A post by Pat
Colin Powell’s invitation to immigrants:
Give me your tired able-bodied young, your poor. Send these the cheap day laborers willing to work practically for free. I need repairs to my garage door.
Powell warns the Republicans they have to wise up about the immigration issue. The country will go to hell without immigrants not to mention Powell’s house will fall apart. His rationale amounts to ghoulish exploitation. He tells Dick Gregory on Meet the Press:
We can’t be anti-immigration. Immigrants are fueling this country. Without immigrants America would be like Europe or Japan with an aging population and no young people coming in to take care of it. We have to educate our immigrants.
We have millions and millions of illegal immigrants, undocumented workers, who are working, who are doing things we need done in this country. They’re all over my house doing things when I call for repairs and I’m sure you’ve seen them at your house. We’ve got to find some kind of way to bring these people out of the darkness and give them some kind of status.
In the next few years we will discover that between the ages of 15 and 64, the working ages of our people, most of them are going to be kept in that age group because of immigration and the children of immigrants.
I’m telling you…immigration is what’s keeping this country’s life blood moving forward.
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America does have to fix up the house. Our future depends on maintaining our wealth and our leadership in technology. We have reason to be concerned. From a May, 2010 National Science Board study:
- Compared to their U.S. counterparts, undergraduate students in foreign countries chose natural
science and engineering (NS&E) disciplines as their primary field of study at considerably higher
rates. According to the most recent data, 25 percent of undergraduates in the European Union,
47 percent in China, and 38 percent in South Korea chose an NS&E major, compared to only
16 percent of U.S. undergraduates.- This trend continues further along the STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics] pipeline: 33 percent of all U.S. STEM doctoral students in U.S. universities are foreign students on temporary visas, and 57 percent of U.S. postdoctoral fellows in STEM fields hold temporary visas.
The Chinese and Indian economies have been booming and those countries are becoming richer. They are making investments in science and technology. From a May, 2007 National Science Board study
Closer to the science base, multinational firms are moving R&D functions and laboratories to Asian locations. In doing so, they seek not only lower costs but also solid access to markets and well-trained personnel. Asian governments also are boosting their R&D investments.
Well-trained labor forces are expanding rapidly in developing and newly developed countries. The number of people in the world with a post-high-school education has nearly tripled since 1980, with the fastest growth occurring in Asia, including a doubling of both China’s and India’s percentages. Along with Europe, Asia made especially rapid strides in the graduation of new degree holders in engineering and the natural sciences, and these two regions are producing the bulk of doctorate holders in these fields.
America is deeply in debt. We have to get our finances in order and establish a firm foundation for a first class economy. It may assuage Powell’s exploitative condescension to believe an influx of illiterate immigrants doing slop jobs is a sure bet for our future. It isn’t. Anyway, the immigration issue is about uncontrolled immigration and border security. We welcome immigrants who come here legally from anywhere in the world and are ready to contribute their talents to keep America a world leader. We are a nation of immigrants but today’s economy isn’t like the time of the mass migration to America in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Today we have to be the land of opportunity for scientists and other educated immigrants and not so much about day laborers.
We can’t coast into the future on borrowed money and think a future generation of immigrants will save us. We have a major DIY project that is urgent. Powell offers a dishonest excuse for political pandering to a demographic group.
Jobs I held while in High School:
window washer,
dishwasher,
gardener,
Jobs I held while in College:
gardener,
busboy,
waiter,
boat yard laborer,
lifeguard (ok, it wasn’t all bad)
Youth of America, turn off the video games and learn the work ethic.
And have fun too!
I did delivery work for a messenger service and janitorial work for a convalescent home. The former I really enjoyed, and I wouldn’t mind doing it forever. I guess the latter built character or something. I was glad when that one ended. This was before Americans weren’t supposed to do those jobs.
