I have lately been following in the news how Alabama farmers are losing a lot of money because their ripe fields have too few willing to harvest them. Why is this happening? Apparently, a new Alabama state law is coming down very hard on undocumented immigrants and they are moving out of the state en masse. Many of these had been providing the migrant farm labor these farm owners had been using for many years to work their crops. And they can't find enough "real" Americans willing to perform the low-wage, difficult work that the mostly-Mexican migrant workers consistently did.
After hearing this news, I had two different reactions...
The first is the "obvious" one that the news presenters may have wanted me to have. Which is that Americans are too soft and whiny about their "poor" economic situation. After all, when there are jobs out there, they don't want to do them. Of course, with regard to the Alabama farm worker situation, that's nonsense: we're talking about illegal, under-the-table sub-minimum wage labor, aren't we?
My second reaction is to wonder how many of these "unfortunate" Alabama farmers, with the prospects of failed crops spoiling in their fields, passionately went to the polls and voted for the very same people that passed these restrictive and punitive laws that drove away their labor pool. I think that, once again, we see an example of a segment of the electorate being swayed on emotional hot-button issues to vote for one party against their own better interests. When, if ever, are the people going to awake and realize how they are letting themselves be manipulated??!!
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