I’ve got mail:

Andrew,

We will let you know within two days whether or not we can use you.  We’ve had an overwhelming response.  Thank you for your interest.

This “overwhelming response” was to a help wanted ad, in English, for grape pickers in San Luis Obispo County. The ad was posted less than 72 hours ago.

I’m sure that by the Farm Bureau’s reckoning, no individuals authorized to work in the United States applied for this position. While I was driving to San Luis Obispo yesterday to interview for another job, I listened to a broadcast by an outfit called Family Radio on which the Executive Director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, Ryan Jacobsen, intoned about how Fresno County’s farmers just can’t find enough native-born help to get all their field work done. Of course they can’t; they never advertise for it.

If these gigs in San Luis Obispo fall completely through, I’m of a mind to go back to Fresno, track Jacobsen down, and tell him, “Hey, I heard you say on the radio that you’re shorthanded. Are you hiring about now?” I’m mostly kidding about this, but not entirely. It’s usually Tea Party cranks who passive-aggressively apply for farm jobs, and if I were a farm manager, I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about hiring a crew of underqualified, out-of-shape ideological blowhards who enjoy wearing tricorner hats. On the other hand, I’m not a self-appointed latter-day Patrick Henry, but a humble farmhand with several seasons’ experience with wine grapes, and I dare say I’m not the only such gringo.

My pseudoapologies for humblebragging.

I keep harping on the dearth of farm help wanted ads only because Farm Bureau officials and their elected representatives (apparently not my elected representatives) keep harping on the shortage of farmhands. I could have given materially the same speech that Jacobsen gave about farm labor “shortages” and immigration “reform” yesterday. There’s a certain comforting Kabuki ritualization to it, an unctuousness that is weirdly majestic in its predictability and brazen repetition of tiresome bullshit. As a Catholic, I appreciate liturgies.

What I start to wonder is whether Jacobsen and his colleagues actually, sincerely believe their own bullshit. I doubt that Dianne Feinstein does in her capacity as their lackey; I’d be surprised if any sincerity on her part outlived Harvey Milk by a decade and a half. Jacobsen gave off a very different vibe; for what the distinction is worth, he seemed not to be an indecent man, but a decent man making indecent arguments. The labor shortage has become rote learning in the San Joaquin Valley farm country by this point. It takes a lot of effort to unlearn the indoctrination, and a lot of courage to publicly repudiate it.

Some people go deep enough into the bullshit holding tank to stop noticing the fumes. They don’t notice that the fumes are making them loopy. It happened to members of the US intelligence community (sic) in the 1950′s. Recently declassified papers show high-ranking intelligence officials using the same crude redbaiting language in private correspondence that they used in public statements. They weren’t throwing red meat to the goobers and then retiring to snicker about how they had pulled a fast one on the Bircher freaks. They actually believed their own factually challenged Comintern hysteria. I have no reason to believe that Ryan Jacobsen is nuts, but I also have no reason to believe that he’s using any kind of critical thinking about the farm labor supply in his home county. That’s the kind of thing that would aggravate the neighbors, if nothing else, and I figure that, as a Farm Bureau officer, he’s politically savvy enough not to play around with anything that looks like a third rail.

Because there are never enough gringos to get the farm work done. Except when there are too many of us.