Posted on 11/26/2006 5:42:02 AM PST by radar101
Actually, it's the "Pears Are All Gonna Die!" Without Illegal Aliens rant. Brought to you by ABC. Get your little violin out.
Pear Crop Rots As Field Hands Kept From Crossing Border
Nick Ivicevich has been growing pears in northern California for 45 years, but never had he seen as good a crop as the one that blossomed here this season. "I thought I died and went to heaven," he said. "I kept pinching myself. I could not believe how beautiful my crop was."
But now, much of his crop, almost two million pounds, lies on the ground — rotting away.
Thanks to increased security along the Mexican border, thousands of migrant workers who harvest the nation's fruits and vegetables never showed up for work. Ivicevich's pears ripened and then just fell off the tree.
"I'd lay in my house," he said, "and hear, 'plop, plop, plop' …and I'd have to look at them out my window. And, it's just sickening."
Let me make one simple correction about why that man let his pear crop die. And I mean "let" the crop die, and it's not because illegals are being kept from this country. It's a good bet it's one of two things (or perhaps both) 1) He didn't want to pay Americans a higher wage than he pays the Mexicans or 2) He wanted his crop to die so he'd have a dramatic story to tell and which an American television network could feature about how mean and awful having a secure border really is, because he doesn't want to pay Americans a higher wage. Oh wait, that's the same thing.
So, instead of sitting on his probably pear-shaped rear, here are a few things, just off the top of my head, Nick could have done:
**Placed that new invention, the "help wanted" ad, at local high schools and community colleges offering a wage higher than McDonald's, while emphasizing the great tan workers would receive. Place an ad in the local town paper offering the same. Also, try Craigslist.com for your local area.
**Check with half-way houses in the area (and every town has one or two) offering a decent-paying job to men and women making the transition from prison to regular life. They need jobs, and usually find it difficult to get hired. Making work known to addiction recovery centers is also a good idea. Those people also have a difficult time finding work, especially within traditional environments. In the fields, they'd be outside and have a nontraditional experience with no one necessarily looking over their shoulder. Oh, Nick would have to pay them, too, more than he pays Mexicans.
**Liaise with state and federal prison officials about using minimum security prisoners for field work. We have them making license plates, doing laundry, gardening, and a variety of other chores on prison grounds. Sending them to be field workers would ease prison overcrowding (put them up in tent cities during the seasonal work). Getting out of the prison environment would probably be a welcome change. we could decide if this perk is on or off limits to the 30 percent of the California prison population that is illegal alien Mexican.
**Advertise in the coal mining states for coal miners to consider a change in profession, while extolling the wonderful weather and beauty of California. The farm owner should probably emphasize that when you work as a field hand, you have no risk of your workplace exploding or falling down on you, leaving you trapped for days, as your oxygen slowly wears out, as you watch your fellow workers suffocate to death. None of that in the fields, all for the same twelve bucks (or more) an hour.
The average coal miner starting salary is $12 an hour. The average pay overall is $63,000 a year, or $33 an hour.
That could mean we'd have a shortage of coal miners. What are the odds there would be a rush for the border from Mexico for that job? Not much. This could then mean energy companies would have to pay more for that dangerous, bake-breaking work. Now wouldn't that be nice? In other words, right now Americans are doing all the low-paying hard and dangerous work in this country, while illegal aliens, Mexicans primarily, come over to work in our sunny border states doing a job a 12-year-old could do.
If the migrants don't show up for the next harvest, Ivicevich said he'll have to destroy entire orchards that were planted more than a century ago.
Now this man threatens to rip out his orchard if he doesn't get his slaves back. Oh so dramatic, and made-for-TV news, isn't it? This refusal to consider an American workforce is akin to a man who hasn't stood up for years, has sat on his easy chair for so long that his skin has grafted to it. His legs are still there, and even work, but the idea of getting up ios now so foreign, and would just be too darn uncomfortable. So, he insists, it's impossible.
Well, it's not impossible. Will it hurt a little? Maybe. But don't sit there and say you can't do it when it's obvious you can. "I'm gonna have to rip out my whole orchard." Wah, wah, wah. Let me get the tiny violin.
