Professor Hot Wind
Play this video:
WHITEHOUSETRESSPASSERS12-14-09.wmv (2.8 MB)
touche'
- frustrated U.S. job seeker
(What follows by playing the video is a member of Congress at the podium reading from a prepared speech about a letter he recieved from some woman from his district who questioned why the media referred to last year's White House party crashers as "unwelcome guests" and law breakers while millions of illegal immigrants are simply referred to as "undocumented citizens". He elaborates on a plan which he believes should protect the couple with services and rights currently afforded our "unwanted guests" from south of the border.)
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Dear Seeker,
I never fail to marvel at the enthusiasm some people express when providing the world a peek into their self indulgent, unaccomplished satirical drivelings. From a member of the United States Congress however, I would have expected a less forthright display of contempt for the principles of logic and humanitarian ethics.
Two dwellings are measured to provide one thousand square feet of living space. One is four hundred and seventy feet above the streets of the upper east side of Manhattan with a commanding view of the East river; the other is located in a low income area of Hempstead, Long Island surrounded by drug activity and gang violence. Would it be a legitimate complaint by attorneys for the occupant of the Manhattan condominium to lower his taxes to the same rate paid by his "privileged" neighbor from Hempstead by virtue of the of living space alone?
The party crashing couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, were motivated to perform a self-indulgent prank for the sole and contemptible purpose of fulfilling a serial need to hobnob with figures of historical potential and strengthen a television producer's interest in using them on a reality show. Evidence to support the fact that these two con-artists visited the White House banquet only after crashing other parties and scamming business associates surfaced during the weeks-long news and gossip fallout following the "incident".
United States buisiness' providing employment to undocumented workers at substandard wages and with zero benefits while avoiding payroll taxes are not in the same logical or ethical category of cause and effect as White House Social Secretary, Desiree Rodgers' arrangement of a guest list, cocktails and glazed lady fingers, which was in complete accordance with U.S. tax code.
With one's feet held to the fire of poverty, is it not a seperate case for an individual, brown or white, to reach out to any promise of relief? What the hell would you do? I assume this sanctimonious scumbag would simply allow his family to starve in accordance with some law while navigating the "second-class" labyrinth of futility we serve up as a visa-process, tailored exclusively for our brown skinned neighbors to the south; (a process not imposed on our European and Canadian brothers). It is far more likely to imagine this asshole dressed as a woman to claim a seat somewhere on a lifeboat dispatched from the sinking Titanic than to wet his wing tips in the icey North atlantic.
I hold this bastard in contempt for his refusal to acknowledge the complicity of United States business in the cycle of unwanted immigration; a well established, indispensible yet seldom addressed factor in the total equation.
"Touche'" my ass . . . .
Prof. G.
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prof. g
On immigration, whether brown skinned from from the south or fair skinned from the north, those who arrive legally or not and in a desperate situation are getting assistance from our government. I've been here in the US all 51 years of my life and have paid taxes for better than 30. Over the past year I've been searching for a job and in the most desperate situation of my life.
Through flagrant disregard, our government stood by and watched as our financial institutions ran rough shod over the average hard working citizen. In my time of need they turned their backs to me. If I broke the law to protect my family my feet would be held to the fire but Pedro is granted a get out of jail free card. I see these "poor and unfortunate refugees" here enjoying the American Dream, government sponsored that it is. They live better than you and by a landslide. I have no sympathy for any of them and the government can kiss my fucking ass for forgetting about my needs as well as every other America Citizen in the same situation. I hope getting the Hispanic vote was worth it.
- Frustrated Seeker
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Dear Mr. Frustrated,
Undocumented/"illegal" trespassers into this country strain our local governments by receiving direct assistance and/or collatoral benefits without contributing to the budget with payroll taxes; without providing volunteer services such as joining the local fire department or coaching youth team sports; nor are they known for reinvesting their earnings into home repair or similar efforts to improve the quality of their neighborhood. All right, I get it. I understand this fact as well today as when I first realized the problem well over twenty years ago.
You have had a rough year. I understand the pressure of being unemployed. I was out of work for three years. During this time I was seperated from my wife, whom I still loved and failed in every attempt to mold a teaching format for my disabled daughter. I produced art that did not sell, hid from a landlord I could not pay and drove my unregistered, uninsured car into the white gloves of Johnny Law not once, but twice. Every morning, vans would pull out of the compound of cottages where I lived, stuffed with "brown-skinned", spanish speaking men on their way to work. Most of these guys were less skilled than me. They were working, I was not.
Did it hurt? Yes. Did I blame them? Not on your life. The owner of the home improvement company who owned the vans, simply found a way to hire some nonskilled workers who accepted substandard wages, no benefits and long hours. The owner increased his personal profits by not paying taxes. Who would agree to these terms? People who are escaping a wretched life in search of a better one would. Why do they come here? Because American business' have been calling for them to come.
What the hell are you referring to when you claim that "Pedro" would be excused for the same crime for which you would be punished? It is rhetoric like this which pisses me off and makes the Tea-Partys howl in joyous chorus. It sounds tough but is without substance. This problem will be solved only after we stop making excuses and step up to the plate. The same fine for you or me means deportation for "Pedro". If you think its fun living underground, try it. It speaks volumes to believe someone would choose this over the conditions back home. Who would come if no one here provided a job?
