REP. CONYERS TO FUNNYMAN: 'I'm asking you to leave the committee room completely, and submit your statement'... MORE... Rep. Lofgren steps in: 'Many are eager to hear his comments' ... Colbert mugs: 'I'm here at the invitation of the chairwoman, and if she would like me to remove myself from the hearing room I am happy to do so. I'm only here at her invitation'...What a screwup!
Here's Colbert on his show last night horsing around about it.
UPDATE: Colbert did go on. Here's his 5 minutes of testimony... in character as a right-wing blowhard ninny:
It's quite hilarious to look at the faces of the members of the committee as they don't laugh at his jokes... because they have to take these things seriously. It's all so painfully awkward. Colbert looks pretty awkward too. He's not hamming it up comically as he normally does on his show.
Now, the point of his testimony is something that you used to hear said a lot more: that illegal immigration fills jobs that Americans won't do. Colbert, of course, doesn't want to be a farm worker. (The joke is that he tried that work for a day.) The reason you don't hear this argument so much anymore is that unemployment is so high. Is Colbert's effort to revive the old argument effective? I don't know. I think it's really creepy to talk about non-Americans as good for demeaning or brutal labor that is beneath us.
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137 comments:
Congress continues to beclown itself. And the bar is already set very low.
Shit, that's no screw-up - that's smart. They finally came to their senses. Considering what he did at Bush's White House Correspondents Dinner, there's no telling what he would've done to these losers in that venue. I respect Colbert more for this: they're afraid of him.
That's a sign of a good comedian.
I do find Colbert funny. What is strange is they would invite him to this hearing, in character. But I am well beyond being that surprised by the strange dealings of Congress anymore.
Tried to tune in to Colbert but found the House on C-Span. DOJ lawyer Coates opening statement about the NBP case, etc. was devastating.
Q& A session in progress. People will lose jobs over this, no doubt.
The Christopher Coates testimony before the Civil Right Commission is now showing live on C-SPAN.
The Obama administration will have a lot of explaining to do after Coates' testimony. No wonder they wanted the Colbert sideshow to distract people who would otherwise watch Coates' testimony.
I assumed that Colbert testifying before Congress was a joke (i.e. he wasn't really going to testify). What's this about? What was he testifying about, for crying out loud?
Control of the message starts with excluding any other voices from the public square. Speaker's corner. Marble Arch is NOT a part of the liberties allowed to us by the Criminal Political Class in DC. When is the next election?
The only thing that will happen after DOJ lawyer Chris Coates testifies, is that he'll be called a racist.
Colbert is only funny to those who like the constant mocking of conservatives. Has Colbert EVER mocked a liberal?
"The House Judiciary subcommittee hearing is about migrant farm workers and is touching on the so-called AgJOBS bill, a proposal that would give illegal immigrant farm workers a pathway to legal status."
And Colbert adds to the discussion how???
I'm surprised at how pissed off this is making me. Governing isn't a joke. Can't Congress at least try to appear to be serious?
AllenS,
We'll see. Corruption gets rooted out even during those corrupt Administrations all the time. If you need a cynical lens to look through, remember that there are people's careers on the line who are going to want nothing to do with the DOJ sleaze-balls. Rats desert a sinking ship, and Coates just blasted a couple torpedoes at the S.S. Holder.
(Of course, Holder himself will only take the fall if a lot more comes out. But there are at least three individuals being repeatedly mentioned by Coates who sound seriously corrupt/racially- motivated.)
I think a good Republican would have allowed him to testify, then made a mockery of those who brought him to "testify".
I'm still at a loss for words to describe how I feel about the fact that the Dems brought a comedian to testify in character about something in which he's not even remotely involved.
I think this is one of those weep-for-the-Republic moments.
Colbert is a misdirection play made by a desperate democrat party trying to drown out the Black Panther bomb that's about to explode.
To no avail...
How will Colbert ever overcome being upstaged by Zoe Lofgren? Comedy Central will drop Colbert pick up Congressional hearings. Did Colbert ever come up with something as funny as Guam capsizing? NO! Plus, Comedy Central won't have to pay Congress anything.
Forget where I saw it, but, since it was already common knowledge, Colbert was going to "testify" in character, what the Hell else did they expect?
Considering the Lefties have been using people like him (Wifty Goldberg, Sykes, etc.) to do hit pieces on Republicans and Conservatives and validate their positions because they're cool and funny and hip - which must make them smart - for a dozen years or so, this is long overdue.
Nice that both parties are hoist on their own petard.
Alex,
Has Colbert EVER mocked a liberal?
He doesn't let NewAgers off easy, I know that.
Lincolntf,
I'd like to think so, but I'm not hopeful. Wait for the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus to weigh in.
Is it possible that John Conyers and the democrats are monitoring Fox News so as not to get caught flat-footed?
What exactly compelled Conyers to try and shut him up?
I don't think Conyers has ever watched Colbert.. this had to come from some place.
"Governing isn't a joke. Can't Congress at least try to appear to be serious?"
That went out the window with Senator Al Franken.
He was out of his element, not funny.
And the Althouse-linked video of him doing farm work did show that he's not cut out for farm work. Which by comparative association, was his intention.
Has anyone here performed farm work?
In related news, Obama is naming his horse to head up the Department of Justice.
I can see the GOP campaign ads now...funny that Conyers is the one who finally saw the problem!
Has anyone here performed farm work?
Me. After my full time job, I'd come home and put up hay.
Hilarious beyond words. Some people need to lighten up and just enjoy the show. Colbert is a picaresque novel filmed though a fun-house lens -- the sort of thing Henry Fielding might have written if he were around today. The end, where Colbert rejoices for flunking out as a migrant worker and has his driver (Pablo, of course) drive him away in a Hummer-like limo is priceless, So was Dead-Pan Sam throughout.