I don’t have the details on tap, so I’m speaking vaguely off the top of my head, but I’m recalling that Teddy Kennedy and other architects of changes of our immigration policies from the 1960’s were concerned that America was a “brain drain” of foreign talent, and thus educated immigrants were detrimental to the nations from which they departed. Meanwhile, local agitators like Jesse Jackson complained about the good jobs that would have gone to his constituency if they hadn’t been snapped up by immigrants. And it seems our local culture has shifted away from “hard” sciences. When I attended Starfleet Academy, it was a majority culture of geeky American males of Caucasian and Asian ethnicity who had largely come from public schools. These days there’s much less influence from heartland America or public schools. Likewise, in the technical work I do these days, more often than not I’m dealing with people who are new to America. I’m not pointing this out as a matter of racism; I understand we’re a nation of immigrants (I’m 2nd generation myself). We see in many immigrants a work ethic and a family ethic and an appreciation of America that has receded from swaths of our native culture. Have we sunk so low that we can’t do our own work anymore, either the menial tasks or the brainy stuff? Yes, immigrants are part of America, but if this is merely to balance our national sloth, then there is no more America to become a part of.
Isn’t Strollin’ Colin breaking the law by knowingly hiring illegal immigrants to work for dog hole wages on his garage door?
[…] writer for Tammy Bruce’s website provides a powerful rebuttal, which I suggest you read in its entirety. Beyond the issues raised by Powell’s critics, there’s also the question of whether the […]
so, we need immigration so the upper classes can have a larger pool of slave laborers?
the industry i work in- food service – is almost entirely illegal immigrant labor. all it has done is driven down wages for trained , schooled serious professionals and caused a degradation in quality and food safety . a restaurant hires dishwashers and necessity forces the few competent people present to have to fashion them into a staff of chefs. i’ve been confronted with adults who cannot even read spanish whom i was suppose to teach how to bake and dishwashers speaking unidentifiable indigenous dialects ( but no spanish) whom i am somehow suppose to instruct on proper sanitation. it has never once been considered that i should be given staff members who understand basic english and can read a recipe but more than once it has been pointed out that i am not fluent in spanish.
over the past 10 years i have further seen a degradation in the work ethic of these employees. because of years of being protected by liberal policies structured to their needs, they are more focused on working the system to their advantage- and getting all they can get. perhaps it’s generational but these are not the same hard working immigrants i worked with in the 80’s. everything is handed to them- why should they work for it?
my grandfather was a police detective back when they made less than postal employees. his second job for decades was grounds keeper for a wealthy woman. and he never complained that it was beneath him . if american workers weren’t driven out of sundry jobs by cheaper more easily disposable and exploitable illegal labor, maybe people like colin powell would see more of them coming to trim their hedges and put up that addition to the house.
at least in france as a pastry chef my talents would be recognized and rewarded appropriately- not viewed as something any illiterate ex-llama herder/dishwasher can be taught to do in 3 days through pantomime. whole areas of traditionally skilled working class labor have been systematically devalued and demeaned by liberal morons most of whom have never worked an honest day in their lives- so they can have an even larger pool of automaton voters who will never question them or threaten their power. there’s nothing liberals loves more than a gelded ,down and out middle class with a half -assed biased useless liberal arts education (who agree with them on everything ,always) and a cowed, sub- literate fear driven serf/criminal class.
hasn’t powell degraded himself enough by supporting obama? go away. just go away, RINO.
Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about the real problem that we face. The U.S., in order to be a strong and vibrant nation, needs to have strong and vibrant neighbors. Mexico is a rich nation, full of natural resources, beautiful beaches, and mineral wealth. Mexicans are a decent and good people by and large. But Mexico is a corrupt, weak and chaotic nation. America will never be beyond this issue until Mexico cleans house and restores itself to the kind of country that its citizens can be proud of and want to stay. I am absolutely for a strong border and I completely agree with what Arizona is doing…but it won’t solve the long range problem that is Mexico. I don’t know what the answer is, but that is our ultimate challenge regarding this issue.