Rage Against the Vile

If you've read this blog before, then you know that I write workplace safety information.

In the course of researching my work, I sometimes come across stories that leave me sick and cold at heart.

Such a one is the story of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.

Maria was one of the millions of California farm labourers who pick crops for a living. On May 14th she collapsed in the late afternoon while working in a vineyard.

Her fiancé held her while the forman watched and did nothing. Eventually the foreman had the couple sent to town to buy rubbing alcohol to cool her off. When that didn't work he sent the van to the local clinic with instructions to tell medics the girl had fallen ill while exercising.

After her death, two days later, it turned out she was pregnant. Further investigation revealed that in defiance of California law her employer, Merced Farm Labor, had failed to provide proper access to water.

(The article states that workers are entitled to a quart of water per shift, but I'm certain that's wrong. I belive a more proper figure would be a quart per hour.)

But what drove me into a cold fury were the comments at the Sacramento Bee.

Among the outpourings of sympathy was some of the nastiest pathalogical nativist meanness I have ever seen.

In particular, one ©µ»7 called "a non ee moos" deserves to be keelhauled--but he's not alone.

I agree whole-heartedly that this is a sad, tragic story. It is sad on several levels, not the least of which is that a young girl trying to make a better world for herself died. I will not and cannot even begin to fathom how you can call this a "national shame". What is it exactly that we should be ashamed about? She was an undocumented worker, a term which has become a touchy-feely replacement of the correct term: Illegal alien. Now, TO BE FAIR, there is no way of knowing how the young lady got into the country. Statically nearly half of all undocumented workers are individuals who have overstayed their visa, a fact given by the National Assoc of Hispanic Journalists (www.nahj.org). For sure, that does not at all change the fact that it is terribly sad that this young girl lost her life, but in this situation, there is no "National Shame". There is no reason we as Americans should feel shameful about this immigration situation. We should be irate that we are being taken advantage of."

Irate ... that you were taken advantage of?

What

the

FUCK?

Let's get this straight: A 17-year old, pregnant, dies as a result of illegal conduct on behalf of her employer and your first thought is to complain that her passport wasn't stamped?

You ape.

You vile, paranoid, sad sack of monkey spunk.

You sad, twisted, inhuman, slack-jawed, defiled thing.

You symptom. You fungus growing between the toes of your society. You crack-brained hate-filled camel.
...

Here is my profoundest wish for you, you misanthropic, mesomorphic, filthy beast. And this goes for your brother and sister tumours like heatherc with her germane and sympathetic comment (title: "ILLEGALS GET OUT!"):

That sometime in the next couple of days, while you are enjoying a salad whose description of "dew-drenched" is code for "immigrant-sweat-soaked" and whose price is roughly twice the daily salary of the person picking it, you laugh, or inhale, at the wrong moment.

And I hope that a chunk of that delicious feast slides down and wedges in your windpipe.

And as you stand up and begin to stagger about the room, I pray that the only person in the restaurant who knows the Heimlich maneuver is a 17-year-old illegal immigrant.

May your own gods deliver you speedily into his/her hands.

If there's any real justice, the only person who knew the Heimlich will have been deported, just as you and your shrink-testicled, shrivelled-ovaried friends demand.

Side note:
For those who made an issue on a dead girl's comment thread that having sex at 17 is a crime, I'd like to borrow from George Carlin: "May you never ₤µ©λ again ... Naw, that's too cruel. May it hurt every time you ₤µ©λ."

A life is a life. If she were born in Omaha or Osaka her death would be equally tragic.