Colbert's mockery here is a pretty good counter-example to those who say Colbert doesn't mock liberals. His humor was both broad and spot-on -- it was just the mockery that all the die-hard lefties deserved who used to troop off to Cuba to harvest sugar cane as part of the Vinceramos brigades, and them come back to campus thinking their week-long jaunt gave them real Revolutionary cred. Too bad they never got it back when.
Some people need to lighten up and just enjoy the show.
Yes! More bread! More circus!
all the die-hard lefties deserved who used to troop off to Cuba to harvest sugar cane as part of the Vinceramos brigades, and them come back to campus thinking their week-long jaunt gave them real Revolutionary cred. Too bad they never got it back when.
Try not to out yourself has the disgruntled libtard who never got the respect he deserved for sucking Che's cock.
Has anyone here performed farm work?
Yeah. Put up hay, cut and hanged tobacco, run cows (on foot). Unless you're the guy on the tractor, it's harder than hell. Farming is also one of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S.
I've done mostly ranch work. Mostly cotton and cattle. But I dont consider that to be the same as a farm.
My mother-in-law grew up on a real farm. The stories she tells... start with waking up at 4am every day and working non-stop till bedtime.
Has anyone here performed farm work?
Yeah, the summer of '79. After that I decided to get an academic education.
Some people need to lighten up and just enjoy the show.
Hopefully you mean Colbert's show and not Congress.
Has anyone here performed farm work?
Me. As a young adult, I worked in the apricot and prune orchards in the Santa Clara Valley. Picking fruit. Cutting the 'cots for drying. Stacking the trays. Assembling the smoking tents.
Parts of it was hard work, picking the fruit especially. Other parts not as physically demanding but still hard work in the sun: standing for hours and bending over a lot.
What is your point?
Althouse! You must start a thread on Chris Coates' testimony! History demands it!
I picked lettuce. Also peaches and lemons. Also did a little hay, throwing bales onto tractor-trains. But I was kid full of energy, not a man supporting a family from dawn to dusk.
We got paid by the box or bushel, and for a youngster then wandering around the country, I could actually make a decent day's pay - when I hustled. (And I usually hustled.)
Farm work wasn't the toughest
job I ever had - but it certainly wasn't easy.
So, what's the hardest physical job you ever experienced?
Has anyone here performed farm work?
Does cow tipping count?
The comments here by people who have done farm work attesting to how hard it is gets to Colbert's point: the immigrants hired by farmers to help get in their crops are denigrated by the immigration nuts as being pernicious to America, yet they do the brutally hard work that needs doing, at lower wages than many Americans would work for.
If many of these laborers are illegals, they're here because the farmers want them here...they pay them to be here. Without them, the farmers would be hard-pressed to affordably to get in their crops.
Lower wages to these illegals means lower food prices for Americans! Hooray!
Farm work wasn't the toughest
job I ever had
Me, neither. Unloading 130 lb. burlap sacks of coffee beans off of boxcars in the summer gets that honor. Stuff like that is great motivation for going to college.
Infantryman is harder than farm work. I've done both.
Libtard: denigrated by the immigration nuts as being pernicious to America
No, the "nuts" just think the illegal immigrants should come here legally.
yet they do the brutally hard work that needs doing, at lower wages than many Americans would work for.
Thats another lie.
What is your point?
Just a little perspective, is all. Also, if you watched Colbert's video of him trying his hand at farm work, it comes off as mocking rather than funny.
It's a hard life, picking and packing, a life better understood when necessity brings you to the field.
Infantryman is harder than farm work.
I disgree. I've done both (USMC 3D LAR) and found farm work to be harder.
But the toughest I had was working for UPS as a loader while I was in college.
the immigrants hired by farmers to help get in their crops are denigrated by the immigration nuts as being pernicious to America
You left out the important part of your sentence. ILLEGAL.
ILLEGAL immigrants who are working for less, depress wages for legal citizens, pay no taxes, don't carry insurance required by the rest of us...... and suck up the social resources that those of us who do pay taxes and who get NO benefits of the freebies provide. Free medical. Free food stamps. Subisdized housing. Free use of the schools because they pay no taxes. Special treatment because they can't/refuse speak English.
This is the rub.
ILLEGAL immigrants who are breaking the laws and the employers who are aiding and abetting the law breaking.
Fen,
11BRAVO. I've never been shot on the farm.
Libtard: Lower wages to these illegals means lower food prices for Americans! Hooray!
Lower prices? Why not just steal the food we need, since you think its cool to ignore the laws we dont like...
Allen: 11BRAVO. I've never been shot on the farm.
I have :)
"The House Judiciary subcommittee hearing is about migrant farm workers and is touching on the so-called AgJOBS bill, a proposal that would give illegal immigrant farm workers a pathway to legal status."
And Colbert adds to the discussion how???
Yeah, I had heard he was coming, which is bad enough but in a world where celebrities regularly testify to congress on various pet causes I wasn’t completely surprised, but I figured he was going to talk about media or some such thing. What could he have to offer on agjobs/immigration that bob off the street doesn’t?
Conyers was the one who held the fantasy camp impeachment hearings for Bush. And now he wants things to be serious and dignified?
TW: "rabble" I shit you not.
If they want someone to testify on illegal immigration, they should invite Borat.
If employers weren't under the crushing burden of idiotic and expensive rules, regulations, mandates etc....they might be able to hire summer help and put to work young adults who are now represent the highest percentage of cronically unemployed. They might be able to keep people employed year round at entry level jobs. They can't do this.
It used to be that every high school student could get a summer job in agriculture or in some other temporary occupation.
As a business owner, the rules make it prohibitive and unattractive to hire anyone, much less teens for temporary part time work.
The result of the draconian and expensive regulations is that businesses WILL hire "under the table" in an attempt to survive. They will do what they have to do to continue to be in business.
