Mexico fears backlash from vote on Iraq

SignOnSanDiego.com ^ | March 15, 2003 | Jerry Kammer

[MoscowMike]

By Jerry Kammer COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

March 15, 2003

WASHINGTON – As Mexico faces up to heavy U.S. pressure to vote its way in the Iraq crisis, it also confronts the possibility of a widespread U.S. backlash.

"If the perception of the average American is that his neighbor abandoned him at this crucial time, the stigma would last for generations and be made manifest in a multitude of individual actions," Mexican analyst and historian Enrique Krauze warned this month in a Mexico City newspaper.

Krauze cited danger of commercial boycotts, restrictions on trade and widespread resentment at the White House, in local and state governments and in the U.S. press. He fretted that Mexicans living in the United States might suffer "discrimination, persecutions, etc."

Krauze's pessimism is widely shared by Mexican diplomats here, some of whom acknowledge that they are praying that the U.S. resolution that would authorize a possible war with Iraq will never come to a vote. Indications are that Mexican President Vicente Fox, facing overwhelming public opposition to the war, would invoke Mexico's tradition of nonintervention and either vote "no" or abstain. Either way, he would antagonize the White House.

Mexico's ambassador to the United States was active this week trying to head off the sort of hostility that is pestering France, featuring boycotts on cheese, mocking jokes and bitter commentary on French diplomacy and French character. Juan José Bremer urged U.S. appreciation for "the remarkable progress" Washington and Mexico City have achieved in managing what he called "the most intense bilateral relationship in the world."

President Bush increased that intensity last week in statements that provoked alarm in Mexico, where they made front-page news. While Bush said he did not expect "significant retribution from the government" against Security Council member nations that didn't line up with the United States, he pointedly left open the possibility of a popular backlash.

The president's comments caused consternation among Mexican-Americans, who longed for the pre-Sept. 11 era when Bush and Fox were "the two amigos" pledging unflagging friendship and celebrating the increasing economic and cultural integration of their two countries. They also spoke optimistically about the prospects for an immigration deal that would legalize the status of millions of Mexicans living illegally in the United States.

But in the tensions of the post-Sept. 11 era, that coziness has been dissipated.

Antonia Hernández, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, said this week that Bush's March 3 remarks, which came in an interview with reporters from Copley News Service and other news organizations, would encourage anti-Mexican sentiment.

Mexico expert Robert Pastor said his recent appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" TV show on the Fox network convinced him that there is real danger of an anti-Mexican backlash.

"He just leveled into Mexico," Pastor said of the show's host, Bill O'Reilly. "I can assure you that these things resonate out there," he said.

Peter H. Smith, professor of political science at the University of California San Diego, said Bush's comments were widely perceived in Mexico as a threat and may have eliminated any possibility that Fox would line up with the United States at the United Nations.

"The costs to Fox of taking the U.S. side would be very high, higher than they would have been if they hadn't received those threats," Smith said. He said Fox could not afford to be perceived as submitting to pressure from an American president.

Moreover, said Smith, the concession Fox most wants from the United States – an immigration deal – is out of the question. "We simply cannot do to that in the post 9/11 environment," said Smith, adding that heightened security concerns make it politically impossible to agree to a deal that would be seen as a loosening of the border.

Harvard professor and Latin American scholar John Coatsworth said Mexican fears of a widespread backlash are exaggerated. "Mexico has yet to recognize that it has immense strength in the relationship with the United States that it has not yet begun to exploit," Coatsworth said.

[panaxanax]

there = thier

[PRND21]

Wouldn't it be nice to end welfare?

Easy. Vote Conservative.

[LibertyThug]

The president's comments caused consternation among Mexican-Americans, who longed for the pre-Sept. 11 era when Bush and Fox were "the two amigos" pledging unflagging friendship and celebrating the increasing economic and cultural integration of their two countries.

That scared me the most and I hope it's over.
There is nothing scarier than trying to teach 3rd grade students the concept of 'nations' and 'passports' by showing them my passport with all the places I've visited and seeing the blank look on their faces.

They have no idea that Mexico is not part of California or is it the other way around?

[panaxanax]

FITZ, please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to start an argument with you. I agree 100% and do not support illegals in any way. They should ALL have been sent back to their own countries on 9/12.

I'm just telling you the real facts. I've been there and know every aspect of the business.

The Mexicans never committed crimes against non-Mexicans. They had their own justice system. If another Mexican did them or their family wrong, the price paid was severe. I could tell you stories that would knock your socks off! They kept to themselves, worked hard and were the best "pickers" we had.

I still say send 'em all home and let the orchardist figure out how to get their apples off the trees within the narrow window of sugar content, etc.

The owners will have to pay a price attractive enough to draw in white pickers, that would make the prices at the market nearly double.

Be careful when fishing in waters that you are unfamiliar with.

[panaxanax]

I've tried that for 33 years and welfare continues to escalate.

