Navarrette defends Chao
Navarrette defends Chao
Date: Sunday, July 15, 2007 8:39 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1728 -- 7/15/2007 >>>>>
Ruben Navarrette's new iditorial op-ed titled "When work isn't a priority"
defends Elaine Chao in response to one of my newsletters ("Elaine Chao:
American workers stink and have bad attitudes No. 1721 -- 7/02/2007), which
you can read in the newsletter archive or in its entirety on this page:
http://www.rense.com/general77/racist.htm
His original article was printed in the San Diego Union Tribune (see below).
It was such shoddy editorial I decided to ignore it until I saw much to my
horror that it's appearing in dozens if not hundreds of newspapers all over
the U.S. I figured that most editorial boards would immediately reject it but
instead they seem to be embracing it. (blech!)
You can search more newspapers for Naverrette's op-ed by clicking this
link:
http://tinyurl.com/2wee4o
Navarrette criticizes my characterization of Chao's disparaging remarks about
Americans as racist. He called Chao's comments "straight talk". I almost
thought he was joking until I read it a second time. This guy is actually
serious!
It's almost entertaining to read Navarrette's feeble attempts at defending
Chao's repugnant attitude, especially considering that most of his syndicated
columns, radio show commentaries, and speeches contain some form of race
baiting. Navarrette routinely labels anyone who wants to stop illegal
immigration a racist, and he is an infamous practitioner of using the "racist"
label on anyone he disagrees with on immigration issues.
Navarrette asks this question in his recent editorial:
The racism charge is absurd. The labor secretary was critical of
American workers, all right, but since when are all Americans
part of one race?
Huh? Of all people, Ruben Navarrette shouldn't be the one to ask such an
absurd question. I could fill pages upon pages with quotes from him, but here
are two examples that demonstrate his hypocrisy:
There has been, we both know, a deplorable mismanagement of
bilingual programs by school officials. [snipped] So, we have an
ugly and indeed racist system now in place in which a whole
category of students are being exploited because of their race.
That's not new. What is new is that those doing harm aren't
called racists. They're called liberals and they support
bilingual education.
"Is Bilingual Education Worth Saving?", Arizona Republic, February 21, 1999.
People don't like to hear it, but now that much of the country
has come down with a touch of "Latinophobia," racism, nativism,
ethnocentrism and other unpleasant "isms" are back in style.
"Racism surfaces in immigration debate", Union Tribune, May 24, 2006
So let's see if I have this right -- It's OK to talk about racism as long the
subject is about "Latinos", but slandering Americans is not racism -- it is A-
OK to do! In other editorials Navarrette talks freely about the Mexican race -
- nevermind the fact that there are many different races living in Mexico.
I have one big question for Navarrette, which I'm sure he will never
answer: WHAT RACE ARE LATINOS?
Elaine Chao's ethnocentric put-downs of Americans were utterly transparent.
Navarrette has often equated ethnocentrism with racism so his defense of Chao
is very hollow. Chao didn't come right out and say that H-1Bs, who are
primarily from India and China, are superior to Americans, but it's rather
obvious that's what she meant. To be blunt, Chao said that Americans are lazy
and they have body odor! I and many other people found her stereotyping and
anti-Americanism very offensive.
I don't want to appear to be making excuses for Navarrette but perhaps the
subject of H-1B is so out of Navarrette's league he didn't understand what
Chao was saying and why she was saying it. His ignorance of the demographics
of H-1B visa holders can only be matched by his cluelessness about Chao's
other disparaging remarks concerning American workers (H-1Bs are primarily
from India and China). Enough has been written about Chao's anti-American,
anti-labor, and pro-Communist connections that I won't delve into them here. A
good place to start is to read this:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21424
Who is Elaine Chao?
If all of that wasn't absurd enough -- Navarrette actually has the temerity to
dispute my claim that the purpose of Chao's statements is to destroy the
esteem of American workers. Is Navarrette that naive, or is he doing a lousy
imitation of "See No Evil, Hear No Evil".
Navarrette didn't do too good on the psychology lesson either. Our kids do
suffer from low self-esteem and it's mainly because writers like Navarrette
are constantly telling them that they aren't as smart as foreigners, they
aren't as well educated, and they don't work as hard. While his stereotype of
our kids is true in some cases, and perhaps even more so for the post
Generation Xers, I just don't believe that they are so different from my
generation that built Silicon Valley.
Navarrette is repeating a very common theme used by corporate globalists who
want to berate our citizens in order to make them feel ashamed to be
Americans. It's all part of a campaign to convince Americans that they don't
deserve middle class living standards, and of course the corollary is that
they don't deserve the jobs that foreigners are taking away from them.
This is a globalist propaganda campaign that Navarrette endorses to destroy
our borders and national identity.
