Union wants illegal immigrants here

[billbenson]

Interesting news story. The United Farm Workers Union wants illegal immigrants to have work permits.

United Farm Workers invite Americans to 'Take Our Jobs' - Jul. 7, 2010 (http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/07/news/economy/farm_worker_jobs/index.htm?hpt=T2)

[Spider]

Calling on Americans to "take our jobs" is a great call. Once they realized what the work entailed, out of thousands of enquiries, only a few dozen have taken up the offer.

[sequoiapayroll]

this really summed the article nicely:
"Williams said that if people who oppose immigration "got their wish and all the unauthorized people went home tomorrow, we would have a crisis. We wouldn't have anyone to pick the crops, milk the cows, or take care of the Christmas trees."

He added, "It may be the least desirable job, but it's the most important job for all of us, because we all eat." "

How true!

[vangogh]

Interesting article. Shows how sometimes people get caught up in the political rhetoric without stopping to think what that rhetoric means. Great idea to call on Americans to take the jobs. Maybe this will make some realize that not every illegal immigrant working here is really stealing a job. They're often taking jobs no American wants to do.

[nealrm]

I know the news & some polititions promotes the viewpoint that every consertive wants every illegal immigrants to be deported. But there is a large number that also beleive that if they work and live here, they need to pay taxes here and be cover by min wage laws. I strongly beleive that if those were to happen, that much of the "ship them home" crowd would go away.

[vangogh]

if they work and live here, they need to pay taxes here and be cover by min wage laws. I strongly beleive that if those were to happen, that much of the "ship them home" crowd would go away.

Good points and makes a lot of sense. I hope I didn't give the impression that I think all conservatives are hard line deporters. I don't think that's the case. People working here should pay taxes live everyone else and should be protected by everything those taxes help pay to protect. Issues like these are so much more solvable when everyone drops the rhetoric and discusses what's really happening and what their concerns are.

Unfortunately the rhetoric, the name calling, the framing of things in ways that aren't really true work. At least to a point. They work to convince one voting block or another, but they also work to divide us over things where we're close to agreement.

[Spider]

Why don't we just buy Mexico - like we bought Alaska and Louisiana-Florida - and make it a state (or several states) within the Union? That would solve the problem in one fell swoop!

[nealrm]

Don't worry Vangogh you didn't come across that way. It mostly the media trying to reduce every complex topic down to a headline.

[KristineS]

I think this is a smart PR move. It really proves a point and also illustrates the value these people bring to the table. Who ever thought this up has some marketing chops.

[vangogh]

Neal we're living in a world of out of context sound bites. It's amazing when you look up the full text of where a sound bite came from and see what the message really was sometimes. Somewhere along the way apparently we stopped being able to hear more than 140 characters at a time.

[nealrm]

Neal we're living in a world of out of context sound bites. It's amazing when you look up the full text of where a sound bite came from a...

I'm sorry vangogh, I didn't get beyond that :) So what is your point.

[nealrm]

joking aside - most people are getting thier information in 15-30 second video bites. How indepth can you go in just 30 seconds? Even this storie, really only shows a small portion of a very large issue. I do agree with what it says, in the context of the story.

[vangogh]

Funny. :)

It's true. I don't know if that's all we have time for or that's all we really want to hear, but it's all we seem to get unless we research things ourselves. Another thing to consider is that most information we take in has been filtered through someone else. Even the act of choosing what to write about is a filtering system. It's going to be one of the sad things about the decline of newspapers. Not to say newspapers are perfect. Most have something of their own agenda and we can easily tell if they lean right or left.

But compare newspapers to bloggers. At least with reporting the news there are certain standards, fact checking for one. On a news blog opinion passes as fact.

[nealrm]

If have noticed that many of the Internet "News" service are starting to use more bloggers for their stories. Many time I have found these stories to be factually wrong. It appears that few are checking the facts any more.

[vangogh]

I know what you mean. There's nothing specifically wrong with a blogger reporting the news. It's just that the same standards applied to reporting haven't been applied to blogging. Maybe that will change as more newspapers close and more reporters move online. They'll bring the same standards with them and in time the best news blogs will be the ones with the best standards for reporting.