Since America has been captivated recently by the British drama Downton Abbey which tells a story of an aristocratic British family in the early 20th century, I want to write something about it and reflect the changes that have taken place in both the U.S. and abroad in the last century in which the old European countries with their feudal system is moving forward becoming more egalitarian and democratic societies whereas the U.S. is moving backward becoming a more stratified society that is divided between the haves and the have-nots that is controlled by corporate interests and the 0.0001% with the approval and doings of our corrupted politicians like our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. The division and social mobility in the U.S. today is worse than it was in England in the early 20th century.
In the TV show, Lady Cora Crawley, a nouveau rich American lady who is married into a British aristocratic family. Her character was often appeared in novels written by the American writer Henry James who moved to Europe in the 19th century and who wrote about the American experience in Europe at the time. Compared to the native Europeans, his American characters were rich and naïve but nevertheless good-hearted. In Downton Abbey, when Cora's revolutionary daughter Sybil wanted to turn their beautiful castle into a convalescent hospital for returning veterans from World War I, she enthusiastically endorsed and supported her daughter’s idea and volunteered to care for the veterans. She also supported her husband when he wanted to hire a returning veteran as a valet even though the veteran was handicapped. She felt that it was the least her family could do to help out the veterans and her adopted country. Her character on British television creates a positive image for the United States of America and American citizens overseas. Now back to 21th century America, unlike Cora, our queen H-1B Zoe Lofgren throws American veterans and their families under the bus while she is feasting in political contributions from the cheap labor lobbyists of the multinational corporations. She is laughing all the way to the bank while our veterans suffer the indignities of joblessness. For decades, I haven’t heard anything from our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren addressing the unemployment problem of our military servicemen. And yet, she wants to legalize 11 millions of illegals (this is only the “official” number, the real number is very likely to be 3 times this “official” number as it happened last time) and increase the number of H-1Bs to hundreds of thousands per year. These people will take jobs away from American citizens and put even more hardship on our returning veterans. Is this how our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren treat our American veterans and their families who have sacrificed their lives to defend the interests of the United States? The supposedly heartless and oppressive British aristocrats that the original American colonists rebelled earlier now care for their returning veterans more than American politicians? How can it be? Downton Abbey is a TV drama so it couldn’t be true. Downton Abbey may be a fictional work, but it’s not that far off from the reality. Concerned about the high unemployment rate in Britain, the House of Lords (that British aristocratic institution) went on a fact-finding mission to find out the truth about the effect of immigration on Britain’s unemployment rate. An influential House of Lords committee came to its conclusion that says
“Competition from the immigrants has had a negative impact on the low paid and training for young UK workers” and they rejected claims by ministers that a high level of immigration was needed to prevent labour shortages as “fundamentally flawed” (Aren’t the cheap labor lobbyists in the U.S. also screaming about labor shortages so we need to import more H-1Bs and illegal immigrants?) The report from the House of Lords concludes: - There is little or no economic benefit to Britain from the present high level of immigration. The immigrants are not needed to fill labour shortages or help fund the state pension for retiring Britons. - Government statistics on immigration are "seriously inadequate" and compromise the ability accurately to set interest rates and allocate £100 billion in public funding. - Certain groups, including the low-paid, some ethnic minorities and young people seeking to get on the jobs ladder may suffer because of competition from immigrants. - Immigrants have an "important economic impact" on public services with many schools struggling to cope with the rapidly-rising number of children who do not speak English as a first language. House of Lords Asks the U.K. government to limit immigration
It looks to me like the UK is having the exact same problem as the U.S. Fortunately for them, their politicians still have some common sense and compassion for their fellow citizens, unlike our corrupt American politicians who only care about political contributions from the cheap labor lobbyists.