Any other ideas?

[holyscroller]

"Who's going to pick our crops?"

In Mexico the nation

it may lead to aggrivation

but we'll go to automation!

There are few crops that can't be picked by machine. Machines are already out there or being developed to pick just about anything.

[holyscroller]

You're right about all the labor that would be available if all the millions of deadbeats on welfare had to get jobs. Also we could have work programs for low risk prisoners (druggies, etc.) if we would instigate programs to make them work to pay for their keep. America has plenty of workers available. The problem is there's no incentive to work if the check rolls in every month without lifting a finger.

[panaxanax]

No machine is or has ever been developed to pick apples.

[sarcasm]

Forget the old adage about apples and oranges being oh-so-different. In the brave new world the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission wants to explore, oranges and apples have rather a lot in common, namely, the producer perspective.

Jim McFerson, lead scientist at the Commission’s research lab in Wenatchee, returned from a Florida trip recently all fired up about some new devices. Devices that even science fiction writers would have had difficulty imagining not so long ago will come of age when humans are eliminated from farming.

“What are the two biggest challenges in our face right now? Labor and water,” McFerson said. “Hand labor is an aspect in virtually all phases of fruit production, from preparing the trees in the nursery, to picking and packing the fruit. If we expect to continue in business we have to become less dependent on 12-months-a-year labor. Farm labor management issues are social and political; the time may come when we can’t depend on a flow of immigrant labor.”

Farmer robots are closer than you think.

McFerson’s next trip is to Pennsylvania where, in Pittsburgh, he’ll confer with members of the National Robotics Engineering Consortium and scientists at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. At that institute automation exists for tree measurement, field container handling, turf management, ag spraying, and hay harvesting - all that’s left for the engineers to do is the fine-tuning.

“I predict that 10 percent of the Washington apple harvest will be automated by 2011,” says McFerson, pointing out that a small amount of sweet cherries in the state are already mechanically picked for the stemless market. He believes that for automated apple and orange picking, new chemistry will likely be part of the equation. In order to get the fruit off the tree without shaking it like pie cherries are shaken, “certain chemicals will be applied that enhance abscission.” A plant hormone spray will be used that weakens the stem end so the fruit falls easily; it’ll be the chemical opposite of the Stop-Drop that’s been around for decades.

“We’re moving from horsepower as the key to ag production in the 20th century, to brain power as the key in the 21st century,”said Francis Pierce.

Pierce is the recently hired director of the Washington State University Center for Precision Agriculture that had been established at Prosser in 1999. Two major components of precision farming are global positioning information system technologies and miniaturization technologies.

Think of it as possibilities unlimited.

In McFerson’s estimate, Pierce has brought a fresh breath of concepts to Washington’s research community. It’s time to reach beyond the parameters of individual sciences, which is precisely what Pierce is promoting. “Synergy is the key,” McFerson puts it. “For us to move ahead there must be research collaboration across industries. Pierce is a different kind of scientist; I call him an ag research entrepreneur. The research partnerships that Pierce has established can serve the needs of lots of industries, not just apple and orange, but asparagus, mint, cattle, what have you.”

Will high-tech give us the global edge?

Pierce sure hopes so, relating how upset he was on his journey back from Florida: “I was on a United flight out of Tampa, and when I asked for orange juice they gave me a can imported from Brazil.”

“Brazil is hammering the Florida growers,” McFerson explained, comparing Brazil’s cheap orange juice exports to the Chinese and other exports threatening the apple industry. “One thing we realized on the trip is that we’re not alone, that the woes of the orange industry mirrored our own.” McFerson emphasizes that if American ag goes high-tech and thus out-competes the older farming systems in cheap-labor countries, that’s likely to be the case for a limited time only. “It’s impossible to guard technologies... We’ll have the advantage of being the first to know, but that won’t last.”

Five Washingtonians went to the University of Florida, Gainesville, – Pierce and McFerson, and a county agent, a private grower, and a plant pathologist. The fact that the pathologist was along is a telling point, McFerson says. Imagine a series of “pods” set up in an orchard, that is, “a network of sensors.” Not only could those sensors relay information to a central computer in the farm shop about temperature and humidity (to be used for degree -day models, which are risk indicators), but also the sensors could inform about the actual presence and levels of disease and pests.

“The spores of powdery mildew, for instance, could be detected,” McFerson notes. This technology already exists in the form of “a rapid sampling device that’s built by a company called Innovatec, in Richland; the original reason for engineering the machine was for it to detect biological warfare compounds, but it could probably be adapted for ag uses.”

As for the process of automating the farm, Florida is ahead because orange agriculture has fewer challenges than apple farming, McFerson says. “Most of the 800,000 acres of citrus in Florida are raised for processing, and have a harvest window of two to three months. Generally, harvest is a once-over. Cosmetics don’t matter, and it’s perfectly safe to use oranges that fall on the grove floor. “

Conspicuously missing from the high-tech scenario McFerson lays out, is the mention of genetic engineering. But the Commission, he states, at this point does not fund research and development of genetically modified, so-called GMO apples.

