Live from the Nuke Free Zone

Tomorrow I’ll be attending the Centre County Democratic Party’s monthly breakfast.  It’s more of a social event than a working event — it builds party bonds and attracts new people.  However, we also have a speaker — I may blog on the discussion next week — and tomorrow’s topic will be immigration.  This topic has been in the news recently: some months ago the Senate passed a bill with bipartisan support, led by Senators John McCain (R) and Ted Kennedy (D), that addressed a wide array of immigration issues, including border enforcement and normalization of status for the millions of illegal immigrants who live and work in this country, forming an important part of our economy.  While there are honest problems that can be cited with the bill, such as its creation of a permanent nonvoting labor class, in general a bill with such support is probably going to be a good bill.

The Republican majority in the House, ever the guardian of political nonsense, disagreed, and from its own efforts on the topic emerged an “enforcement-only” bill that would have poured enormous sums into fortifying the border, and spent countless man-hours chasing down nonviolent laborers.  This appealed to the jingoistic nationalists at the core of the party’s support, but did very little to address the real issues.  Rather than go through the difficult process of reconciling the two bills, the House declared a summerlong series of “public hearings” that consisted of little more than fearmongering scripted events, delaying action long enough to be able to table the bill entirely and ignore the issue.
Recent readers will know that agricultural issues are an interest of mine.  Though a born city boy, I recognize that enormous swathes of the country, in population as well as geography, are rural and concerned for their livelihood with the array of issues that surrounds farming, ranching, forestry, and related industries.  Of course, I am concerned with those issue too, being a person who enjoys activities like eating and breathing, but from a political point of view I strongly urge Democrats to familiarize themselves with the economic and social repercussions of those issues: though the mix of urban, suburban and rural population is shifting in our country, we cannot continue to rely on the urban cores of a few select states and expect to with Presidental races, much less Congressional races.  The party’s “50-state Strategy” is one I applaud greatly.

And here, I think, we see an opportunity.  Pocketbook issues are important to everyone.  Social Security and Medicare are vital issues in the less-affluent, older-aged heartland, and a hardline stance on immigration hits the pocketbook of real farmers.   Immigrant workers play a vital role in the agricultural economy, especially at the labor-intensive harvest time in fruit and vegetable crops that cannot be machine-harvested.

From the New York Times:

Now harvest time has passed and tons of pears have ripened to mush on their branches, while the ground of Mr. Ivicevich’s orchard reeks with rotting fruit. He and other growers in Lake County, about 90 miles north of San Francisco, could not find enough pickers.

Stepped-up border enforcement kept many illegal Mexican migrant workers out of California this year, farmers and labor contractors said, putting new strains on the state’s shrinking seasonal farm labor force.

Labor shortages have also been reported by apple growers in Washington and upstate New York. Growers have gone from frustrated to furious with Congress, which has all but given up on passing legislation this year to create an agricultural guest-worker program.

Do they think they’re protecting American jobs?  Americans don’t want these jobs.  A farmer interviewed for the NYTimes article said,“I would have raised my wages [up to $150 per day, said the statistic quoted] … But there weren’t any people to pay.”   Look around the news: more Americans of working age are choosing not to work, living off of savings and debt, when they can only find jobs below their level of qualification.  Yes, this economy is creating jobs: jobs that pay at or near a minimum wage whose value has unconscionably eroded, or that are dangerous or mind-numbing.  If your politicians boast that our economy is doing well and creating jobs, remember what they’re glossing over: for people who aren’t rich, the economy is lousy and the jobs aren’t so hot either.
From the U.S. Newswire:

Maureen Torrey, 11th generation farmer from Elba, NY, and Co- Chairman of United Fresh echoed the sentiments of growers across the country, “The choice is simple: import needed labor or import our food. Agriculture needs access to a legal and stable workforce. Secure America’s borders, but please pass immigration reform. Without it, we’ll be outsourcing farm jobs and endangering our food supply.”

Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform (ACIR), an organizer of the rally, acknowledged that labor shortages and even crop loss are already occurring. “We have had reports of shortages from coast to coast, from north to south, and crop losses in oranges, pears, blueberries, and other crops,” he said. ACIR and the United Fresh Produce Association support increased border security, but want to ensure that immigration legislation does not leave American growers and farmers behind. ACIR and United Fresh support reforming the H-2A program, to meet the special needs of agriculture and allowing trained and trusted farm workers a chance to earn legal status.

“American agriculture needs Congress to step up now,” said Tom Stenzel, President & CEO of the United Fresh Produce Association. “Time is running out. We need comprehensive immigration reform, or American farms will fail and American jobs will be lost.”

More and more it becomes clear: the Democratic Party needs to go to those Republican strongholds, where good old boys with dirt under their fingernails have been hearing the Republicans crack jokes about effete city politicians that don’t know a farrow from a barrow, and never a peep in response.  We need to go where we haven’t been, and declare that we’ve got ideas about real problems that face rural voters.  Republicans can try scare tactics, and they’ll work if no one stands up to them: we have honest stands.  Immigration isn’t just about keeping out foreigners, it’s about getting farmers the labor they need in a way that keeps our borders secure.  Taxes aren’t just about tacking money out of a man’s profits, they’re about funding schools and fire departments and the million other services rural areas need (and need more than city areas, where it’s easier for a kid to walk to school and a fire truck can cover a denser area).  Social Security and Medicare aren’t bogeymen of liberalism, they pay real money to people that have earned it, contributing all their lives, and help them buy medicines they need (and could do it better if not hobbled by silly restrictions on how to negotiate drug prices).

We have real ideas.  We have real issues.  We’re more than scare tactics and bigotry.  Take the fight to Republican turf and show rural voters the Democrats mean business!