I agree with you except for the blithe statement that undocumented workers are "where they are not supposed to be." Really? The U.S. government was in my parents' country, El Salvador, for years, where they were not supposed to be. That's the reason many Salvadoreans came here. The U.S. fought a war of aggression with Mexico to annex their territory so the gringos could grab land where they were not supposed to be (and rejected the treaty signed in good faith by the Mexicans to end the war). Are we supposed to be in Afghanistan? Were we supposed to be in Vietnam? Yeah, but let people want to come here for work, after their countries have been hosed by colonialism and U.S. funded war, including the stupid war on drugs, and they're law breakers. There are no damn borders. Money and arms go where they want. It's sheer hypocrisy to go all maidenish and claim that your borders are being violated when you're an aggressive world power who goes where it wants.

Sirenita, the law states that you're not to come into the United States unless you follow certain procedures. If you do not follow those procedures, you're not supposed to be here.

Does that mean I'm for kicking everyone who's here illegally out? No. I live 15 miles from the border and can take a trolley there, and I'm just fine with what the teabaggers call the Mexican invasion. I'm sure I interact with illegals on a daily basis, and I quite honestly don't care.

But the bottom line is that if you have not followed the procedures that allow you to enter the United States, you are not supposed to be here.

Just because the United States did things wrong does not mean that those who are here illegally should be.

Stephen Colbert went to congress to testify that the farm unions could not get enough workers. Nobody applying for the jobs, and now serious farm worker shortages. Of course, if Americans had been doing this work for a while, we' had have a smaller population of people with diabetes and injuries. It isn't physical activity that always hurts you, it is physical activity that you haven't done before. This next generation of children will be disabled by the time they get to college age.

I live in Georgia. I have casual relationships with a number of Hispanics. I never ask them if they are legal or where their home is. Most of them have lived here for years, working as laborers, often working for the same employer the whole time. They are incredibly hard working. Many speak broken English because they can't have personal relationships with native English speakers. Wandering through Wal-Mart I am impressed with the way their families relate. They are here. They have a valuable place in our life. They have many fine traits that could only elevate our society. Georgia is on the forefront when it comes to illogical laws that cater to some conservative minority's frightened status. In a constitution ratified in 1982 (our tenth) there is a separate section devoted solely to Marriage that (you guessed right) defines marriage as a contract between members of the opposite sex, denying any rights to same sex couples. I am surrounded by people who become obsessed with the size of billboards, deny the existence of climate change, and want their pastor replaced because he suggested that it may have taken more than 7 days to create the world, and that Mary may have been a 'figurative' virgin. Creating a law that causes crops to rot in the fields should bring criminal charges. R

Siremita - our gov/military "being" in a country is not the same thing as 11 million Mexicans being here. If not for any other reason, there are people in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to kill our guys. Would you have us treat the 11 million here as an invasion and start killing them? For right or wrong we are in a war. We are not showing up 11M strong trying to take over the job of poppy harvesting from a citizen.


Just saying regardless of one's thinking of our military conflicts, it is not the same as illegal immigration. What country in the world would take 11 million Americans crossing the border illegally, and then create sanctuary cities to actually protect us .
Try it sometime and see how far you get. In a friendly place you would eventually get deported. In a unfriendly place you would disappear in a prison.

Tony - I don't understand your argument. You are saying this work is unsuitable for Americans but OK for Mexicans. People are people. If it is unsuitable then let laws handle it. If it is suitable, then let Americans do this job.
I cant think of any of good argument that we let Mexicans do jobs that are "unsuitable" for any people.

If the market requires more than $8 hour, fine. Let the farmers pay what is required to get workers. You are arguing that we continue to both exploit Mexicans and pay unemployment checks.

Any big surprise convicts would not be the most motivated workers. Or that Americans take the job just so they can fall back on unemployment checks.

This is an opportunity for people to go to work. And let the market bear the price. It is all a balance between what people will work for and what you and I will pay for a peach. If a balance can be found good, If not , no peaches. But that balance needs to be found in the American work force. And the balance always is found.

