posted
skinny -> narrow back Starving to muscle degeneration, willing to take any job at any pay, undercutting locals. Sub-connotation: so muscle-poor (brains&brawn) that the work they can do ain't worth what ya pay them, no matter how much less they get than the locals.
posted
Think of the Irish Famine immigrants and dought-induced Okie migration of the Great Depression.
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posted
And that their real starvation didn't begin until they had to move to new lands, where their need to work for food was mercilessly exploited by the haves already there.
Now you have Dubya's Republican vision for the future of America.
quote:aspectre said: And that their real starvation didn't begin until they had to move to new lands...
I hope you just lack knowledge of what actually happened in the Famine to know how off base this statement is.
1 MILLION Irish died in the famine due to hunger and disease. Almost as many emigrated, most of them for the U.S. As many as a third of those who took ship died before reaching shore.
While there was certainly exploitation of immigrants by those already here, I doubt America is where their "real starvation" began.
posted
The Irish who could afford passage to America were the better off of the working class of Ireland. And there was no shortage of grain, meat, and dairy in Ireland when the potato crop failed.
The English landlords prefered to make more money selling Irish agricultural produce off to Britain and the Continent, while forcing the Irish -- including many of the tenant farmers who grew those crops -- to starve.
Even feeding cattle was more important to the English than feeding the Irish. This long held attitude is why Swift had previously written his blistering 'Modest Proposal' that the English should cut to the bottom line and just eat Irish babies directly. While British cattle were being fattened on grain, "famine relief" was merely being used as an excuse to repeal the Corn Laws for other political reasons. Some of the cheaper corn then imported was used to feed the Irish, if they worked for the money to buy it, and lived long enough to collect the money they earned. But a corn diet is not nutritionally sound for humans, and even less so if the corn is not properly chemically treated to break down the cornmeal. Which the Irish didn't know. So they crowded into the cities for jobs, worked, ate corn, and died. Of malnutrition directly. Of malnutrition lowering resistance to diseases caused by sanitation failures due to the sudden overcrowding. So cows were munching away on grain that the Irish needed to survive, and the Irish were starving to death on corn that the cows could have just as happily fattened up on. The carryover for corn's reputation was so bad that corn was considered strictly animal feed in many European nations even after WWII. There's many a tale of an American family accidently insulting a European guest by serving corn at the dinner table
Meanwhile, the better off of the Irish land in America. Where they were immediately way overcharged for slum housing, and everything else they attempted to buy. When the Irish sought work, if they could get it, the job paid well below prevailing wages. Even with time on the job, an Irishman's pay stayed below that of newly hired citizens. And it stayed well below, even for most of the American-born Irish of the next generation. In the South, the Irish were hired to clear land, drain swamps, dig canals, etc. To take the hard&dirty jobs -- again well below prevailing wages -- "because slave labor is much too valuable" in comparison to the cost of hiring Irish immigrant labor.
So don't kid yourself, the Irish had it tough in America: quite literally having to fight -- both physically and politically -- to live, to get that first step up the ladder.
posted
Don't kid yourself - some of the poorest of the poor made their way over here.
Did I say they didn't have to fight? No. I said their "real starvation" began in Ireland. The corn stuff is all true, but irrelevant to your claim that they had it worse in America than in Ireland. I don't need a lesson in the historical opression of the Irish by England, or Americans for that matter.
Of course they had it tough here. But they were certainly better off than they were in Ireland.
Basically, you're being called on gross hyperbole used to make a political point. Own up to it - it'll help your credibility.
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