flood guy

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  flood commented on the article | over 2 years ago

  9500 Liberty: 9-11 Not the Same as 7-11

  The problem with PWC economically is not a direct result from the immigration issue.  Like many parts of the US, PWC exploded with growth during the late 90's thru 2005, and it happened because power-starved politicians and lobbyists favored cheap labor, while the world experienced cheap energy, cheap goods, all while there was poor planning, poor laws, little enforcement, and reckless financial institutions.

  
  

  Needless to say, its only obvious a higher national rate of foreclosures would have occurred in PWC, and it doesn't take an economist to figure out, the development of a greater ripple-affect throughout the county, engulfing not just smaller businesses, but larger ones as well, would rack employment and overturn this county. 

  
  

  When the construction industry collapsed just before the recession, workers saw the labor jobs dry up.  With their wallets empty, what would migrant workers be expected to do, when not a job is to be had? 

  
  

  The sad truth behind these two filmmakers are, they came into this issue with politically slanted opinions, already predisposed as to what message they would portray to their viewers.  Take for example, the empty Latino restaurants they had filmed.  These two movie producers portrayed the blame of the economic hardship, because the migrant community was scared off by red-hot racist conservatism.  The truth is, there are ethnic and white restaurants throughout the county, still empty if not out-of-business today.  These restaurants faced hardship, regardless if Stirrup, Stewart and Letiecq had all dropped dead in the middle of the immigration debate, or not.

  
  

  At the time the people were already feeling the stress from the over-extension the county was enduring, created by its high-growth expansion policy.  Their frustration coincided with the rise of the financial turmoil and the chaos within the undocumented Latino community, which didn’t quite have the same view for the law and civil behavior, as the rest of the “more permanent” county had.  It all started with the city of Manassas inability to enforce its own housing ordinance, a fire that destroyed a house because electrical building codes were ignored which were done in order to defy the housing ordinance, and then a property-owner’s political statement in defiance against the historic code of the city. 

  
  

  Just as construction and expansion was peaking, and as political apathy was mounting by the national media and Democrats, charging after the Bush White House, the GOP-dominated PWC BOCS was overwhelmed, trying desperately to manage the promises and pressures from the pro-development influences in the country, a rise of conservatism coming to the defense of George W Bush and all things conservative, and a growing anti-GOP movement inspired by national politics.  

  
  

  It was all politics, not racism – just plain and simple raw politics and power.  Undocumented laborers have no right to be in this country.  They have human rights, no doubt, but should they even be driving an automobile if they aren’t supposed to be here in the first place?  Of course not, and when sick, undocumented laborers and their families should be tended to at the hospital, but should they be allowed to just return back into society where the laws says that shouldn’t be, all while citizens pay the medical bills?  Just because our governments are too weak to uphold the law, does not translate to undocumented migrants earning the right to work or live illegally in this nation.

  
  

  Excessive growth from the Clinton's 90's was done to top the 80s Reagan era of growth.   Bush and Co only tried to replicate the Clinton admin, and did so with reckless abandonment in the first half of this decade.  This country is brainwashed to believe such policy-making is the American-way. 

  
  

  When prosperity returns and the temptation to press the gas pedal on economic growth hits are elected leaders, lets hope we have enough sense to have already instituted new regulation governing migrant workers and their families, as well as the businesses who hire them, and the consumers who purchase their products.