May 1st boycott

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I must also announce with some regret that I will no longer be able to participate in these fast moving and fascinating discussions of real world events. The LoT is now blocked at work, and there will be a lot less of my on the LoT from now on. Bah.

That's a bummer.

Regarding trying to thwart the demonstration.....the illegals are trying to demonstrate their power (granted, with some support from those here legally). I am trying to show they don't have as much as they think. If I stand by and allow the walk out to have a larger effect than it should, than I believe I am allowing them to garner power that I don't think illegals should have. If the impact of the walk out is limited, then their desire to wield political power as illegals doesn't succeed and perhaps the politicians will not fear them as much as they apparently do.

And I didn't out you on the negative mojo....I specifically left the giver of bad mojo anonymous because I didn't want it to be personal at all. I was just surprised that my comments were worthy of negative mojo and was wondering if other thought I was out of line but weren't saying so.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Regarding trying to thwart the demonstration.....the illegals are trying to demonstrate their power (granted, with some support from those here legally). I am trying to show they don't have as much as they think. If I stand by and allow the walk out to have a larger effect than it should, than I believe I am allowing them to garner power that I don't think illegals should have. If the impact of the walk out is limited, then their desire to wield political power as illegals doesn't succeed and perhaps the politicians will not fear them as much as they apparently do.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I must also say that I get irked when the word "illegal" is conveniently left out of all the comments from the protesters who claim " we are all immigrants!". Some of those who are most opposed to amnesty feel that way because they went through a hell of a lot to get here legally, worked hard to learn english and assimilate, and don't understand why someone who circumvented that entire process and broke the law to be here deserves the same rights. I have to agree with them.

[Alex]

Using a source that I believe would tend to prefer higher estimates puts the nationwide participation in protests and rallies at about 1.5 million. Since most of these people were apparently legal (on the news everybody interviewed claimed to be a citizen there in support of the cause, *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*) let's assume that 1 million were illegals.

This is less than 10% of the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the country. I'd guess that most of the illegals actually went to work or at least used the day to get a nap at home.

Muddying the situation will be how much of the economic impact yesterday was not actually caused by a huge impact from the absence of illegal immigrants but rather a precautionary measure in case there was one? Apparenly the Port of Los Angeles saw about 90% of their container truck drivers not show up. According to a spokesman this wasn't so much because there are a lot of illegals driving the trucks but because the drivers were concerned about delays and the resulting fines if they were late in delivering a container. So they did extra trips over the weekend and then took Monday off. Whether that is spin or truth, I don't know.

However, even if it were shown that the disappearance of illegal aliens caused severe economic hardship this would not be an argument against their removal. But more an argument for the degree to which wages are being artificially depressed in certain sectors of the economy.

Regardless of the presence of cheap labor the garbage still needs to be taken out at iSm's building. If the people willing to do this for $4.25/hour aren't there either they'll pay more or develop some way of getting out the garbage with the workforce they can attract.

scaeagles, if the gringos have to go out and spend an unusual amount of money to mask the economic impact of a strike/boycott is that not a tacit admission of their economic power? You can't go out and spend extra money every day. Essentially you'd be in an economic war like the one that bankrupted the Soviet Union. The Mexicans would be Reagan.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

scaeagles, if the gringos have to go out and spend an unusual amount of money to mask the economic impact of a strike/boycott is that not a tacit admission of their economic power? You can't go out and spend extra money every day. Essentially you'd be in an economic war like the one that bankrupted the Soviet Union. The Mexicans would be Reagan.

Well, I suppose so, but in truth I didn't spend anything that I wouldn't have spent anyway. I just chose the day to do it based on the boycott. My wife was going to buy a dress, but chose to do it Monday instead of over the weekend. We usually go out to dinner (at least) once on the weekend, so we didn't and chose to go out to dinner on Monday instead.

I have a feeling that a lot of people are like me in that regard and that the net effect will be zero. Just like I would guess there are day laborers that took the day off that will look to pick up an extra day of work on another day. If a family chose not to do their grocery shopping on Monday because of the boycott, it doesn't mean they won't be out buying milk on Tuesday.

Net effect is zero. It was all for show. As was me choosing to spend money on a particular day.

[SacTown Chronic]

I dunno, sca. Getting you to change your shopping and dining habits sounds like power to me.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by SacTown Chronic

I dunno, sca. Getting you to change your shopping and dining habits sounds like power to me.

I don't really think so. Regardless of their boycott, I was able to shop and dine out when they said they were going to bring the country to a halt, which many organizers did say. They did no such thing.

[SacTown Chronic]

No, they don't have the power necessary to bring the country to a halt in one day. Only the terrorists have that kind of juice.