If the government would just butt things would be much much better for everyone.
So other than a smokescreen to let the media talk about something other than Coates, what the hell was the point of all this?
WV: rantshic. So close! One letter off.
(The Crypto Jew)
If many of these laborers are illegals, they're here because the farmers want them here...they pay them to be here. Without them, the farmers would be hard-pressed to affordably to get in their crops.
Lower wages to these illegals means lower food prices for Americans! Hooray!
To an extent Cookie, but labour represents only about 7-10% of food costs, so it is true that cheap labour yields lower prices, but not necessary dramatically lower prices.
And it’s called “Capitalism” for a reason…we use CAPITAL. Farmers using artificially cheap labour, isn’t really capitalism, is it? My point here is limit, because you can never fully END, illegal immigration, and watch labour costs rise, forcing farmers to adopt more capital-intensive farming, rather than labour-intensive farming. Cesar Chavez unionized tomato pickers, OK, drove up the cost of labour, OK, so now there is mechanized tomato farming in the Central Valley.
All these folks complaining about “who will pick the broccoli” can be answered by, who picks apples? Oh that’s right that is partially mechanized now….What was AT7T’s fear in the 1920’s, not enough womyn, to be telephone operators. Well, automated switching took care of that “fear.”
Bottom-line: limit illegal immigration, see labour costs rise, see food prices rise less fast, and watch farmers, meat packers, roofers, and the like adopt more labour efficient methods of operation.
AllenS, as a compromise between 11B and farm labour, I’d suggest it depends…11B in war-time or combat…11B hands down, as you say you’re not going to get shot on a farm…peacetime, you’re aren’t going to get shot, and farm labour IS hard work, and though you may die in training, it’s true farm work is one of the most dangerous civilian occupations, more dangerous-on average-than coal mining.
And Colbert adds to the discussion how???
He distracts from the DOJ testimony that Team Obama refuses to investigate civil rights violations against white people.
The distraction is working. Everyone is talking about Colbert instead of Coates.
I doubt Ann will cover it. Its too close to her position that one type of racial slur is worse than the others.
If many of these laborers are illegals, they're here because the farmers want them here...they pay them to be here. Without them, the farmers would be hard-pressed to affordably to get in their crops.
Lower wages to these illegals means lower food prices for Americans! Hooray!
Exploitation, pure and simple. If tomatoes were oil, you'd be constantly hectoring us about the evils of Big Farm.
reminds me of the time the dimocrats called Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange and Sally Field to testify on the problems Farms were facing at the time...Lange and Field should have been charged with perjury since the only real farms they had seen were the one's they flew over...plus I wonder if the real story is Conyers pissed Zoe for going after Conyers cronies Waters & Rangel with the ethics charges......naahhh
When I was in high school in 1970 I could go into a local coffee shop and get a job as a bus boy, making $1.65 an hour plus about $3 in tips for an eight-hour shift. My eighteen-year-old son cannot do this. Why would anyone hire a kid who has never worked when he can hire a thirty-year-old Mexican man for the same money? Even if he were accepted as a candidate for the job, my son doesn't speak enough Spanish to be able to work with the solidly Mexican crew in virtually every restaurant in California. This isn't work Americans won't do. It's work Americans are frozen out of.
If you recall, back in the 80's the Democrats also invited bimbo actresses such as Jane Fonda and Sissy Spacek to testify about the hardships faced by farmers, based on their vast experience playing farm-wife roles in movies.
They don't have a very high opinion of the citizens, do they? "Bread and circuses" for the modern age. What an insult.
Watched the clip. He had some funny lines. His essential (read: serious) message was pretty standard.
His best lines were about not reading bills and bipartisanship.
Ok folks, show's over....move along now
Any comment on Christopher Coates' testimony about the corruption at the DOJ? That's the REAL story of the day, not some phony comic appearing before Congress. And yet, most of the media and the commentariat as taken the bait and been distracted. Christopher Who?
I think the Dems were on to how many people were questioning why he was on Capitol hill so turning Colbert's 'testimony' into a clusterfu** is probably an even better distraction from Coates testimony since it gives the apperance of being news-worthy.
Mission accomplished.
Reporting on Coates testimony will open you up to a charge of racism.
I have long said that we fundamentally misapprehend the real problem there. The real issue isn’t illegal immigrants as workers, so much as that it is a black market for labor.
Any student of history knows that when regulations on anything becomes too onerous or expensive, or the thing is banned outright, a black market inevitably arises. Whether it is banning drugs, or price controls on products, you can expect a market to grow up to avoid enforcement of the law.
Now it is harder because of transactional costs to create a black market for labor, ordinarily. You have to develop a system of matching those willing to do the illegal work with those willing to hire. But the illegal immigrant community provides a ready pool of people willing to work illegally—because technically they are not suppose to work here at all. And you can be sure they won’t come back later and sue you for wages you should have paid, because most of them are too scared to be that open. And of course they have developed a system of collectivizing the labor itself, hanging out at Home Depots and the like. Transaction problems solved.
So why the black market for labor? Well, because of things like the minimum wage, required health care benefits, payroll taxes and on and on. and once an industry goes down that road of widespread hiring of illegal workers, it is hard to get out of it. After all, if you run a construction company and you decide to only hire legal immigrants, you are going to be at a significant competitive disadvantage.
So next time congress talks about giving you, as a worker, “new rights” you should relabel that law “the full employment of illegal aliens act.”
And yes, the entire “Americans won’t do this job” meme has a creepy racial undertone.
Finally, Stephen Colbert should have had enough class and respect for the institution of congress to drop his act and speak in serious tones. I am not saying there is no room for joking, but suggesting you put your colonoscopy (sp?) into the record was disrespectful. But then the committee disrespected itself by calling him in the first place.
I have a wild idea. Bear with me here, I'm still thinking it through. The idea is we should have two Congresses.