Do you know that the unemployment rate for our returning veterans is above 33%? You get it right, more than 1 out of 3 veteran is unemployed. Last year, the New York Times published a heart-breaking story about a veteran who used Green Library at Stanford as a homeless shelter, just a mile from the home of Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire who supports an increase in the number of H-1B for foreign guest workers and the legalization of the millions of the illegals while millions of American citizens, many of them returning veterans, are unemployed. The jobs that the H-1Bs and illegals are taking could have been offered to American citizens. Unlike the British aristocrat and Cora, I haven’t seen Mark Zuckerberg or our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren invite our veterans to live in their homes yet. I find this particular testimonial from one of Zoe Lofgren’s constituents -- an unemployed software engineer and a graduate of San Jose State University -- on the New York Times's comment section illuminating: bluemountain184 San Jose, CA People like Mark Zuckerberg and Reid Hoffman are Silicon Valley's Top 1%, and their policy position they hold is quite similar to what most Top 1% in the rest of the country hold. They simply want cheaper wages whether one picks vegetables in Central Valley, do construction work, janitorial work, design hardware, or write software code. That is, to the benefit the Top 1% owners of the corporations. The bias of the article that I can tell is that the author is sympathetic towards the so called DREAMers, but what about the existing U.S. citizens who have seen their dreams of just merely being in the middle class dashed by the massive economic immigration legalized by the Top 1% influence and our corrupt politicians of both political parties? Nov. 22, 2013 at 12:27 a.m.RECOMMENDED 28
So BlueMountain184, whoever you are, did you vote for our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren last time? If you did, then you are part of the problem knowing that she is shamelessly selling you (an American citizen and her own constituent) out to the 0.001%. Instead of voting for her, you should ask where are the pitchfork and the guillotine as the French had done to their queen? I remember that when my family first arrived in California in the early 1980s, construction jobs were a $30 hourly job with good benefits. Now with the flood of the illegals that are supported by her, construction jobs are below minimum wages with no benefit whatsoever. The construction industry is just one of the examples that her support of the illegals hurt American citizens. You can see how illegal immigration hurts African American community and how our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's "Jim Crow" action continue the discrimination against Americans, particularly I.T. professionals in Silicon Valley (her own constituents) and African American communities. This story is coming from National Public Radio (NPR). "Coming up, we turn to Silicon Valley where several giants in the technology field, including Apple and Google, have refused to release data about the diversity of their workforces. We will ask why.... MARTIN: Cord, now you sight the case of a North Carolina poultry producer that went from having a workforce that was 80 percent immigrant, presumably immigrant Latino, to 70 percent African-American in a very short period of time. Now, how did that happen and why did that happen? Mr. JEFFERSON: There is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in October of 2008 that came in and found 300 undocumented workers at the Raeford Farms, Columbia Farms processing plant in Columbia, South Carolina. And Raeford Farms was presumably spooked by that as they had been hiring undocumented immigrants for all their plants. And they systematically began firing all their undocumented workers in within less than a year. What had been an 80 percent Latino production line became a 70 percent African-American production line" ......... Prof. SWAIN: Its political correctness. And if you actually state these positions, you are sort of demonized. And one of the reasons that I wrote Debating Immigration, was because I saw this was a neglected area and that most of the scholars, intellectuals, members of Congress were not representing the disadvantage to Americans on this issue. I think its a disgrace. Prof. SWAIN: Its not about African-Americans, its about Americans because Latinos are hurt too. Legal Latinos, their wages are depressed. Some of them are in the same boat as African-Americans. They are being discriminated against. Its also whites with low levels of education. Illegal Immigration Stifles Black Community And our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren even has the gall to tell us that Americans don’t want to do these jobs. She supports the policy of discriminating against our African-Americans and violating their civil rights in favor of the illegal immigrants that can be easily exploited by businesses. Being bought off by the cheap labor lobbyists to support the illegals that flood the job market, she is the one who lowers the wages so much that it’s not possible to live decently with such low wages and she turns around and says that Americans don’t want such jobs. It's a slap-in-the-face to the hardworking Americans who are struggling to find jobs that can support their families. Our Queen H-1B Zoe Lofgren is much worse than Queen Marie Antoinette of the ancient regime whose phrase “Let them eat cake” still hated after more than 200 years. Her destruction of blue-collar jobs such as construction affects Mexican-Americans the most. She practically destroys their livelihood. Why the Mexican-American community is still supporting her is beyond me. Now she is doing exactly the same thing to our high-tech American high-tech professionals. Her support for the H-1B destroys the lives of millions of American high-tech professionals. Wages for American professionals haven't increased in 20 years if you factor in inflation while everything, especially housing, in Silicon Valley is becoming much more expensive due the influx of people. You can see it yourself in this Youtube video (search for Dan Rather No Thanks For Everything). Dan Rather No Thanks For Everything In the video, Mary, an American IT professional with an MBA from New York University who has been replaced by an H-1B by Microsoft, describes a scene in which she saw an H-1B family entering a jewelry store to buy gold trinkets while as an American citizen she is outside and she goes HUNGRY. After 22-year of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's pandering to the multinational corporations and the 0.0001%, America's middle class has been destroyed by her and American professionals go hungry in the U.S.A. A scene out of a 19th century Charles Dickens novel, don't you think? And this is happening in 21th America. It's truly a national embarrassment. Currently, there is a class-action lawsuit regarding multinational corporations colluded to suppress engineers' wages salaries in Silicon Valley. They are breaking America's labor law. She can pretend that she doesn't know about it, which I seriously doubt. If that's the case, she is not doing her job because it is happening in her own backyard -- as a Congressman, shouldn't she beware of things that are happening in her own district that adversely affect her constituents? It is more likely that she is complicit in allowing the violation to happen even though she know that it hurts many of her own constituents. Buying Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren with her H-1B is part of these companies' strategy to lower American engineering wages, now that these companies are founded guilty in violating American labor law. Should our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren be charged as well since she is part of the same scheme to lower American citizens's wages? I think she should be charged. If I remember correctly, there is a similar case in Germany in which a minister was forced to resign after he was founded to accept contribution from multinational corporations. If the Germans are able to do it, why shouldn't we? Or is it because Germany is a first world country and the U.S.A has turned into a third world country thanks to the corruption of our politicians. Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley Worse, our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren supports slavery. The Los Angeles Times recently published an article about the company, Electronics for Imaging, that used her H-1B program.
