experience felt a little too voyeuristic for comfort. I want to help these people escape the crushing poverty of sustenance farming and tourist visits. None can afford the 20 million dong per year to send their children to high school so they have incredibly limited opportunities. On the one hand I am bringing money into the community and helping them survive. On the other when does visiting another culture turn into exploiting it for my entertainment? These are questions that I pondered without answer deep into the night as we relaxed in the homestay and ate a delicious home cooked dinner. I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world, as it was one of the most beautiful days of my travel. But at the same time I don’t know if I feel comfortable with what it means, or if I just feel guilty that we as a country have so much when these lovely people have so little.

I continued to think of these things while falling asleep to the entire sounds of rainfall and frogs outside of the window, surrounded by my mosquito net on my tourist cot. Looking at my expensive smart phone and sending my casual thoughts into the World Wide Web.