We keep the current batch of clowns we have. Heck, we even cancel elections, so they can keep their seats for life. We let them keep their current budgets, staffs, lavish offices, etc. Let them get up and make elaborate speeches, host comedians, whatever.
But we take away their legislative powers. And then we elect a second Congress. We give them tiny little offices, a small budget, and the power to legislate. We build in incentives, where they get paid based on measurable factors like the deficit, the unemployment rate, etc. We'd have to argue for a while to decide what the proper measures are.
We let the clowns keep running their circus; but then we hire adults to run the government.
(I'm kidding, of course. But apparently, so is Congress.)
The former head of the civil rights division just testified that Obama's cronies there will not enforce the law in a race neutral manner and all we get is Colbert on all of the news and blog sites.
Hopefully everyone will catch up by tomorrow.
But gosh, who would have thought someone who sat in the right Reverends Wright's church could be capable of such a thing. Hardly seems possible.
the Dems brought a comedian to testify in character about something in which he's not even remotely involved.
Wait till you find out how much it cost.
Shutup Whitey!
My suggestion for a witness to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming come 2011.
Rep. Sensenbrenner, are you listening?
Professor, you're from Wisconsin, maybe you can suggest that to him.
(though I assume T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII would NOT APPROVE. DECORUM!!)
When I was growing up I went to school with kids from white picker families.
It is not true that only Mexicans will do this work. Donald Trump would pick--if you paid him enough.
And that's the rub right there. Legal immigrants and citizens have to be paid minimum wage and their payroll taxes have to paid. You do not have to do this for illegals.
Any "path to legalization" is going to mean that this loophole is closed for those illegals who choose to take it. The illegals who don't take it will get the jobs, because the ones who did know have to be paid minimum wage and the employer has to pay their payroll taxes.
Every gas station has the technology to determine if you have a fake credit card, and credit card fraud is generally detected right away. Why aren't Social Security cards like that, with a magnetic stripe and your picture on it? How hard would that be?
Fen --
"In related news, Obama is naming his horse to head up the Department of Justice."
Bwahahaha! Funny and deeply true.
Almost Ali--
"So, what's the hardest physical job you ever experienced?"
Lumber mill. Dangerous as well.
My ancestors - or rather relatives of my ancestors - began emigrating to the U.S. in the 1820's. They helped dig the feeders to the Erie Canal and then the first railroads and other work that was too hard and low paid, so that the Americans did not want to do it themselves. They settled in northern New York and Pennsylvania and around the Great Lakes.
After 1850, when times got cold and hard in the old country, the immigration became a flood. They busted the sod on the prairies and helped build the transcontinental railroads. They were clannish and held to themselves, wrote home for brides rather than marry strangers and kept speaking their native language rather than English. In some communities west of Chicago, the "American" storekeepers and businessmen had to learn to speak a kind of Scandihoovian pidgin in order to do business right up to World War II.
Of course, in those days there was no such thing as an "illegal" immigrant - that was not invented until WWI loomed, except for "celestials," of course - all it took was enough money for a ticket in steerage and the will to survive.
I have a boring technical question: Did Colbert take an oath prior to testifying, like the hoi polloi? And if so, was he taking it as Stephen Colbert, or "Stephen Colbert?"
Watching the Dems designated distractor, Rep. Yaki, trying to kill time is hilarious. The Dems know that their decades of ginning up racial animus have finally come back to haunt them. Good. The wretched slugs have been profiting from the misery of slavery for generations.
(I love my DVR, I'll be able to play back all the real quotes when the MSM distorts/ignores them.)
Thats a good question, pct.
Instapundit: I expect the usual JournoList types to provide cover ...but I’m kind of surprised to see so many people who should know better [coughAnnAlthousecough] taking the bait on a non-story about a fictional character.
Well never worked on a farm but I spent five years at US Steel spraying refractory gunnite on 2500 degree furnances to maintain the lining.
That was pretty tough work. I went from a buff 190lbs to 175 in about three months. Have a few nice burn scars to tell the grandkids about. I'm guessing tomato picking doesn't quite match up as 'brutally hard' in my book. Then again I suppose for guys like Colbert and Robert Cook, weeding your rose garden probably counts as brutal work.
Our ruling class has no appetite for humor with the pitchforks bearing down on them. Imagine the hysteria in the Imperial City as zero hour draws near.
@Allen:
"Infantryman is harder than farm work. I've done both."
I've known kids who ran away from dairy farming and thought the infantry was quite comfortable. When asked why? "At least I get 30 days leave a year in the Army..them damn cows are 24/7 365 forever." When you think about it you have to remember that the cows don't get Xmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, etc off and they aren't seasonal.
Just sayin'.....
I wouldn't know I was 97B40.
Great. The Roman Senate st least got the whole horse - all we got was the horses's ass.
I gave up taking Congress seriously when they decided that a 'palpable mass' on Roger Clemen's ass from steroid use required intensive Congressional hearings.
Now their listening to 'testimony' from a third rate comedian from Comedy Central. Talk about your jump the shark moment.
Every single one of them aren't worth a bucket a spit as far as I'm concerned.
Hey, when everything falls apart, can we please tar and feather these guys in the public square?
My husband's hardest job:
Choke setter for his father's logging firm, which at the time was logging old growth Redwood in the Humbolt mountains. Those logs are BIG and hard to throw choke around. He was in great shape then, though :-) and still is.
Spent 3 months on a ranch in Nebraska once, setting fence and haying, and went from a buff 175 lbs. to 190 while still maintaining a 33 inch waist.