"Eight workers from India were paid as little as $1.21 an hour by a tech company in Fremont, Calif., over several months in late 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, as reported by the Associated Press. The workers were transferred from Bangalore, India, to help the company move into a new headquarters building. They logged as many as 122 hours a week without overtime with some earning as little as $1.21 an hour." Wait a minute, isn't it California minimum wage is $8/hr and a 8-hr work day? And she even has the audacity to tell us that the H-1Bs are for the best and brightest. Yeah right, it sounds to me more like exploitation rather than the best and brightest's willingness to work for indentured servants' wages. It's a national embarrassment according to an investigative report by NBC Bay Area. http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Silicon-Valleys-Body-Shop-Secret-280567322.html This sounds like certain Middle Eastern countries that the U.S. is criticizing about human rights abuse. The same thing is happening right here in the U.S. and our Congresswoman is looking the other way. It is definitely a human-right violation issue and it is happening in her own backyard, since she is bragging about how she is in the Human Rights Caucus in Congress, how come she is silent on this issue? What happens to her human rights conscience? By letting companies getting away from violating American labor laws, it is going to affect American workers a great deal too because companies will think that they are free to import overseas workers into the U.S. to work as indentured servants and to suppress wages of American citizens. What kind of a message she is sending? If you think that it's just a local issue, think again. The abuse is widespread and national, it's even known internationally. In Europe, one of Britain's most popular newspapers The Guardian has the whole series talking about slavery and indentured servitude in the U.S. tech industry. Imagine that. The British and the Europeans must have cringed and recoiled in horror when they read about the labor abuse right here in Silicon Valley. This definitely doesn't create a positive image for the U.S. overseas. This is a national embarrassment, folks. And our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren refuses to do anything about it. Job brokers with history of violations exploit tech workers on taxpayers’ dimeTaxpayers' dime!!!! You heard it right. American taxpayers -- YOU AND ME. The British is a whole lot informed than many voters in Silicon Valley who are still voting for Zoe Lofgren. They even create a comic strip. I just love British sense of humor. They call it "Techsploitation" and they certainly do not believe in any kind of non-sense corporate propaganda about the best and brightest. Techsploitation Labor Trafficking Graphic Novel Let vote her out in this election, Zoe Lofgren doesn't represent you. She is even worse than Eric Cantor: 
Testimonials I am not the only one who believes Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is terrible. These are the voices from Americans across the nation who expressed their views about her on the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Hill, San Jose Mercury News, etc. in the comment sections of the articles that mentioned her name: hoapres • 9 hours ago − Zoe Lofgren told this unemployed constituent that "I am not concerned about your employment but rather the tech companies" Says it all. Just be honest. Say we want CHEAP LABOR and stop the masquerade of worker shortages. publius hoapres • 8 hours ago Did Lofgren really say that? If so, when? She needs to be hounded for that? Rage Against Fraudy hoapres • 9 minutes ago − Translation: "I am taking bribes, er I mean campaign contributions from tech companies". Submitted by Anonymous on February 11, 2011 - 14:14. This idiot, Zoe Lofgren, is basically demanding a 20k increase to the H1b outsourcing visa. Of course, there will be no real US worker protections. Just some fake, loop hole ridden, trash. ZOE LOFGREN, please tell us what have you done to help African Americans as US citizens? Or do you only help illegal immigrants? I seem to have a hard time finding any articles you have written about the high numbers of African Americans unemployed. GeorgeSan Jose, CA 19 hours agoThe 1%'ers of course would like to see the H1B Visa program expanded as part of any immigration bill. Why? Simple. Greed. H1B foreign national workers provide cheap labor for their tech product development. Here's the problem: The outsourcing many of the tech jobs, combined with filling the few remaining USA based tech jobs with H1B foreign nationals is driving American high school and college students away from studying advanced science and technology. The proof is easy to see. Easy to measure. There's 23% fewer American citizens being granted Ph.D Engineering degrees now than just 10 years ago! 23% fewer Engineering Ph. D. to American citizens in just 10 years? In this so-called high tech age? American students clearly see the writing on the wall. Why study for years, rack up tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, only to have the government competing against you for the available jobs. Why indeed. China now has the world's most power supercomputer. And the primary use of supercomputers in nuclear weapons research. You really want to drive even more American citizen students away from studying advanced science, math, and engineering? Think about the consequences.
