Saturday, January 03, 2004

 
Downer Kow-Tows

What must it be like to have some mental block regarding immigration? Is there not even some hippocampal hiccup that reaches the conscious mind when that subject is suppressed? Within the past day or so, (a day not unlike so many others) the (Red)Star Tribune editors gushed about the likely arrival from refugee camps of some 12-14 thousand Hmong in Minnesota, Paul Krugman bemoaned the weak job market(I suspect the bastard is right about that), and a segment of National Public Radio was devoted to discussion of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" without mention of any adverse effects of immigration. Da guy on NPR noted that only about 12 pages of "The Jungle"(gee, I wonder if historians of a thousand years from now will mistranslate the title as something like "The Rainforest"?)were devoted to disgusting practices in the meat industry, and that while he was pleased that his work led to legislation regulating that industry, he had hoped that attention would have also been paid to the plight of the involved workers (many of whom were said to be immigrants). U. Sinclair was said to have said that he had intended to touch people's "hearts," but only reached their "stomachs."
It's disappointing that Roy Beck's book, "The Case Against Immigration" isn't cited more often. He described the destruction of middle-class meat cutting jobs by immigration. I wouldn't expect much protection of our food supply from "whistle-blowers" from the ranks of slaughterhouse workers, whether or not "undocumented."
An idle, useless conjecture: Would the PETA types be happier if those who insisted on consuming cows ate *only* "downer cows?" Hardeeharharhoho.
Can't do much with the title......too many "kow-tow" before the "emperors" of respectable opinion on the matter of immigration.....the whole thing is something of a "downer," man.....