by James Glaser
June 13, 2005

In Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, America is a place "Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

It just might be like that in Lake Wobegon, but in the rest of the United States we have all of those children who are below average to contend with.

Thomas Freidman, of the New York Times, touts the work ethic of India and how people there are willing to work long hours to get ahead. If you think about it, that is how our country got to where we are now. Men and women, above and below average were willing and able to work in every area of the economy to build America.

For almost two decades we have been hearing the likes of Friedman and our leaders in Washington tell us that America has to get ready for the 21st century and while they have been saying that, America's corporations have been dismantling our factories and shipping the industrial base that made America strong, overseas where wages are low.

This transformation to the "high tech" seems to be the right move, until you remember that there are Americans that are above, and below that "average" that Keillor writes about.

It wasn't all that long ago, that a young man who just didn't fit into school could go down to the 'plant' where his dad worked and get a job. Those who never finished school could look at the military as a career and many faced a Judge who said, "Son, is it the Marines or jail?"

Those options are no longer there for young Americans. Today many young men and women are out there competing for jobs with their parents, because they don't have the skills or the aptitude for that high tech world that is being touted by Washington.

America has a large service industry, but millions of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens coming by the thousands every night across our southern border. George Bush will tell you that Mexicans take the jobs Americans don't want, but in many cases they are taking jobs that at one time were good paying, but now pay little, because Mexicans and other illegals will work on the cheap.

In Minnesota, the meat packing industry was huge with thousands of high paying jobs for companies like Hormel or Swift. Those jobs were filled with hard working Americans, who were willing to put in long hours at repetitive tasks, and they were rewarded with good pay and benefits. Today those same jobs are low paying, with few if any benefits, and are filled by people who are committing a crime just by living here. They can't strike for higher wages, better working conditions, or benefits, because they are not even citizens. Many will tell you that that Unions did this to American workers, with more and more worker demands, but think about it, with the cheap labor doing what President Bush says are "jobs Americans don't want," have the prices of meat in the store come down at all? Even a little bit? Those good paying jobs lost in Minnesota are being lost all over America. The factory towns of the North East are seeing their plants shut down, as are the textile mills of the South.

Now I worked heavy construction for years and I want you to know that many of the people I worked with in this "low tech" field had amazing skills and their intellect was second to none, but God didn't make them to only work with their minds, but with their hands too and there are millions of Americans whose "gift" from God is a manual one. Our leaders in Washington tend to come from backgrounds where "working Americans" were looked down on as sort of from a second class society. Those running things in Washington think that everyone should get ready for the high tech move they are making for us, but many Americans will never be ready for those kinds of jobs. It is a fact that many Americans feel right at home with a shovel, hammer, or wrench in their hands. God made all kinds of people and some of them don't fit into that round hole Washington is making for them.

Today, go to any large construction site and see how many workers are speaking Spanish. The pay construction workers receive to support their families is falling in that industry, like every other job that involves using your back and hands to get the job done, because workers are pouring across our border, who think five bucks a hour is big money.

When I went to school, if a kid acted out, he was booted out and he went to work in a factory or if he was old enough, he went in the service. Now there isn't either of those options. There are however still tens of thousands of American youth dropping out of school each and every year. We still have that same problem, only now we have removed the solution to it.

It doesn't matter how successful our High Tech section of the economy becomes, because we are always going to need low tech jobs for those Americans who are below "average." We can think of this problem several ways, but we should remember, no matter what, these people are American citizens, and we are either going to have jobs for them, so they can earn their pay or we are going to support them. It is our choice and if we continue to export labor jobs and import laborers, we know which it will be.

Those Americans who are never going to "fit in" to this new high tech world are good people. They are the people who build your house, your car, grow your food, fix that power line in the storm, or dig that ditch so the sewer lines can be repaired. Like you and me, they go to church, fall in love, have children, and volunteer in the community. They are Americans, who want to share in the American dream to the best of their ability, and they can if we allow them to.