tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1415015639692216699.post-3313600952562363282008-05-13T06:48:00.000-04:002008-05-13T06:48:00.000-04:002008-05-13T06:48:00.000-04:00I think it depends a lot on the available work force ready and able to do the work required in such facilities. Iowa saw a decline in farming in the 1980s, especially the lose of family farms in favor of larger corporate farms. In the 1990s several national meat packers began open facilities in small towns that no longer had a surplus of laborers willing to do that type of work. What happens instead? You see an inflow of migrant workers (some legal, many not).<BR/><BR/>The social outcomes and dynamics of that transition are amazing. A small town of a few thousand people, all Lutheran or Catholic, all with roots back to the same part of Europe, suddenly has an international grocery store and a foreign language radio station. Occasionally the feds like to feds their muscle on the matter (as they did yesterday in one small community; look for details on the Postville raid at http://www.desmoinesregister.com)<BR/>and make a raid.<BR/><BR/>This is when the tension start to emerge, but perhaps not in the way you would expect. You have the groups that oppose illegal immigration. You have the usual rebuttal of "if Americans would do the work, immigrants wouldn't come here". You have debate about the latter point, saying the corporations abuse the rights/interests of immigrants by knowingly underpaying them and knowingly violating the law. You have locals who now realize their neighbors and a sizable portion of the community tax base are not threatened. Etc.<BR/><BR/>You also see the emergence of unexpected dynamics. Last year there was a raid on a plant in a "larger" town where my sister and her family live. The feds didn't handle the matter all that well. Both parents were arrested and no one realized there were children coming home from school to an empty home. School enrollment plummeted the next day as those not arrested hunkered down with their family, etc.<BR/><BR/>I'm not taking a stand on the illegal immigration issue at this point. I think it is too complicated to just say it is good or bad. My point is, will this be the future of the range? Will mining companies find they have to turn to illegal immigrants to fully staff these facilities after more than a decade of being out of the area? Will they have to turn to legal immigrants, who don't bring in ICE, but bring in other social disruption (not because of specific criminal/deviant acts, just simply because it introduces variance into historically homogeneous communities)? And WHY THE HELL have they not raised taxes in your parent's home town? Is it tradition or driven by the economic capacity of the population? I pay almost that much in a month and I my house is small and modest (ask Velma, Pap, or Patch, who have all seen the place).Dr. Crankyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05757337546004421130noreply@blogger.com