Now living in Tucson, we are bombarded with news from the front, the Mexican American border front, that is. 250 reporters, or was it 150, were on the scene to witness the 'Minuteman Project', volunteers watching out for the welfare of crossers, that they are not mistreated. I think I have that right. There are people from both camps bitching about it, and everyone has a point. One of the biggest complaints about them being here is that they are taking jobs from Americans. Yet, ask one of those Americans spouting off like that to actually DO one of those jobs, and noses are turned up. Nobody is willing to actually get out and dig those ditches, pick those crops, or clean those offices and homes, because a 'proper' American is above such menial tasks.

I've heard the question before, who will do the jobs if all the illegals are gone? There was a movie about it, kinda poking fun at the idea, called A Day Without A Mexican. The basic theme was a kind of 'Mexican rapture', where one day all Mexicans in the world were gone. Californians were frantic about who was gonna wash the windows and pick up the trash. It wasn't serious enough though, because Americans would be lost without their illegals to do all the dirty work. I tend to think that the producer/writer didn't want to make too many waves, hoping it would get widespread appeal. It was a good movie, but no big movie house would show it.

That's beside the point though. The bottom line is, America would literally come to a standstill without them, at least for a little while. We would do ok I'm sure, because there would be widespread posturing of people willing to 'get their hands dirty' for the sake of the country. It would only last as long as it took us to find a way to get other cheap labor into the meat packaging plants and out picking the berries. Americans would not do it for long, they have been doing ok for too long without having to do it to get down on their hands and knees and scrub floors now.

Which brings me to one final point. For all our posturing about how we have finally abolished slavery, have we really? These illegals come here because we are willing to pay them pennies, but it's still more than they would earn at home. They also have the benefit of being assured of better security, one can be reasonably assured most of the cops in the country don't stray too far from the confines of the law here. So, as long as there are countries where the living conditions are less than they are here, there will always be people willing to risk their lives just to subjugate themselves for the meager offerings here. When you get to the bottom of it all, we make these people work extremely long hours in sometimes dreadful conditions for shabby earnings, which sounds a lot like slavery to me. The 'slave owners' just don't have the benefit of fucking the slaves to boost the mulatto population.......