McFerson sums up with a word of caution. “The media likes to present new technology as glitzy. We in the industry have to be careful not to get caught up in this.”

[panaxanax]

Do you really want to have HIV, TB or AIDS infected druggies etc. handling your food?

Druggies will sell drugs. Prisoners will turn back to crime.

How much further would we have to "dumb down" in order to hire these deadbeats? A "created" job is not a valid or useful job. It is "created". Typical Dem thinking that would be placing one more burden on the hard working American taxpayer.

I say cut off welfare, with no added incentive programs. If they can't find legitimate productive work, then they starve and exit the gene pool. It's called evolution.

[Risa]

>>It feels good, actually, putting 'family first'. It's about time our people started thinking about all of us (functional and dysfunctional, haha) as 'family'; a house divided WILL fall. <<

I am glad to hear you say that! It does feel good to put 'family first.'

risa

[tortoise]

say cut off welfare, with no added incentive programs. If they can't find legitimate productive work, then they starve and exit the gene pool. It's called evolution.

Precisely. Incidentally, I agree with you about the Mexican farm workers. For the money, you can't get anything better. And in ranch country, it is hard to find non-Mexicans to do the work for any price. The ranchers aren't fools and these people do a good job; if someone shows up with "papers" they get hired.

Of course, this is the reason that illegal workers won't be shutdown cold at the border; a lot of our industry and agriculture depends on their high-quality labor whether it is officially acknowledged or not. A lot of people need to come to grips with the fact that Mexicans do a lot of work that you simply cannot get Americans to do for a price that is vaguely competitive or even justified. And in some of the backwater regions of the country where a lot of ranching is done, you literally can't find anyone else to do the work. I've got no beef with honest laborers who do a good job and are well-behaved. That community polices itself for the most part, as they have a stake in it too.

[panaxanax]

"Forget the old adage about apples and oranges being oh-so-different."

A bruised apple nearly worthless, except for juice. They will rot in storage and then you won't be able to enjoy an apple in mid-winter.

Oranges are very hard to bruise and most are produced as juicers. There is a big difference between Apples & Oranges.

An automated machine that can determine ripeness and pick and apple while keeping the stem attached is a pipe dream. If, for some reason such a device could be developed, the cost would be prohibitive to most apple growers.

Good night kids.

[panaxanax]

Yes!!! Thank you!

I didn't think anyone in the business of farming would be up this late. Guess we'll both be looking at a long day tomorrow.

Thank you for your voice of experience, rather than the armchair farmers who scout around the internet in order to make their fruitless (pun intended) points.

[Risa]

>>What if "Buy American" really catches on? <<

A good question. Wouldn't it be awesome if it did?

I've been buying American for years. Sometimes it means paying more, and putting off unnecessary purchases until I can save the cash for it, but I certainly appreciate things more, the quality is better, and the goods last a lot longer. (and the extra cost is worth it--we're preserving a way of life that we wish to hold on to.)

I do the same with foods and meat--I buy from local farmers instead of eating imported stuff. Again, it may cost a bit more, but I know how things were grown or raised, and my purchases contribute to the local economy and that's a good thing and worth the extra cost.



risa

[Risa]

>>I really believe we will be returning to the days when there was a blacksmith, shoe maker etc. in every town. They will just be injection mold makers or whatever. <<

And as well a return of QUALTIY.

[conservativecorner]

Another so-called ally who's hand is always out, but never wants to work hand in hand. Screw em'!!

[FITZ]

I'm not unfamiliar with illegals ---there's very many where I live ---and yes there are a few farmworkers who do work hard as you claim --and they'll work hard for very little money. If they get injured or sick of course they have to get their health care free at taxpayer expense ---but those aren't the illegals that bother me too much. Around here there are many many more illegals as well as legal immigrants sitting in the welfare offices, you find many more immigrants living in the government housing projects around here than you'll see doing farm work because there aren't all that many farms.

In the late 80's they legalized 3 million Mexicans because we needed them to pick apples and do all that other farm work. Since that time 18-20 million more have arrived ---we didn't get that many more farm jobs, we're not growing that many more apples. The 3 million from the 80's amnesty should have covered our needs for low cost labor.

[FITZ]

I'm against having INS go to the fields and haul off those workers ---what I think is needed is a total immigration reform that ends the practice of anchor babies ---illegals coming over to have a baby that gets them a welfare check and a right to stay, we need to end the family sponsorship program that lets people bring in indigent relatives that they immediately put on SSI and Medicaid. We need to treat document fraud and Social Security number fraud as the felony crime that it is. We need to stop letting in so many legals that we don't really need who want good American jobs ---and then if we do need farm workers we should let them in legally. Only those who can be completely self-sufficient and don't need all the government assistance.