On his June 23 show, Keith Olbermann supported cheap, illegal foreign labor working in sometimes dangerous conditions rather than legal workers working for acceptable wages under safe conditions. And, he either fell for or tried to promote pro-illegal immigration propaganda.

On the show (transcript at [1], video at bcove.me/9c9fn6v5), Olbermann claimed that Georgia's growers were "at least 11,000 workers short of a harvest" because "[n]early all the undocumented workers were chased from Georgia" due to that state's new anti-illegal immigration law.

Now, please take a look at the posts on the crops rotting in the fields page. Those posts show how - for literally decades - growers have been complaining about labor shortages due to immigration enforcement or due to guest workers programs that weren't to their liking. Those frequently cookie-cutter articles use scare tactics to push for looser immigration policies or to oppose enforcement, frequently using some variant of the claim that "crops will rot in the fields". And, despite usually not getting all the cheap, exploitable labor they want, U.S. crops keep getting harvested.

Olbermann even used the same phrase as many of those articles, claiming that "crops are going to go un-harvested and will rot in the fields."

Shouldn't Keith Olbermann have realized that he was retailing cheap labor propaganda? Or, did he realize what he was doing and just not tell his viewers?

Note also that Olbermann is supporting illegal activity: knowingly employing illegal aliens a crime, and Olbermann would enable growers to hire those who they probably know are here illegally. Olbermann is also enabling public corruption: he would have public officials turn a blind eye to illegal immigration because some small group of employers want to profit from that illegal labor. He's also enabling private corruption, as banks take steps to enable illegal immigration because they hope to profit from deposits by illegal aliens and the remittances they send home (see immigration banks).

Olbermann isn't "fighting the power", he's trying to help them make more money.

As if that wasn't enough, illegal workers are much more exploitable than legal workers: if an illegal alien complains about a wage dispute or low safety standards, their employer can threaten to turn them in to immigration enforcement. Did Keith Olbermann realize that and just support legal workers? No, he supported easily-exploitable illegal workers.

But, wait, there's more. He said "legal Georgians are not rushing to take nine bucks an hour for back-breaking manual labor and no benefits". First, people who are struggling to put food on their own tables might well be willing to work for that amount. Second, rather than pushing for growers to raise their wages to be more attractive to legal workers and to offer some form of benefits, Olbermann is supporting lowering wages by supporting illegal labor. That's the opposite of Cesar Chavez' position.

Olbermann isn't supporting the development of new harvesting machinery which might make that manual labor easier. Note that development of harvesting machinery has been held back due to reliance on cheap foreign labor ("In Florida Groves, Cheap Labor Means Machines"); Olbermann isn't calling for an increase in such development.

And, with millions unemployed, Olbermann isn't promoting a pro-American jobs plan that would get Americans doing some of the jobs that illegal aliens currently do.

Instead, Olbermann is supporting cheap foreign labor working under often unsafe conditions, he's supporting propaganda, and he's supporting illegal activity and corruption.

Let him know what you think: @CountdownKO and @KeithOlbermann.

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[1]

[Matt Ramsey] is the Representative to the State General Assembly from Georgia's 72nd district, and he got his way. His anti-immigrant bill, H-B 87, passed into law and was signed by moron Governor Nathan Deal.

It is technically called "The Illegal Immigration Reform And Enforcement Act"...

And it worked like a charm.

Nearly all the undocumented workers were chased from Georgia just the way Representative Matt Ramsey wanted.

And now Georgia's farmers are in crisis, because millions of dollars of blueberries and onions and melons and other crops are going to go un-harvested and will rot in the fields... Because nearly all the undocumented workers were chased from Georgia just the way Representative Matt Ramsey wanted.

Georgia farmers are at least 11-thousand workers short of a harvest, and for some reason, legal Georgians are not rushing to take nine bucks an hour for back-breaking manual labor and no benefits.

I got an idea: take the Republican rocket scientists who just bankrupted Georgia's farming economy -- and have them harvest the blueberries.

Then we'll stop calling Representative Matt Ramsey, Sooooper Genius, today's Worst Person In The World.