You’re talking in very broad and relative terms about distance between places here. Postville is in the north east corner of the state while Navoo is near Keokuk, in the southeast corner of the state. It takes around 3 hours to drive between these two locations. The Amana Colonies are about half way between the two. The further north you go in the state, the more Nordic the people come and the further south, the more German. Also, Amana is German, not Swede. Swedesville is Swede. Decorah is Norwegian.

But, yes, in the eastern thrid of the stae, we’ve all meshed into a somewhat Germanic/Nordic tradition that, IIRC, is mostly Lutheran. We’re a stubborn lot and won’t change easily. We’re still very traditional, even in the big cities. Most of us are only 1, or 2, generations off the family farm. I’m technically the second generation off the farm, but some of my cousins have returned to the farms and my mother used to help out on the farms her parents grew up on.

Yes, there’s a problem with undocumented workers here. Farming and related industries are, and always have been, dangerous occupations. A farmer died a couple weeks ago when his tractor rolled over him, but farm injuries are so common they don’t make the news. Improvements have been made, and yes, there’s room for more improvement. Farmers don’t get paid all that well either. This morning’s cattle prices were around $80/hundred weight, beans were around $5.75/bushel, and corn around $2.00/bushel.

Comment – Mayan immigrants in the U.S. are here because of the genocide in Guatemala in the late 70s and early 80s. They fled the scorched earth campaigns in their villages and became external refugees in Mexico, and the U.S. Many others were displaced within Guatemala and lost their subsistence farming way of life because they lost their land. Some have been able to resettle in their villages but many others and their second generations remain displaced. This is one more reason why they have also become economic refugees and came to the U.S.

In addition to the injuries they incur in meat-packing plants and other low-wage jobs there is also a problem with serious injuries (usually loss of limbs) in jumping the trains on the border between Guatemala and Mexico for example. With no social security or disability payments available for the marginalized Maya (this does exist for the upper and middle classes in the cities) they are really in trouble.

When I hear simplistic statements from others (not FDLers!) about illegal immigrants, I wish there were better understanding of the many facets of the problem, especially an understanding that our own government was directly and indirectly involved in Guatemala’s war for our own “national interests.” For our own economic and military reasons we helped destroy their society and infrastructure and now we complain when they come here to seek work out of desperation.

Many of those same Maya would return home to their own villages and cultural life if they could. I know many Guatemalan Mayans and have visited remote villages and stayed in the simplest adobe homes. There are many who are working in local development programs to try to improve conditions in very rugged landscapes.

There are frequent battles over water sources and land rights (confused by the war). The development programs (water projects, reforestation, microcredit, education, health and sanitation, women’s programs) allow more people to remain in or return to their own village so important to their cultural identity. The villages are rapidly growing post-war. If we want to slow immigration, let’s help people improve their lives where they are.

For some people this issue is political and academic, but for some like me, it hits you in the gut every time it is brought up because you know and love the people involved. Thanks to all who try to shed light on the topic.

IllegalImmigrationIntroduction (112) — No, the post does not advocate avoiding existing laws on immigration; the post clearly reflects that 1) existing laws don’t work, and 2) the problem is larger than that the existing laws address. Frankly, the solutions we hear about repeatedly are only going to add costs and fail to solve the root problem; they also don’t address the real facts about the existing laws, that they were ineffectual from the get-go. The backlog of pending applications is a specific example; why are there no additional resources being directed at this particular problem? Why are we talking about building a damned wall when the virtual wall we already have never worked?

In spite of this being a “CEO presidency”, the folks in this administration certainly exercise no real chops when it comes to the problem of immigration. We have multiple bottlenecks in this supply chain and nobody in leadership actively seeking solutions to fix the bottlenecks, or actively seeking solutions to the root causes of illegal immigration.