Lars,
I worked as a pressman on a four color web offset press. 4 weeks of days, then 4 weeks of afternoons and then 4 weeks of midnights. The company I worked for moved and left me a 55 mile drive one way. During the winter when I had to feed the cattle hay, and I was on the day shift I would get up a 3:30 am and be in the barn at 4:00. Summertime was hay time. I'd put up hay before work or after work. If it rained, no hay that day. I was an Infantryman in Viet Nam. I carried everything that I owned on my back. Rain or shine. Presently, I'm putting a steel roof on my 2 story house. I'll be 64 in November. I'm dumber than an illegal. I guess.
Hey does anyone here think that your typical skinny twitter/emo kid could do arduous farm work?
The reader is encouraged to compare Althouse's comments to my post about Colbert's appearance. Which is actually effective? Why did I get so little help with my efforts to discredit Colbert and what he's pushing? Can you trust those who have a megaphone but who don't use it correctly?
Hey does anyone here think that your typical skinny twitter/emo kid could do arduous farm work?
Sure. Given the proper (ahem) encouragement.
I love those apocolyptic books where civilization has fallen apart and people need to actually work to contribute. There is always the whiny accountant or lawyer who thinks he is too good to wield a shovel or sully his hands. Generally, they find out if they want to eat....they will work.
I believe this was actually the reality faced and the solution that the Socialists at Jamestown came up with.
@Allen:
Let's see:
Farming
Blue collar work
Infantry man
Just more jobs Americans won't do. Some one needs to check your nationality.
Farm work means Harvest Time work done 7 days a week and 12 hours a day, and then crashing in the bunkhouse so tired that you sleep through the night until 5:30 AM and getting up so as not to miss a massive breakfast. I did this for two summers from Walla Walla to Yakima, Washington. Life was good then. American Graffiti was a reality show in the valleys then. Until suddenly the idiot LBJ decided to ship everyone my age off to a jungle in Viet Nam. I preferred the harvest work. The second summer, many of the girls we had Known the year before had "Married and gone north to Alaska", literally. The big high paid jobs were suddenly in building the Alaskan pipe line. I bet Palin's parents joined that migration too.
At the age of 14 I left home and traveled to another state alone to work in tobacco fields along side Puerto Rican migrant workers. Us gringo kids were the bottom of the food chain 1.25/hr - $.60/hr room and board = $.65/hr.
Those migrant workers taught me the uses for weed and switch blades - as in "Buy this weed or I'll cut you". It was the hardest work I ever did, but I wanted to buy a quality bicycle and my parents insisted I earn the money myself. I did, and I have not stopped working and earning since.
These kind of jobs have more value to our citizens than just the money. Our kids and poor need them at any pay. A human being that has worked hard, manual labor is simply superior in skills, understanding and wisdom over one that has not.
In addition Mexico needs it hard working people back home more than ever. I believe that nation's serious problems are a direct result of their best people coming to the U.S. by the millions for years, leaving behind the lazy, dependent and easily corrupted to ruin Mexico. Making it worse is the money they send back that feeds all the worse tendencies in people.
Anybody else work the tobacco fields of Connecticut in the early 70s.
The hardest job I ever had was deckhand on a halibut boat. Endless, hard physical labor on a pitching deck punctuated by four hours' sleep a day. Add to that being wet all the time.
We need to have Congress pass a emergency spending bill to buy Colbert a new act.
Yes, on Stewart he was hilarious. Very. And he was very funny on his own 3-4 years ago. Then funny, then amusing, then.....
Right about now it's old....
"ILLEGAL immigrants who are working for less, depress wages for legal citizens, pay no taxes, don't carry insurance required by the rest of us...."
Blame the farmers who hire them, and demand the farmers pay wages that Americans will accept...along with Social Security deductions, FICA withholding, etc.
Then cry when heads of lettuce skyrocket in price.
Lot o' hypocrisy flying 'round on this topic: we don't want them damned illegals using whatever meager services of ours they may, but we we're not willing to pay for food that is priced according to what fair labor wages would add to the cost.
Well, when our country collapses, we'll all be out there digging in the dirt, trying to grow some food!
Then cry when heads of lettuce skyrocket in price.
Again, Cook LABOUR IS A TINY FRACTION OF THE COST OF FOOD....
Lot o' hypocrisy flying 'round on this topic: we don't want them damned illegals using whatever meager services of ours they may, ....
Meager services he says! LOL!!!!!
That's ok Cookie. Its usually liberals like you who want the cheap labor for your cheap argula.
Well, when our country collapses, we'll all be out there digging in the dirt, trying to grow some food!
Hate to break this to you Cookie but a lot of us here in flyover land know how to grow our food already. Also know how to hunt for it, fish for it, dress it and cook it.
BTW, I'm with Lonewhacko.com on this: rather than supporting the farmers who wish to continue paying substandard wages to illegal immigrants, Colbert should be supporting the requirement that the farmers hire American workers, and pay the legally required wages for such workers, i.e., at least minimum wage.
At the same time, I sympathize with the illegal immigrants as human beings who are victims of global capitalism, trying to make what they can where they can. They're the disenfranchised dustbowl workers of Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
Pretty soon many of us will be in their huaraches.
For anyone interested in Coates' testimony, here it is, compliments of PJM: Full Text of Christopher Coates’ Testimony to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (PJM Exclusive).
I think that one of the things that is really scary here is that the NBPP dismissals is really the tip of the iceberg. Even under the Bush Administration, at least in the career employees in the Civil Rights Division, and in particular, the Voting Section, of the DoJ, have been strongly opposed to race neutral application of the voting provisions in the Civil Rights Act. The difference now, under Eric Holder, is that those opposed to race neutral application of the laws are now strongly supported from the top of the Department, and, likely, the top of the government.
The libs here, and elsewhere, constantly claim that there is no illegal voting since there are no successful prosecutions for it. But, it appears that that is self-confirming. If no investigations are made, because of a belief in the voting section of the CRD of the DoJ, because it would involve investigating Black controlled governments, then, of course, there aren't going to be any convictions.