Herein TX, with a large Mexican presence, tile saying is work frequently done by Mexicans that are illegal. We often here tha argument, it would cost more if it weren't for illegals. I say fine.
This notion that no American will lay tile in my house is just silly. Maybe they wont do it as cheap as an illegal, but I don't have a desire to have 11M illegals just so I can get cheap tile work or cheap peaches.
Americans will lay my tile for a price. If I like the price I hire them.
Otherwise I wont. Simple as that.
Some people who want tile will pay the going rate. Others will do it themselves. And others will simply decide they can't/won't afford tile.

If I go to the store and the peaches are too expensive I wont buy them. And if no one buys them them there is no job for the picker at all is there?

I know, its an evil concept called free market capitalism.

Oryoki, I'll tell you why nobody wants these jobs. Nobody wants them because it's a whole hell of a lot easier to make coffee for people at Starbucks than it is to be outside in 100 degree heat and high humidity in order to pick crops. And making coffee pays more, too. We can't be surprised that when there are multiple options for people, people choose the one that requires less effort and pays more. Isn't that why we tell people to go to college and get an education? So why would anyone be surprised that people don't want these jobs?

Rodney, that's why I quoted the deity of the so called conservatives, Ronald Reagan. He's the one who said it is criminal to allow crops to rot in the field because there are no workers to pick them.

Mr. Cole, it's been a while since I've been on here, but your inability to grasp simple concepts seems to be still intact. Nowhere did I say that these jobs were beneath Americans. What I said is that they cannot find enough Americans to do the job. That's a fact, plain and simple. They're 11,000 workers short.

The balance will be found? Well, farmers are finding that $8 an hour isn't enough for peaches. And they can't make a profit if they pay their workers more. So obviously, things are out of kilter, and if they could pay people enough to not have to rely on cheap illegal labor, then the price of food would go up. A lot.

And you clearly have no clue how unemployment works. In order to collect an unemployment check, you need to have worked for a while. It's insurance. People paid in, and they collect when they need it. If it's wrong to collect unemployment insurance, then the next time you drive your car into a wall, make sure not to file a claim. It's the same "logic."

Tony- I live in AZ and I see all sorts of work being done here by people of apparently hispanic descent. I will not assume they are all "illegal" because some are not. But, many are just hard working folks who would like to pay for their families to survive. I think it's insane that we don't have a better system. On the other hand, guest worker status only works so long, as their children will be citizens and want everything we all want- and what their parents moved here for so they could get- an education, a house and a housekeeper.
I think the solution is that if you vote against it, you can't benefit from it. That would also solve a lot of health care issues. I also have little sympathy for many of the underskilled underemployed who don't work nearly as hard as many underdocumented do, and expect much higher wages to do a whole lot less. I don't think Americans fear undocumented people stealing their wages, I think they fear the children of these people working harder than American children and doing better down the road.

To compare the invasion of the U.S. by foreigners who lust for the freedom and opportunity that the U.S. offers to the efforts of the U.S. to protect people from oppression by foreign countries is clinically deranged.

But for the record, I forever forswear my right to go to Mexico, El Salvador and the other hellholes that Ms. Lake posits as plums.

Oryoki, here's the thing. If unemployment pays more than a job that requires you to essentially be the 21st century equivalent of a slave, field work, then why shouldn't you take the unemployment? It is to your benefit to do something that gets you more money versus less. And if it means you don't have to sweat away in 100 degree temps, even better.

Remember, people who collect unemployment have earned it. They had to work and get discharged for reasons beyond their control. If they did something wrong and thus got fired, they don't get it. All they're doing is collecting on the insurance policy that was paid into.

I will tell you right now, since I'd get the equivalent of $12 an hour if I was laid off, I wouldn't take a job that paid less than that. Why should I? Why should I go to work for less money? That's just stupid, and I'd collect on the insurance which was paid into until I found something better.

Osmond, it's funny that you're talking trash about other countries when you ran like a punk to another one. By the way, there's a lot of information about you on the internet, and wow, man, for a punk who talks a lot of trash about how smart he is and how good he is, well, let's just say that you could have a Hermon Raju moment.

