One of the underlying themes infecting too many supporters of San Benito Rising’s fracking and partial oil recovery ban is that everyone in the oil industry is a vile crook. Of course, those critics probably don’t even know anyone working in the oil industry, but that’s not going to stop their personal ad hominem attacks.
They practice guilt by association – except where their own actions are concerned. They believe they can work with an extremist environmental group and no one dare question it.
Well, I dare and I do.
When you demagogue an issue like Supervisor Robert Rivas did, it’s easy to get carried away, and that happened when he attacked oil workers at last week’s board meeting for doing dirty, low-paying, jobs and living in trailers. The ironic part is that he and Supervisor Anthony Botelho think it’s better for our county to survive as California’s designated garbage dump through programs at the landfill. “Just bring it – we’ll bury it for cash,” has been their answer to our economic problems.
Think about it. They employ armies of garbage collectors by proxy who bring in tons of trash from other counties and then advise us to reject low-paying jobs. Now that’s chutzpah.
Politicians who offer only unemployment or notoriously low-wage seasonal, agriculture jobs locally shouldn’t throw stones. Dirty jobs are exactly how generations of poor immigrants have started new lives in America. Itinerant oil workers are just like itinerant farm workers – they go where the jobs are and they work instead of standing on a traffic island carrying a tin cup and a sign.
We have plenty of families here in abject poverty – 25% when you factor in housing costs – but Rivas said jobs, jobs, jobs … I’m tired of hearing about jobs. Perhaps he can afford that attitude, but the county and its residents can’t.
My family has not lived here for generations, but no matter how long he has lived here Rivas is acting like an elitist snob when he denigrates those jobs and the people who do them. He was adamant: His ancestors, he said, did not work the soil to get him a college education so he or his kids can work in oilfields. OK, but where does he come off telling people that the jobs are not good enough when there are no others? I can’t remember too many jobs he personally generated in this county.
Many families are in the situation Rivas’ and my ancestors were in generations ago. They have limited skills, little education and no opportunities. Does the supervisor think they can start as the county’s director of human resources or is he saying that it’s better to be on public assistance than working? If his ancestors felt that way he would not be where he is today.
Hordes of kids, including our son, helped work their way through college in Alaskan fish canneries, but I assure you it did not hurt them a bit; work, even dirty work, is good for people and good for the nation.
Many poor and under-employed residents would take whatever honest work they could find to support their families. For generations to move up the economic ladder, they usually have to start at the bottom rung; even today most immigrant families don’t start with a college education. My mom and dad both had to quit high school and go to work as teenagers to help support their parents and siblings during the Great Depression. I, for one, have not forgotten it and would do the same for my family if I needed a job.