So, do not cry for the pears. If anyone rips out an orchard because they can't have their slave-class Mexicans, offer them a time and travel machine back to the 1800s where they can either stay in California and enslave the Chinese, or go south and buy some of those darkies for whatever work they need done.
Sheesh.
Steve Sailer at VDARE has a terrific roundup and commentary on "Pearanoia—Latest Scam From The Cheap Labor Lobby." Seeing the background of this ridiculous, and false, scare tactic is invaluable.
Note to self: "Don't build a business dependent on illegal activity to survive."
And let me tell you, when you get your bake broken, you're in for a world of hurt.....
So I'm supposed to cry a river for a guy because his criminal enterprise got shut down? Yeah, whatever.
I'm wit chew....may the man's pears rot on the ground and may he suffer great financial ruin for forcing us to subsidize his workforce.
But this could really snowball...if he rips out his trees he'll sell to a contractor who will put up a residential division or two and provide building and landscape opportunities for thousands of illegals...who wouldn't be able to take advantage of them due to these nasty border controls that destroyed the pear farmer and the contractors would have to hire Americans, too, and...wouldn't that be just awful!
If the govt. really got serious about shutting down illegal immigration, I would pay double for produce and like it. It's gotta be better than the taxes that I'm paying for giving these slugs free healthcare, free public schooling, and increased insurance rates due to identity theft.
Wah, wah, wah. Let me get the tiny violin.
okay Tammy, I dug mine out for Salve Master, Nick Ivicevich.
When the resulting pear shortage pushes the value of the next crop up, he can pay LEGALS more to harvest them!
BINGO!!
Don't feel bad--I do that a lot!
have to check me all the time!
I'm all broke up over this loss of slave labor to the Pear Farmers, NOT! Blackbird.
Isn't that awful? I mean, it's at least 5 whole miles to Manresa State Beach or Sunset State Beach .
Did I mention that there are state subsidies for farm workers to live here? County subsidies? Free medical care (but not for us. We get hit with much higher prices because they need to use the extra $$$ to fund....what else? the subsidies! Yaay Farmers and Illegals! You win again!)?
For those of you who think I jest, here are the demographics of Watsonville: Demographics
Note that this was in 2000. The bit about being 75% "Latino" is now more like 85%.
Oh and one more thing relative to Tammy Bruce's article. You sure won't see no African folks working here. Nope. Not a one. Most businesses are 100% Mexican: guess who does the hiring. People like the Gizdichs, Ivancevichs, Dole, etc...those are just the thin crust of whitey plantation owners who are at the top. The hiring managers...100% Spanish speaking. And they ain't from Spain.
For all of y'all back in frosty land, think about that this winter: out here on the beautiful California coast are a bunch of foreign criminal invaders living large. And all on our dime. With guys like the one in this article making the point spread on what he has to pay and what the subsidies pay Los Inmigrantes de Mexico.
They ought to call it "sucker nation".
But now, much of his crop, almost two million pounds, lies on the ground — rotting away.
Thanks to increased security along the Mexican border, thousands of migrant workers who harvest the nation's fruits and vegetables never showed up for work. Ivicevich's pears ripened and then just fell off the tree.
Well, CRY ME A RIVER! Why wasn't this guy trying or at least in contact with somebody to perhaps BUILD something to harvest pears mechanically? Necessity is the mother of invention. Sounds like he NEEDS his pears picked, but instead of working toward a solution to his situation, he sits on his a$$ and whines about it!
I have no sympathy for such behavior....he gives farmers a bad name by perpetuating the "dumb farmer" myth....except he actually IS!
However consider that even with some 20 million illegals, presumably most of whom are working these menial jobs, US unemployment is at about 4.6% ...pretty much the natural rate of unemployment for our economy. These illegals aren't necessarily taking jobs away from US citizens.
I've never picked pears, but I bet I could pick at least five pears a minute which works out to 300 per hour. At $12 per hour this works out to $.04 per pear. Also, I've never bought a pear, but maybe they cost around $.20 each when picked by $6 per hour labor, or $.02 per pear. So, if the price went up to $.22 per pear because a fair wage was paid to the pickers, I'd still buy the pear. So would everyone else. So, what's the problem?
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