ProjuniorTulsa 8 hours agoThose Silicon Valley executives choose to have their companies headquartered in an area of the country where the average price of a 3-bedroom house is over a million dollars. But of course they don’t want to pay programmers and engineers the kind of money it takes to afford a million dollar house. After all, a dollar saved on worker compensation is a dollar more for the executive bonus pool. So they hatch this no-poach conspiracy as outlined in this article. But that’s only part of the story.
Tylor C New York March 7th, 2011 4:58 pm "many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated" - - - - - - - - - - - - - Like high-wage occupations in Information Technology for instance. Like U.S. jobs in IT. Wages and rates for IT employees and consultants have been falling. There is less work to go around in IT. So why did NBC Nightly News only four days ago run a story about how the U.S. needs more foreign H-1B IT workers - most of whom are categorized by the program as entry-level workers - imported from abroad? Mr. Krugman, I hope they read this column... but even so there are powerful, rich, and entrenched forces out there with an agenda. And the agenda calls for throwing a whole lot of people under a fast-moving bus. NYTaxper NY 6 hours ago We need to care about the army of the unemployed. Too many H-1B visas go to those not any more qualified than U.S. citizens and residents, but they are willing to work for less money. This is punitive to US workers. Easy solution - raise the price of an H-1B to $100,000. Then the Microsofts and Googles will be able to obtain H-1Bs Visas for the truly qualified, while the Indian outsourcing companies will see their business slide. E-Verify should be in use now. I hope the Times does not consider it punitive. It is no more onerous than filing a tax return. We have NO enforcement now, it is time to start throwing employers who violate the law in jail. 28 Recommend
MargaretAtlanta 4 hours ago "Crushing backlog" of visa workers to be "relieved" at whose expense? Here again this is mis-understood. Immigration policy is NOT to appease other countries, it SHOULD be focused on what we need. Self-selected immigrants trying to avoid getting in line, trying to pull every trick they can - including undercutting US workers on wages, with delighted corporations happy to oblige by laying off Americaans should not be considered as "improving" our country. Maybe you are not directly affected now, but when your neighbor or brother-in-law is laid off and can't get another job, when your children can't get into a career, you'll start to understand. Compare levels of foreign-born workers over the last three or four census reports. Contrast that with our current, actual, employment numbers. Pay attention and you will see that this is a very important issue that needs correction. 21 Recommend ProjuniorTulsa 8 hours agoThis manufactured "shortage" of American workers with science, technology, engineering, and math degrees is a canard fabricated by American corporatocracy and their lapdogs in the Senate and House, the entire intent of which is to further depress the wages of workers in these fields. Perhaps in the fantasyland known as Silicon Valley, where three bedroom houses sell for $1,000,000, salaries in these field are rising; for the rest of America, income hasn't risen since the tech bubble burst over a decade ago. Want more engineers in Detroit? Up the salaries for engineers in Detroit.
ImpedimentusNuukNothing like a little collusion to keep the plutocrats well fed. And let's not forget about all those H-1B visas designed to undermine the salaries of American technical/professional workers while indenturing foreign workers. All with the blessing of the best government corporate money can buy. Corporate welfare, collusion, buying of the government - the real face of gangster capitalism in America.
KurtNY 1 hour agoThe business lobby complains about a "skills gap" for the same reason it favors increased immigration - it seeks to get a greater selection of workers for less money than it is already paying. It wants more H-1B visas because it can't get the tech workers it needs (translated as there are workers here meeting their criteria but they won't work for Mumbai salaries).
Mary ScottNY YesterdayThose "influential people" are actively promoting the skills gap falsehood because they want to be able to hire cheaper labor from overseas. Silicon Valley executives are always calling for expanding visas for foreign high tech workers because they say they can't find American workers with the same skills. What they really mean is that they want to import cheaper labor to increase their profit margins.
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