American Dream Slipping Away

October 25, 2004

In 1979, American meat packing plant workers earned .10 per hour with benefits doing the jobs that Americans, today, reportedly, “won’t do.” In 2004, illegal aliens fill the same jobs at .00 an hour with no benefits. They work the jobs that Americans won’t do! Because of indentured servitude wages, they also live 20 to a house and park five cars to a yard!

However, they’re moving into trades Americans used to do. With an added three million illegal aliens crossing our borders annually according to Time Magazine, September 12, 2004, “Who Left the Door Open?” there won’t be any jobs Americans “won’t do”—because there won’t be any jobs left that American middle class workers can do.

In Business Week’s May report, “Working and Poor,” by Michelle Conlin and Aaron Berstein, “In today’s cutthroat job market, the bottom rung is as high as most workers will ever get.”

Edward Plesniak, 36, lost his .68 an hour union job as a janitor when the contractor hired illegal alien labor. Plesniak earns .00 an hour with no benefits as a floor waxer.

As globalization quickens, the unskilled American worker suffers growing obstacles for a living wage. Not only is he competing with one million legal aliens added to the workforce annually in America, he/she must contend with three million illegal alien workers. Plesniak suffers with millions of Americans. That doesn’t include the 15 million unemployed Americans! It’s an aspect of Third World Momentum.

More distressing, America’s trades stomach an endless invasion of ‘willing workers’ depressing wages while taking jobs away from Americans across the board. Where are they coming from? “Some estimate as many as 95 percent of dry wall tapers represented by Chicago’s painter’s union are Mexican,” Geoff Dougherty, Chicago Tribune, reported. “They come from El Fresnito, Mexico.”

Chicago’s unions serving bricklayers and carpenters are being taken over by Mexicans living in this country, illegally. What has it done to Mexico’s towns? “The main problem is disintegrating families,” said Humberto Alvarez, president of the county of El Fresnito. “We see addiction, dropouts and other problems. The moment the father leaves, the family breaks down.”

While Mexico slathers itself in political grease via Vicente Fox’s inability to dislodge the corrupt, aristocratic upper class (he’s one of them), Fox sends 9.2 million of his poorest countrymen into America to grab the American Dream right out of the hands of Middle Class workers. His plan works, too. Fox’s drone workers return billion annually which is the second leading revenue for his nation’s coffers. All totaled, illegals send billion back to home countries annually. In the meantime, America’s Middle Class spends .4 billion educating an estimated 1.3 million illegal alien children. Additionally, Americans pay for health care, free lunch programs, housing assistance and language classes. Furthermore, American taxpayers contend with the 0 billion annual drug trade crossing over Mexico’s borders, aided by their military, which addicts millions of American kids. Not a bad deal for Fox and Mexico’s ruling class.

However, back in America, single parent mothers earning ,730.00 annually, are not eligible for food stamps or child-care assistance. It’s the reason America suffers the highest child poverty rate in the world. (Business Weekly, May, 2004)

An Associated Press story by Genaro Armas noted, “American black children in deepest poverty is up 50 percent in the past decade. The number of black children living in extreme poverty has risen sharply in recent years. About 932,000 black children fell into that category in 2001, nearly a 50 percent increase from the 622,000 classified that way in 1999 according to the latest figures from the Children’s Defense Fund.”

Worse, 50 percent of the African-American males in New York City are unemployed.

Few leaders make the connection that the outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring of American jobs brings America’s middle class to its knees. Last year, American Flyer, manufacturers of that little red wagon we all pulled as kids--suddenly pulled up stakes and now operates in China. Our trade deficit with China stood at 0 billion in 2003. No wonder! They’re making more profit at 50 cents an hour in a country with 1.3 billion people!

However, when Middle America lacks a paycheck, it can’t buy Domino’s Pizza, cars or step out to the circus. Americans can’t go to movies or take that vacation. They can’t send that first kid off to college.

It’s called the “Wal-Mart Effect.” Chains such as Safeway, Albertson’s and Kroger cut pay and benefits for workers as 40 Wal-Mart stores opened up in a five month period in southern California. Why? Wal-Mart pays less than half the union wages with few benefits. Sherry Kovas, with 26 years as a cashier, made .90 an hour but will be losing that wage quickly. “But I’m 44,” she said. “I’m too old to start over.”

Thus, the American Dream is now the Mexican Dream in our country. Trouble is, it’s destroying families in Mexico as it destroys American families in the country that created it. At the current rate of GATT and NAFTA via globalization as well as outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring, Americans will look back on the myth of what was once “The American Dream,” and wonder what happened to it and their families.

Why? With 80 million people added to the planet around the world annually, there is no end of the line for cheap labor as it implants itself and dislodges Americans from the American Dream.

Frosty Wooldridge is a teacher and author who has bicycled 100,000 miles on six continents to see overpopulation up close and ugly. His explosive new book is: “IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.” Copies may be obtained: 1 888 280 7715 www.frostywooldridge.com