Great write-up on the great State of Rotten Peaches. (I live in Atlanta, so I should be able to say that without offending anyone.)

Apparently Joseph Cole didn't realize that the only way his whole 'how "free market capitalism" works' lecture actually worked was to leave out the farmer who has peaches rotting in the field.

That's the thing about "free market capitalism" - in the real world it only works for some, some of the time

It may be fine to put off a new tile floor for awhile (unless you're stepping on dirt because a tornado blew away your previous tile floor), but it isn't clear that the same "free market" method will work for hunger. Just sayin'.

I'm going to add a comment that someone sent to me via email.

I've lived in Atlanta for 35 years. The Georgia legislature is just getting around to Sunday alcohol sales, my Dog! (And NY, where I'm from, is just getting around to gay marriage ... the clock ticks slowly) My advice to the free-market right wing in this state and elsewhere is a heartfelt "fuck you."

To Mr. Cole: You want your peaches? Raise a crop of your own sturdy American sons to work in your own damn fields.

Oh, you don't have your own farm? You must depend on other people to put food in your mouth, then. Grocery-store Socialist.

And you don't have any sons? Were you too busy bitching at all those anti-abortion rallies you supported because every seed it sacred, that you didn't have time to adopt ANY children? Right ....

I suggest tearing up the interstate system, dismantling the electric grid installed by the TVA, and reducing the available groceries to availability of a 25-mile radius, and see how far the "free-market capitalists" get without whining. STFU, Joe Cole, or make your paradise happen.

Anyway ... oh, I feel better now ... thanks, Tony. Keep swingin'. Rated, favorited, and agreed.

Mark

Carol, thanks. It's amusing to me how ridiculous the analogies get when certain types of people try to justify something.

Also, it's clear the answer to Reagan's question -- "are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do?" -- is a resounding yes.

"who talks a lot of trash about how smart he is and how good he is, "

Would you care to include a citation or two or would you, in true collectivist fashion, prefer to deal only in unsupported smears?

By the way, with a surname like yours, you might consider addressing others in another way.

And also, by the way, there isn't anything about me on the Internet that I would not want displayed in Macy's window. Since you are a confirmed non-entity, you, of course, don't have to face this question.

By the way, Osmond, since you're a punk who ran away from the United States to a country that's got a socialist government, perhaps you ought to shut the hell up.

You're a punk, Osmond. I'll address you any way I want, and if you want to do something about it, feel free.

And yes, I'd call you a punk to your face, because if your history is any indication of how you react, you run away.

Let's see, Georgia should stop all efforts to ensure that employers only hire documented workers so that farmers don't have to offer a living wage to peach pickers? Is that your argument?

The "pay them more" argument falls down in the face of a product with global production.

In the immeidate future, if Georgia were to just pay "enough" to get lazy "Amiercan" Georgians off their asses to pick, the price of Georgia peaches would destroy their market completely and we'd all just eat peaches from California.

Let's say the whole United States got serious and created similar reform. Would everyone jump on the bandwagon of paying that much for food? Of course not; we'd just import our produce. That would put supply of a major element of life outside our borders.

I'd rather import the workers than import the food.

Malusinka, in an ideal world, farmers would be able to offer a wage that would get people into their fields to pick crops. We don't live in that world. That's why immigration reform must address many issues. The border needs to be secured. Then we need to do something about those who are already here, because you can't just ship 11 million people out of the country. We also need to address the problem of how we find people to do, as Reagan said, "work our own people won't do." Look, we've got nine percent unemployment and people STILL won't pick crops in Georgia's fields.

A soundbite solution won't fix the problem. Georgia did it, and the repercussions are severe.

Keri, I think you nailed it. And California relies on cheap farm labor to pick crops as well. Implement Georgia's law nationwide and we will destroy the agricultural industry as we know it. Americans won't pay the prices that are required so that farmers can give their field workers a wage that will attract Americans instead of illegals.

From peaches in Georgia to lettuce in California to chickens in Arkansas, without illegals to provide cheap labor, the entire agribusiness model falls apart.