Apparently, there are eight states that are in clear violation of Section 8 of the VRA of 1965 for failing to clean up their voter lists. And the DoJ has apparently taken the position that enforcement of this is discretionary, and therefore, they don't have to enforce this provision if it might harm minorities. For example, Noxubeee county, Miss., where Coates got the Ike Brown court win, currently has 130% more registered voters than adults of voting age.
This testimony may have been why Colbert was testifying today.
Libtard: but we we're not willing to pay for food that is priced
Still haven't answered my question. If you think its okay to break laws to work here, why isn't it also okay to break laws to eat?
You're arguing that its okay to steal work but not to steal food.
And you even used the word "hypocrisy"
Libtardism at its finest.
Ann!
For Pete's sake!
Chris Coates?
I have to go to work soon at my job Americans will do, and I don't want to miss the donnybrook.
wv: mallsm-- consumer-based Islam
Robert: At the same time, I sympathize with the illegal immigrants as-
No you don't. Its an Indulgence for you - caring about the "little brown people" as you zip off to Starbucks for another decaf latte.
"(though I assume T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII would NOT APPROVE. DECORUM!!)"
Funniest guy on the net. Wish he'd do more of him.
Second funniest guy?
Blame the farmers who hire them, and demand the farmers pay wages that Americans will accept...along with Social Security deductions, FICA withholding, etc.
Oh, I do. The employers who knowingly hire illegals are criminals and should be punished.
BUT I DEMAND that the ILLEGAL aliens be deported and/or become legal before they can be hired for work. And I do NOT mean amnesty.
They are criminals. Once they have gone through the legal process like other immigrants.....get a job anf pay their taxes.
I am definitely humbled by the rest of you here. My hardest job was working at a brick yard, where we stacked bricks all day, wet or dry. We would stack fewer of the wet ones at a time, but they weighed more and it neared 100% humidity right outside the pug mill. I would go to bed exhausted every night.
But what was interesting to me was that was the first place where I ran into a number of Mexican aliens (no one ever asked if they were legal or not - don't ask, don't tell was the order of the day back then).
The brickyard was east of Boulder, Co, and the owners had graduated from CU there. So, they always tried to hire college students. But they would last a day or two.
The Mexicans though worked hard, but seemed to enjoy it. They made it almost fun. The best part was when two of them would get into a race stacking the wet bricks coming out of the pug mill. Two of them would do the work of five of us for maybe 5 minutes, and then the rest of us would go back to work. And, then, maybe a half an hour or so later, another pair would race. Yet, I would still come back home wasted at night, too tired to do anything except eat and go to bed.
"...as you zip off to Starbucks for another decaf latte."
I don't drink decaf lattes, but regular coffee, which I buy from the coffee and donut cart on the corner near my job.
Hey! For all I know, the guy manning the cart could be an illegal! I may be helping an illegal steal services I'm paying for, while putting Americans out of work! Oy vey iz mir!
But then again...probably not.
Hoosier:
"I gave up taking Congress seriously when they decided that a 'palpable mass' on Roger Clemen's ass from steroid use required intensive Congressional hearings."
That was amazing, but I still can't think of Orin Hatch without thinking of pubic hair on a coke can. He must have said it 50 times.
(Translate this page)
Whatever those crazy gringos say, Juanita, if they are willing to give us all those benefits without asking where we are from - and they actually have laws prohibiting people from asking - it must mean that they want us. So get your stuff Juanita, and let's go to the U.S., there's nothing for us here.
I used to farm and the idea that we are supposed to blame the farmers that hire these people is ridiculous. I had to stop putting up small bales and go to large round bales because it was impossible to hire people to work in a hay field. Of course non farmers tell you that if you just pay people more than their labor is worth then everything will work out fine.
That is ridiculous. My grandparents went to California during the Depression to work in the migrant camps. Mexicans were literally shipped out of the country to make room for the Okies and as soon as the economy recovered enough that they could leave those fields, they did. And the migrants came back..and that was more than 70 years ago.
The number of people who do this work is not that great, in fact a guest worker program could probably cover it..much like the Bracero program that used to exist. Most illegals are not ag laborers anyway.
But the truth is that most Americans will not do this work and people can get pissed all they want, but I have never talked to anyone who actually went out of their way to get a job like this and if they did they thought they were being ripped off by producers.
After spending years in agriculture I can honestly say that most Americans do not want to do this kind of work..they would rather do just about anything than work in the hot sun for minimum wage...so maybe we can force those producers to pay so much that they can not compete with the cheaper food crossing the border, and then agriculture can be just one more American industry that bites the dust.
I've got news for you people in flyover land who grow your own food - it's probably just as toxic as industrially grown food. Do you test the soil for toxin levels?
I detasseled corn in Iowa one summer when I was seventeen. I hope that counts for sump'n'. ;^)
Bruce Hayden...That is the work that American teenagers will do. We know because you and I did it. One job was at the end of a cannery line stacking boxes onto a pallet. I calculated once that the weight I lifted everyday came to 38,300 lbs. But I made half of what the forklift operator made for sitting on his truck and watching me stack.
I've got news for you people in flyover land who grow your own food - it's probably just as toxic as industrially grown food.
So what.
If it is, then it doesn't matter. Does it?
"When the sun is shinin', I wanna tell you, that's the time to make hay"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIJPysaqSt0
"Instapundit: I expect the usual JournoList types to provide cover ...but I’m kind of surprised to see so many people who should know better [coughAnnAlthousecough] taking the bait on a non-story about a fictional character."
OUCH! So if I check now, will she have something up?
Has anyone here performed farm work?
I grew up on a farm, and worked my ass off - milking cows, baling hay & straw, feeding & watering animals, grinding feed, etc. (I also worked a couple summers detasseling seed corn - hot, dirty work, but at least I got paid doing that job.)
