Posted on 01/31/2014 10:25:32 AM PST by KGeorge
Edited on 01/31/2014 10:31:28 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Out of the Republican retreat on Maryland’s Eastern shore comes word that the House leadership is raising the white flag of surrender on immigration.
The GOP will agree to halt the deportation of 12 million illegal aliens and sign on to a blanket amnesty. It only asks that the 12 million not be put on a path to citizenship.
Sorry, but losers do not dictate terms. Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO says amnesty is no longer enough. Illegal aliens must be put on a path to citizenship and given green cards to work and join unions.
Rep. Paul Ryan and the Wall Street Journal are for throwing in the towel. Legalize them all and start them on the path to citizenship.
A full and final capitulation. Let’s get it over with.
To understand why and how the Republican Party lost Middle America, and faces demographic death, we need to go back to Bush I.
At the Cold War’s end, the GOP reached a fork in the road. The determination of Middle Americans to preserve the country they grew up in suddenly collided with the profit motive of Corporate America.
The Fortune 500 wanted to close factories in the USA and ship production abroad where unions did not exist, regulations were light, taxes were low, and wages were a fraction of what they were here in America.
Corporate America was going global and wanted to be rid of its American workforce, the best paid on earth, and replace it with cheap foreign labor.
While manufacturing sought to move production abroad, hotels, motels, bars, restaurants, farms and construction companies that could not move abroad also wanted to replace their expensive American workers.
Thanks to the Republican Party, Corporate America got it all.
U.S. factories in the scores of thousands were shut down, shedding their American workers. Foreign-made goods poured in, filling U.S. stores and killing the manufacturers who had stayed behind, loyal to their U.S. workers.
The Reagan prosperity was exported to Asia and China by the Bush Republicans. And the Reagan Democrats reciprocated by deserting the Bush Republican Party and going home. But this was not the end of what this writer described in his 1998 book, “The Great Betrayal.”
As those hotels, motels, restaurants, bars, fast-food shops, car washes, groceries and other service industries also relished the rewards of cheap foreign labor, they got government assistance in replacing their American workers. snip
BUMP!
If you're looking for a chance to zap someone with cute little zingers you'll have to look elsewhere.
Michigan also passed RTW.
This has been the situation in S Texas (probably in many of the southern border states) for as long as I can remember. (I worked in the construction industry in the late 70s/ 80s) The difference has come in that illegals have spread out nationwide (& into at least, British Columbia) because they’re able to do so.
There is a huge problem (& there was some problem, back then) with the regulations & extra hoops that small business owners have to/ had to jump through. Small business has been under a multi-pronged assault for a long time.
And you make an excellent point in your post after that wrt to illegals (& some owners) wanting things to remain ‘under the table’. I’d say that is spot on.
The whole thing is delusional- unrealistic at best. A vicious cycle. Which is why Eisenhower’s approach was correct.
I don’t think that’s his point at all, Scot. And I think he’s kinda tipping the reader off by including the Trumka quote. I’m reasonably sure he was criticizing the practice of offshoring on it’s own & citing unions as a primary motivator (& it being understandable, which it is).
I can’t think of any time when I’ve seen him support- or even acquiesce in any way, to a union.
What you say is true about middle America, yet the population and subsequent electoral clout of flyover country no longer can compete with the urban and coastal strongholds of the progressives. When Texas eventually flips to blue it will be game over for conservatives. Demographics are both destiny and a b*tch.
While working for as a time study analyst for a steel mill in the mid 1960s, I was surprised management allowed Japanese engineers to tour our cutting edge computer controlled rolling mill and take photos. We gave away our technology and, through the Marshall Plan, built the economies of our former enemies gratis long ago. That steel mill went broke not long thereafter. The mindboggling labor costs their management agreed to in "negotiations" with the USW union priced them out of the market too.
I’ve also met businessmen who were put out of business in this manner.
The Free traders are making China a bigger threat than the Soviet Union ever was. All for a buck.
The Republicans had plenty of help from Democrats in this.
I voted for Bush 1, but if I could go back in time, I would vote for Perot. Will never vote for a Bush or GOEe types again.
I just read some 40 odd posts. The topic was about how the GOP lost middle America. Reading the posts convinced me that PJB is also predicting the future, there is no interest in the GOP in bringing back middle America.
I did. He heard the trade sucking sound that current politicians still do not hear. He was ahead of his time.
Sad :-) I don’t think that requires any “psychic” ability, anymore. The $64,000 question is what are we going to do about it?
It’s getting later by the minute.
To sort of paraphrase Clinton, it depends on the meaning of 'we'. If 'we' is the GOP forget about it. If "we" is the Tea Party, they are hung up on Government costs. We need another Perot or Buchanan who puts America before the rest of the world.
AAA-MEN!!! (Sorry for yelling. I just couldn’t help myself)
I was surprised at what he said, too. But he never cleared up that he wasn’t endorsing union extortion, and he seemed to be saying corporations were wrong to want to avoid American unionswho indeed had some of “the best-paid workers in the world.” That can be good or bad.
I’m not normally a fan of PJB, however:
“Since 1990, some 30 to 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, have entered the country. This huge increase in the labor force, at the same time the U.S. was shipping factories abroad, brought massive downward pressure on wages. The real wages of Middle Americans have stagnated for decades.”
He nailed it. That time is also when productivity went way up.
The party that stands up for Middle America will be the dominant party of century. We don’t have that party right now. We currently have a choice between the Big Business Party and the Big Government Party.
Path of destruction.
If citizenship is not part of the package we will still have millions of people who don’t belong here taking jobs our citizens need at such low wages they will still be overwhelming social services at taxpayer expense.
If citizenship is not part of the package there will be an immediate cry of civil rights and they will then be given citizenship.
At the point they are given citizenship they will no longer be cheap labor that is willing to work in substandard/dangerous conditions. Companies will still want cheap labor so more illegals will be allowed in the country to fill that desire.
Rinse/repeat until we no longer have a country...
Not to mention many are absolute criminals, and have no desire to work here only to commit crimes here. Not to mention the pro-illegal groups will give credit to Democrats alone so all the new voters will vote D forever.
Sure (wrt to being good or bad). Maybe he was assuming that it would be understood/ writing to his “usual” audience. He has a following (of which I am a proud member), so that would make sense to me. I’ve never noticed that he does that, but then, I probably wouldn’t.
It’s true. We did have some of “the best paid workers in the world”- union & non-union. That’s what makes this such an issue. In a relatively short time, we have gone from a socially & economically stable society, in general, to reaching a crisis point.
One of the things I have in common with Pat Buchanan is that, to some degree, I am almost an isolationist & a “Paleocon”. Unfettered “free trade” & globalism has, imho, been proved- not just a failure, but a disaster for the West. America’s a mess. Europe’s a mess. Everything has been shifted to the third world. Not so smart because some of that *isn’t* so stable. Will prosperity change that?
The globalists/ communists have really turned us inside out. It’s no surprise that the (now) multinational corporations are at the head of this. It wasn’t called that, but kind of the same structure was in play in the Soviet Union & more recently, China. Probably in national socialist Germany as well.
Alex, wages were the major cost. Regulation is expensive, very much so, but if your work forces is paid less than 25% of what they are in the US, regulation doesn’t matter much.
We decided to follow the British Empire in the free trade game, without acknowledging that the died as a result.
It really is. Self destruction/ suicide. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a country foment invasion by invitation before. Europe is doing it too. With them, it is the Muslims & Africans. America, add Latin America.
What makes it *so* mind boggling is the timing. We’re in such bad shape, economically. China isn’t allowing this & certainly not promoting it. I don’t think India is, either.
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