May 04, 2005

Rome Wasnt Built With Union Labor

Evening on Reed's Bay Hilo Big Island

Posting at the Drury Inn, The Woodlands, Texas may 4 2005

I want to thank Cookie for sending me this article on the land boom in our district on the Big Island, Puna. I read this last week but the censoring device on this computer is making it impossible for me to do any research. It is clssifying the Honolulu newspaper "Honolulu Advertiser" as a chat room. Never, never again will I support the use of this horrible softwear in a public venue, like the library. I dont care if this allows pervs access to porno, It keeps kids from doing their homework and that is what a library is for. This thing here is so filtered that we cant look at nearly any of the blogs on my sidebar, let alone comment. Where we are staying in Holiday Island,next week, I have an open computer and we will be better able to see the world, via the blogosphere.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Apr/25/ln/ln03p.html

As I was leaving the Big Island we saw the huge swaths of land being cleared for building and we wondered if there is a limit to this. What drives this?Is it just demand? Greed? or pure business, ie speculation. Yet I wonder about how this will end up. How many more peopel will be driven from the A'ina because they are "land poor " and cannot pay the taxes...

Then there is zoning and land use restrictions... Big in Hawaii... Now I am a believer that we are free to do with our posessions as we will including cutting down trees and building on our land that we own as we will.I think its wrong that you can buy a piece of land in Hawaii or elsewhere and you cant cut down a tree or build on the property you spent hard money for... I do think that zoning is good, and that the lack of zoning has been bad for such areas as Houston, as it allows mixed use in places that are probably not the best places for this. I understand that there is no zoning per se within the Houston City limits that from a realtor trying to sell us on living in The Woodlands a very highly structured masterplanned community north of Houston.

I happen to like struture, and think community rules are good especially if the community inforces them . If they dont then they are an irritant. Bella Vista, the village that we are buying a home in is trying to incorporate and we arent sure if that is good or bad. Good if they plan to inforce the present CC&R's, bad if they want to start changing the face of this retirement community to what ever... Currently there are no schools, or kiddie parks ect within the city limits. I hope that it stays that way... But I also think that as city will be better about enforcing ordanances like no trash burning and the like... so common here.... there is that old Texas proverb... " Good fences make for good neighbors"...

I sort have gotten off topic. I want to write about something that is a big news item and has a lot of people talking here and in my home state of California...

Illegal Immigration... Oh I can hear it...." Hoku why do this? Just write about the Great Journey and leave the moaning to Bill O'Reilly but I want to write about it because this issue has a direct impact on the Great Journey...

We Woody and I are astounded at the building...It amazing it really is... Buildings, great and small, Miles of new tract homes, many with ornate brickwork, and hand cut stone work in the kitchens baths and exteriors. Many have hand plastered and detailed ceilings and archways...Even one of the malls near our hotel has ornate plasterwork with stautary and a facade remenisicant of the palace of Granada in Spain. The most basic of new homes has all of this sort of thing which made me run not walk to this 1990's ranch with low ceilings and wide PLAIN windows in a established retirement community... When I say basic house, Im talking a 1500 square foot 3 bedroom two bath, no yard to speak of... some no landscaping but you can have that for a small amount that made me gasp for its cheapness. These homes start in outlying areas as low as 80,000, to the 150,000 for a great view and more squarefootage...

Its not just Texas, but Arkansas too. We looked at 50 or so houses and much of the new constrution was like this... Near the XNA as the Northern Arkansas Regional Airport...(which is a great airport) Huge hotels are rising out of farmlands, creating new cities almost overnight...

We saw the work gangs finishing exteriors at Del Lago at Lake Conroe,Texas and in Rodgers Arkansas, as far as the eye can see farms are being cleared by dark skined men in work gangs, and the brickwork and new landscaping going in.

The New South being built on the back of illegal labor. When I said this to Woody in a hush hush voice he scoffed at first. But this former labor union steward looked again and later as we were going back to our lodging agreed and said that you have to count So Cal as a part of the South as we always do because it is very much like that...We always knew that Big Agrabusiness was fueled by migrant/illegal labor, and that was always the way... But this is something else and for the first time it bothers me and him with regards to our future home and location.

It bothered me in the 90's as I worked in the Intermodal/Transportation business when I knew that the freight was being transloaded by guys here illegally and the drivers were sleeping in their trucks so they could send more money to the family in Mexico and beyond... The place I was working for stated that they paid the "going rate" but I wondered about it...

I love our President but this is the one thing I have against him. He has done NOTHING to secure the borders and protect us from this invasion. In this post I have not brought up all of the financial issues and the crime issues... (The official I spoke to in the Galveston mayor's office honestly told me that 80 percent of the violent crimes charged there were commited by illegals from "Latin America" This was also true for Florida as we looked into this. I dont have the stats in front of me, but it is very scary to think of this situation getting worse and worse...)

Lest you think me a bigot, let me remind the readers that I am of Hispanic heritage, and proud of it... but my Father's mother came here legally, as a child to live with business associates of the family and be educated here. My Father's father was of English and Welsh decent and his Grandmother emmigrated to California a war widow with three small children...(That is a long story and one that you will enjoy, someday I will post that. I come by a lot of my spirit and impetuous nature from that lady, or so my father would tell me.)

I have to agree with the calls for a more stringent Border patrol, and yes the use of troops if needed. It will drastically effect the economy of this area, but it will also be better for the government as a whole. You may get a cheap gardener or housemaid, but you pay for it in taxes going out. The money you pay them doesnt stay here to help the economy of your state, it goes out of the country in a drain that is harmfull to us as well as the state of origin... It makes a colony of counties like Mexico, who now depend on these dollars for the major part of the national gross income. (who'd of thought that the money being sent home by those drivers, maids and bricklayers surpasses oil as the cheif source of revenue for Mexico. I think its tragic that President Fox cannot use the vast resources of his truly rich nation like Mexico to help people so they dont need to try to come here...)

Until the nations that refuse to help themselves out of the poverty that generates migration, then nothing that the US does will matter. We do not have to have cheese cloth borders to be good citizens of the world, nor are we somehow bigots and racist for wanting National Security. This is a problem that has deep roots and wont be solved in a day, but it needs to be solved, because to continue creates a society that is not free, equal or moral, and certainly not just...