We had one family vacation in the 18 years I lived at home (b/c the cows have to be milked 365 days/year, twice a day).
Sometimes as a kid, I'd pray for rain so we'd get a day we couldn't go in the field, and could play ball instead.
It's also no wonder I went to college (first in my family ever) and got three degrees.
So Drudge said he didn't testify, but the clip shows he did? Perfect farce, huh?
My hardest job was at 18 years old, I got a job for $5.00 an hour in '69 or '70 as a bricklayer laborer.
I was in shape but the endless wheelbarrows filled to the brim with mortar or cement blocks or bricks all to be placed at the bricklayers feet... no matter where he was(up a scaffold or down in a pit) finally broke me just like Cool Hand Luke. heh
When I finally (cordially) quit, the bricklayer foreman started yelling at me that "sure, I wanted the big money but didn't want to do the work!"
I still hate that guy even to this day.
DBQ
"I love those apocolyptic books where civilization has fallen apart and people need to actually work to contribute."
Me, too. Any recommendations?
Crack, his correspondents' dinner schtick was funny, but the funniest part was how he had Scalia laughing his ass off.
SM Stirling: Dies the Fire (and that whole series)
Conquistador by Stirling. Alternate reality of a parallel California. That was really interesting to me because the area he wrote about is my home/stomping grounds.
Emergence by David Palmer (if you can find it)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
There are a lot more I can't think of them right now.
Another favorite series...not apocalyptic but very entertaining. The Many Colored Land and all that grouping by Julian May.
Have fun!
Oh...
I forgot
A Canticle for Lebowitz by Miller
Thanks, DBQ! I'll look for them on CD, also, for my dad, who has vision problems.
At the same time, I sympathize with the illegal immigrants as human beings who are victims of global capitalism, trying to make what they can where they can. They're the disenfranchised dustbowl workers of Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
Pretty soon many of us will be in their huaraches.
Now here's what I don't get. Over the last 30 years, both India and China, the most populous countries, have dramatically impacted their poverty and their economy by doing the work of western nations at lower cost...
And yet I'm not wearing huaraches. And as far as I know they're not in Canada or Europe. What gives!
(I DEMAND this be a ZERO-SUM GAME!!!)
illegal immigration fills jobs that Americans won't do.
Typical of liberal tripe, this only tells half the story. The full story is "illegal immigration fills jobs that Americans won't do for the wages they pay illegal immigrants which is often below minimum wage.
Of the farm work I used to do, putting up tobacco was the most profitable. 12 years ago you could make $8-$10 an hour. Poor rural folks would drive up and down the highways until they saw someone putting up tobacco and stop to see if they needed more help. You could pay for your family's Christmas or fix your car.
Then illegal immigrants came in large enough numbers that virtually all tobacco work was done by them at about half of what used to be paid. Plus, anyone on welfare could lose their welfare if caught working, even if only temporary work.
Funny how liberals support so strongly a system that drives down wages for so many while pretending to hate the rich who benefit the most from this. Liberals truly hate the average American.
Alex: I've got news for you people in flyover land who grow your own food - it's probably just as toxic as industrially grown food. Do you test the soil for toxin levels?
Heads up, Alex is not a conservative or Republican.
He's a Moby who wants to suck your balls. Be warned.
He wasn't that funny and it was a waste of time but nobody does anything in congress anyway except try to get reelected.
I would think that people could get the agriculture jobs but those jobs are often dealt with in cash - I have been paid cash to pick up rocks in farmer's fields and I was the only non Mexican in the bunch. - as someone said, it is capitalism at work - the owners like to hire illegals.
I think though that even those jobs will go to the desperate "legals" soon enough.
I'm generally pretty capitalist and no fan of big labor, but all that money we "save" in agriculture by using cheap illegal labor? We end up paying it any, via taxes, for things like border security, ER care for illegals, increased policing costs for illegal-heavy communities and welfare, UI and foodstamps for Americans priced out of the labor markets. That's just not sustainable, and anyway the price of food is not a major issue in America - rather, the over-consumption is.
Legal immigration into the US is insanely difficult, and illegal immigration is insanely easy - it just makes no sense. If labor becomes too tight, open up the tap and issue visas, probably some mix of temporary and permanent, but this anarchy cannot go on.
i work for a govt agency and i cant tell you how many times we get calls from companies telling us how illegals are gathering and selling social security numbers only to then claim id theft. Companies are not allowed to challenge them about their ss #. The income not only goes taxless but they claim just enough to get the earned income credit and they get a tax check for up to 4 grand.
You cant make this stuff up. And thanks to the people who are obsessed with being "nice" we can't report them to immigration.
I can't believe Colbert blew his own set-up by not asking for permission to Revise AND Extend his colon.
(sorry if someone's already noted this, as I didn't read all 122 comments)
Many interesting, hard-job experiences here. Thanks for sharing them, all.
My hardest job is one you may not remember; setting pins in a bowling alley. In my case it was at a country club, at the time when automatic pin-setters were just becoming the standard. Still, they represented a major investment, so small operations were the last to go mechanical.
I was 14 at the time, and setting pins seemed, from the perspective of rolling a ball down an alley - pretty easy. Besides, they were paying $3(!) - for three games, two alleys, 6-8 bowlers. Three bucks was big money to a 14-year-old back then (even to adults), plus tips; if you were fast, they'd roll quarters down the alley at the end of the games. Usually a few dollars.
But after my first night, about three hours, I couldn't straighten up. What looked easy from the outside was in fact brutal on the inside. The pins weighed about 4-lbs each, stood about 15" high. In the men's leagues, the balls averaged 16lbs each, and the bowler scored extra points if he hit the pinsetter (me) with a flying pin.
In between the carnage, I returned the balls, grabbed two pins in each hand while holding my foot down hard on the racker (an embedded device which held up spikes to receive/center the pins - and then got out of the way as fast as I could.