All in all it is just a fascinating story — Postville is, (or was) a typical Iowa farm-town just south of the Minnesota line, and a few miles west of the Mississippi. The town packing plant had gone bankrupt, when in 1987 a group of Lubavitcher Rabbinic families bought it, and moved in to operate it. Aside from an old doctor, there simply were no Jews in this patch of Iowa — a town partly German Lutheran, partly Norwegian Lutheran, and otherwise German Catholic. While re-opening the packing plant did bring some prosperty to this neck of Iowa — it also brought vast conflict — the Lubavitchers from Brooklyn did not bank in town — they did not do business with local merchants, and above all — they did not plant flowers and mow the grass. So what had begun as a good economic move, quickly became huge culture clash. It was not just workplace safety matters — it was a school system that suddenly had students speaking twenty different received languages, something Rural Iowa had never experienced.

Bloom is from a Reformed Jewish Tradition — native of California transplanted to Iowa, but he spent several years “reporting” this story by spending weeks in Postville, exploring all the aspects of the various conflicts. He also followed the logic of the business plan (the chickens are actually consumed 50% in Brooklyn and 50% as frozen Chick in Israel,) — and he creates a fascinating counter-point between a people living in an ancient tribal culture, while at the same time exploiting a nitch market opportunity made possible by globalization and high tech transport. (Frozen chick is trucked to Chicago — maybe 200 miles to O’Hara — to the Israel-bound Jet Freightliner.) And yes, the workforce is nearly all illegal, not just from Mexico and C.America, but also from Russia, and E. Europe as well as Africa.

The opposition in Postville was led by a former Peace Corps Volunteer who later worked for the Corps as consultant on ag projects. The opposition essentially was about extending the town lines to incorporate the slaughter house property so as to tax the enterprise so as to pay for all the additional services (such as multi-lingual schools) the business and its employment practices had caused. Bloom covers the chit-chat in both the Postville Republican and Democratic cafes regarding this — as well as the organization pro and con within the town churches.

This part of Iowa was, in the 19th century, the site of many intentional communities — the original Mormon site at Navoo Illinois is not all that far away — and when the Mormon’s left for Utah, they were replaced by agnostic French wine growers. Also in Illinois, opposite this part of Iowa, Swedish religious dissents created a community and sect. Just south of Postville is the Ammana Colonies — and around them one finds many Amish communities transplanted out of PA. West Branch Iowa was conservative plain speaking Quaker,(birthplace of Herbert Hoover). What fascinates me is how eventually all these eventually were absorbed in part into W. Illinois and Iowa culture — but only after much conflict, and what interests me is whether the Brooklyn Lubavitchers eventually will similarly evolve the compromises and become semi-absorbed while at the same time retaining some of their distinctiveness. I don’t know — but it is fascinating to observe.

By the way, Postville is not in the Iowa flatlands with endless miles of corn — it is rolling country, mostly family and not factory farms, what corn is raised is fed to livestock, and the Postville plant of course only slaughters under Rabbinic supervision, Beef and Chicken — not the famous Iowa pork. Though Bloom mentions one effort to create a Kosher cheese production facility on a farm — most of the chickens and beef are raised by Iowa farmers, and then purchased for slaughter by the plant.

Anyhow, the place is far from the interstate highways — about half way between I-90 and I-80. So if you are driving cross country, get off the interstates and take some of the old blue roads and slow down a little and stop and chat in some of the small town cafes.

I absolutely refuse to believe owners and management are unaware of the Costco/Sam’s Club conundrum.

Modern economists argue the search for profits (greed) is the corporate be-all/end-all. If that were true, companies would flip to the Costco (and Southwest Airlines) model.

But research into investing patterns indicate that frequently emotions play a higher role in investment decisions than logic, i.e. the pursuit of profits.

Ever read Dilbert? Man, he ain’t kidding. Lots of folks work for outfits that screwed up. Pursuit of profits, or nasty emotions like jealousy, the need to establish dominance, etc.?

I’ve seen this quote attributed to different folks, but a lot of companies made it their mission statement.

“It’s not enough for me to succeed. Others must fail.”

Yet, the post opposes enforcement of our immigration laws.

Is it that the author only wants to complain about the issue but doesn’t really care, or that the author is unable to figure out how to prevent such abuses?

Governor Dem – Primary — 1,458 of 1,876 precincts reporting (78%)
Chet Culver [d] 46,236 38%
Mike Blouin [d] 42,109 35%

Oppression

Prejudice

Spells GOP

If the stupid fucks would enforce the intelligeble laws on

Employers.

This type of problem would be mitigated.