Monday, November 2, 2009

Blue Berry Fields Forever...


ABC News ran a segment on NightLine over the weekend that exposed evil blue berry farmers exploiting "immigrant" children under the age of 12 in Michigan and other states.  They provided the video of a group tracking child labor violations with sorrowful stories of how the children were being victimized.

I guess you can call me heartless...but I was left with one unanswered question...Where are the parents of these children?  Has personal responsibility died in America?  OK...I asked two questions.
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3 comments:

Uncle Wiggily said...

I don't favor exploitation of children, but I gotta tell ya, a liitle labor wouldn't hurt a lot of the crumb-crunchers I am acquainted with. Most of them would benefit by putting down their WII's and their Guitar Heroes and getting behind a lawn mower or a leaf rake.

I hate to get into "when I was young" stories ... but ... I was piloting my Daddy's old John Deere around a field when I was 10 or 11, and I had my first paying, away-from-home summer job in the hayfields of Cherry County when I was 13. I can't see that those experiences damaged my tender psyche all that much - though I realize that some are not too pleased with the way I turned out.

Point is, it's prolly better for a kid to be picking blueberries in rural Michigan, than running numbers (or worse) on the streets of Detroit.

And you're right, OOITT ... where in the hell are these kids parents?

November 3, 2009 at 8:03 AM
One Out In The Third said...

Uncle...

I was scooping sidewalks in Kearney at the tender age of 10. The pay in the early 60's was not a lot but it provided the means to see a movie...pay for a real haircut rather than a free buzz saw job at home. By the time I was 13 I was stacking and sliding bales of the back of a bailer sled...and between cuttings scooping doodoo out of hog houses for a "hot" and 50 cents an hour. I thought I was rich...even road my bike to work and home. I don't think it hurt me either. I did draw the line when it came to my smelly uncle. The guy was a useless slob and somehow I was "contracted" to clean his apartment for a little bit of nothing. That traumatic event was what set the base for child labor law.

November 3, 2009 at 4:25 PM
One Out said...

rode...I need better glasses.

November 3, 2009 at 4:27 PM

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