But it was the constant bending over in awkward positions that eventually broke my back. I calculated that on the average night I bent over at least 2,500 times - all in the space of three hours.
And now even writing about it gives me a backache. Hardest job I ever had.
It just occurred to me that most of the complaints about the "illegals" on this thread are about things they - or we - do because of Government laws and agency regulations passed or issued to "fix" the problems caused by earlier laws passed and regulations issued!
"Oh! What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!"
NotyourtypicalNYer:
I did the laborer thing for bricklayers between college stints. I always say it is what made me go back to college. Those double cinder blocks and slinging cement killed me.
John Conyers, Sheila Jackson Lee & Maxine Waters....
That's all you need to know about the stupidity of this committee.
Fuck - those dumbshits let him in!
Oop-sie!
I'm always amazed at the argument that we need illegal immigrants because they do jobs that Americans won't do. I grew up before illegal immigrants were a problem. Somehow the corn got harvested, the hay baled, the apples picked, the papers delivered and the grass mowed.
It's true that Americans won't do farm work for the same wages that illegal immigrants earn. But that only means that legal farm workers should earn higher wages. When wages get high enough people will be found to do the work. That's the way it always worked in the past.
As for the notion this will make food too expensive, that too is horse feathers. About a decade a go I read that a 50% increase in hourly wage for strawberry pickers would increase the cost of strawberries from 60 cents to 65 cents a basket. I can deal with that (especially since yesterday here in LA I bought a double basket of strawberries for 99 cents).
If wages get too high for American farmers, one of two things will happen. Either the strawberry production will move to Mexico or some mechanical engineer at UC Davis will invent an automated strawberry picking machine, as has been done with crops such as tomatoes and grapes.
I've seen grave picking machines roaming the hills of Tuscany. We could have them here too, except at present illegal immigrants are so much cheaper (for growers anyway).
For taxpayers, when you figure in the cost of educating farmworker children and a criminal justice system that can deal with so many gang members, I suspect these supposedly cheap illegal immigrant farm workers are far more costly than a mechanized agricultural workforce.
NotYourTypicalNewYorker said...
Colbert is a misdirection play made by a desperate democrat party trying to drown out the Black Panther bomb that's about to explode.
To no avail...
+++
There is no democrat party
I don't blame Colbert for doing this (and he is funny). But what the hell was Congress thinking? Who invited a comic actor to testify in character?
I can see doing that in the mid-90s, when our biggest national worry was how we were going to spend all the money we weren't spending on the Cold War. But today? With the economy in shambles, Afghanistan going to hell, Iran a looming threat, and pretty much the entire country deeply pissed off at Washington... NOW they decide to screw around on national TV? Double you tee eff.
Colbert should be supporting the requirement that the farmers hire American workers, and pay the legally required wages for such workers, i.e., at least minimum wage.
So your solution to illegal labor is to make it illegal to use illegal labor and/or to labor illegally?
My goodness, why didn't anyone think of that already?
It was a successful operation; they brought in Colbert to deflect attention from the Justice Dept. brouhaha, and it's just too bad about the immigration hearing. It could not be helped; first things first, you know, and it was an emergency.
And those things are called concrete blocks, and they are laid in mortar.
Cement is the grey powdery stuff that comes in paper bags or is stored in silos.
"So your solution to illegal labor is to make it illegal to use illegal labor or to labor illegally?
My goodness, why didn't anyone think of that already?"
Is it illegal for farmers to use illegal immigrants? If so, why aren't the farmers being arrested and hauled off to jail? Seems to me if a farmer were given so many weeks or months in jail for every individual undocumented alien in his employ, and/or were required to pay high fines for each such worker in his employ, the problem, such as it is, would cure itself before long.
Why isn't this happening?
The reality is that everyone knows that much (or most) of this labor is performed by undocumented aliens...that's how the system works. The growers save money by paying low wages, the undocumented aliens make more money than they can make at home, food is produced and sold cheaply to Americans who expect inexpensive and abundant food as their birthright from God.
Undocumented aliens--i.e., "illegal immigrants," or, cheap labor (the dream of all employers)--have long been part of the American economy because they are necessary to keep the economy working as desired.
Concern over illegal immigrants is not coming from the top down, but from those who have their own reasons for wanting to make this long-standing reality an issue: demagogues who use the "illegal immigrants" boogeyman for their political agenda, and bigots, mainly.
Wait a second, am I a hypocrite?
Because if that was, say, Danny Kaye, doing a PSA sort of testimonial before Congress in character as say The Jester...
yeah, I'd want to watch it. But we all know that it would be at a level of talent and intellect so far above this...
I don't know...my husband is an immigrant (legal, though) agricultural laborer, and although he almost never works with white Americans, he hates it when he has to. According to him, all we white folks do when we're faced with hard labor is stand around and complain and then get a backache and have to leave early. Mexicans work. They do the work, they do it fast, and they don't gripe.
My uncle runs a factory, so it's not ag labor, but it's hot, repetitive, crap work anyway, and he hires almost exclusively recent Asian immigrants. Same reason. Now he doesn't even put out ads; he just asks one of his crew leaders if they have family or friends who needs jobs, and sure enough, more Vietnamese people show up and do a great job.
And one guy I read about back when there was a guest worker program said he would love to hire American citizens rather than have to deal with the paperwork to get guest workers, but guess what? Americans don't apply for stinky, repetitive, crap jobs. They might now, given the recession, but based on comments I've seen around lately (my cousin's Facebook wall, the comments to last weeks' Dear Prudence on Slate, etc.), they would much rather be unemployed.
So, a bunch of you are saying "well, Americans just won't do that work for the same wages as illegals will." But I don't think that's widely true. It absolutely was true, even just a generation ago, and it's probably still true in certain places amid certain types of people. It doesn't seem very common anymore, though.
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