That's not all that's wrong with Navarrette's editorial however -- it suffers
from such an obvious logic flaw I have to wonder how such a dunderhead can be
nationally syndicated. Case in point:
At the end of his editorial he says that Chao's remarks are taken out of
context. I talked to one of the Parade editors that said the quotes were
accurate, but nevertheless that's what Navarrette claims:
When producers from the Dobbs show called the Labor Department to
ask about Chao's remarks, a representative claimed that the
secretary's remarks "as they appeared in the magazine were taken
completely out of context and are not an accurate reflection of
her views."
Navarrette really blew it with the next paragraph.
That's too bad -- because Chao's remarks, as reported in Parade, do
seem to be an accurate description of at least part of our work
force. And we wonder why foreign workers are often snapped up by
employers as the better deal. Why wouldn't they be?
Duh! He first tries to apologize for Chao by saying her comments were taken
out of context, but then says they accurately describe American workers.
Can it get any better than that?
I sent an email to the San Diego Tribune editorial staff with a request that
in the interest of fairness they should allow me to write an op-ed to dispute
Navarrette's diatribe. So far I haven't received a reply so I assume the
answer is "no".
Even if I was granted an op-ed space on the Tribune, Navarrette has the bully
pulpit because he is syndicated worldwide. If my op-ed ever sees the light of
day, you can bet it won't be in hundreds of newspapers!
Many of the newspapers have comment sections where you can voice your opinion
on this controversy. Here are some contacts at the Union Tribune, Navarrette's
employer:
Bill Osborne Senior Editor: bill.osborne@uniontrib.com
Letters to the Editor: letters@uniontrib.com
Ruben Navarrette: ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/navarrette/20070708-9999-lz1e8navarret.html
When work isn't a priority
UNION-TRIBUNE
July 8, 2007
What has happened to Americans? Once a proud people, many of us are now so
thin-skinned that it's easy to get our feelings hurt.
As when someone says there are jobs that Americans won't do at any wage, or
that many of us lack a work ethic, or that young people in particular make
lousy employees because they take themselves too seriously and don't take work
seriously enough.
That's essentially the kind of straight talk Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
recently dished out to Parade magazine. Chao said that American workers could
lose jobs to foreign workers - and not just because the latter often work for
lower wages. It's more than that, she said: Foreign workers often have better
skills, and better manners.
"American employees must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good
personal hygiene," Chao said. "They need anger-management and conflict-
resolution skills, and they have to be able to accept direction.
Too many young people bristle when a supervisor asks them to do something."
Tough stuff. But, in many cases, true enough. After all, Chao was simply
passing along what she has heard from U.S. employers. Still, the comments got
her in hot water. Chao was blasted on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," a show whose
ratings have soared since the host started peddling the fear that corporate
executives are "exporting America." An online publication, the Job Destruction
Newsletter, went so far as to accuse Chao - who is Asian-American - of making
"racist remarks about U.S. workers."
The racism charge is absurd. The labor secretary was critical of American
workers, all right, but since when are all Americans part of one race?
The newsletter also said Chao was "manipulating our sense of self-esteem and
value to instill an inferiority complex in us so that we will accept the
destruction of the American middle class." The irony is that, according to
researchers, inferiority complexes are not the problem with Americans today -
especially the young Americans who make up "Generation Me."
That's the label psychologist Jean Twenge has given those born in the 1970s,
'80s and '90s. An associate professor of psychology at San Diego State
University, Twenge spent more than a dozen years examining generational
differences. This included comparing studies on the self-esteem of more than
60,000 college students across the country from
1968 to 1994. As a result, Twenge has a good handle on what makes young people
tick. And it isn't low self-esteem.
In an interview last year, Twenge told me that young people are all about
"focus on the self and doing what's right for you rather than following social
rules or rules of the society."
The fact that this latest generation isn't big on rules won't come as a
surprise to human resources managers, who say they are at wits' end over
dealing with young people. They tell me that potential employees under 30 do
things such as strutting into interviews with an air of entitlement and acting
as if they're doing the company a favor by applying to work there.
Once hired, young people too often come in on Day One wanting to be vice
president but not wanting to pay the dues to get there. They want to know what
the company is going to do for them, and they rarely think about what they
intend to do for the company. In fact, the whole notion of working often seems
like an inconvenience, something they'll tolerate until they get a minute,
between YouTube and iPods, to figure out their destiny.
According to a recent report on National Public Radio, there is even a new
industry where companies hire consultants to show them how to manage this
self-important and overpraised generation. Employers are being advised to
offer younger workers rewards for showing up on time and meeting deadlines
- things that used to be considered essentials.
When producers from the Dobbs show called the Labor Department to ask about
Chao's remarks, a representative claimed that the secretary's remarks "as they
appeared in the magazine were taken completely out of context and are not an
accurate reflection of her views."
That's too bad - because Chao's remarks, as reported in Parade, do seem to be
an accurate description of at least part of our work force. And we wonder why
foreign workers are often snapped up by employers as the better deal. Why
wouldn't they be?
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