I paid my taxes for many years. In bad times I accepted work "off the books". Either way, I took work where I could get it. How am I any different than these other guys, simply because I had the good fortune to be born a citizen? You don't blame the raccoon for tearing into your garbage can. This only makes you look like a silly, frustrated and short-sighted man. Buy a lid. They'll go somewhere else.
-Prof. Giov
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Prof. G.
I've had the opportunity to work side by side with our brother from the south and for several years now. From their mouths I've heard that America is hear for the taking. "The US Government will give us everything we need". My personal favorite was, "We don't need to be honest with the loan officer at the banks when applying for a home loan. It's their job to find out if we're lying with respect to our income". I had an illegal from El Salvador me of his hatred for Mexicans and our government should do something to get rid of them. This guy owned a home and two news vehicles, supported a wife and four children. That's four children! "No bid deal. America will help with our irresponsibility". And if no family here, every dollar possible is sent "home". Home, right? They don't even consider this home and broke the law to get here. They put nothing back into our economy but for the rice and beans they consume. And as things are going dry they are leaving.
The notion of businesses hiring the illegal is who fault? If I can take the illegal immigration problem into my own hands then you can blame me for hiring an illegal. But let them stand on my door step and plead for a job to end their hunger; let me think about the tax breaks associated with this type of hiring. It's the governments job to keep these people off my fucking porch. I can't take this matter into my own hands. I say, if he wasn't here, he couldn't be hired. Everyone has been squeezed so tight that they will hire anyone off the street to save a dollar. Sure, as a business owner I hired off the street but I hired white Americans. I'm not prejudice but I wanted to give a job to Americans. You jump at the visa process established to control the flow of imagration from the south but that's exactly what it is designed to do. Do you really think this country has the means to take on a flood of all the world's burdens and still be in a position to oversea the implementation the constitution for the citizen of America? How many balls will President W.C. Fields and cabinet of straight men try to continue juggling before they drop all of them? For the protection of It's Citizens, America's borders must stand for something. Helping is one thing but not at the price of our stability. Let's pull some of our military out of the middle east and send them to Mexico. Get rid of the cartels and help to establish some justice and possibly help to create an environment that people don't wish to run from. And not even mentioning the overflow of crime on our southern borders.
And I hope you weren't trying to group me in as a Tea Party asshole. Those folks don't have the same agenda as I. They've been rallied together to represent an ideological way of though for the purpose of personal gain. You don't see me hiking around with a sign bought and paid for by Sean Hannity. The party must prevail. Fox News has to look good for ratings, right? My ass! I think on my own feet for myself.
Consider this. If any one of your brothers call and asked if they're family could move in with you as times were tough, you would say yes just as I would. Then another brother calls. Lets be realistic. How much could you handle? Would you be looked upon as unconcerned if a no answer was necessary? Limits need to be established for survival.
Do you where Levis? I hope not. All of their manufacturing was shipped south many years ago as so many did. They save big money on production with the benefit of the sweat shop. How many jobs went along with these moves? We should tariff this kind of import heavy to help the unemployed, not sneak in new taxes by calling them a fee. No, my friend. A line needs to be drawn as to where our allegiance ends. Call it a budget if it dulls the pain in humanitarian in you saying no but we need to do something to aid the United Sates of America, not The United States of the World. I'm praying that the President we elect in twenty twelve can think a little bit more along these lines. And I say again, nothing will change until we get rid of the corruption. We need term limits in the House and the Senate.
- Frustrated
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Dear Frustrated,
You are mistaken if you feel any advantage over my beliefs because you worked "side by side" with immigrants from the south. I have spent many years myself digging pools, scaffolding, roofing and fixing embroidery machines with people from the south. My frame of reference on most of these issues comes from these relationships. Your scumbag friend from el Salvador sounds no different from many xenophobic Americans from whom I choose to distance myself from. Why should I even listen to the hate speech of one illegal immigrant against another? They either both suck or they both have some dimension to their situation. If they were only flooding into Syria or Pakistan they'd be called refugees. Tough luck for them, eh? (I took the liberty of assuming your friend from El Salvador is prospering in America illegally. Your reference to him being irresponsible for having four children reminded me of a family I once knew from Commack, but these people had six, were first generation Americans and paid their own way. Thank god they were white and from Britain, so they didn't have to wait five years for a visa. I'd probably be working in a coal mine near Swansea right now.)
How in good reason can you write "if he wasn't here, he wouldn't be hired"? What the fuck do you think brought him here? The promise of jobs, that's what. But you already knew that or you wouldn't have written, "As things are going dry they are leaving". I suppose you thought I wouldn't catch that, didn't you?
You claim that poor American businessmen were forced to dick the Nation because time are tough. That's not true. The home improvement and landscaping businesses were booming in the prosperous eighties, ninetys and the early 2000's, long before the big banks went bust as a result of three administration's worth of banking deregulation. Now we're suffering the legacy of our disrespect and gluttony. I'm just tone deaf to the whining.
You talk about "tax breaks associated with this type of hiring". Not paying taxes is not a "tax break" as you call it. Its just illegal. I've been there my friend. I've been hurt financially. I've been fucked by insurance companies; my 401k went to pay for hospital bills, blown trannys and other crisis de jour. I can't get a credit card or a bank loan because of my own tough luck situation. So should I just kick a Mexican? Fuck that!
Make it tough for businesses to employ undocumented workers and you will see the exodus. Don't blame the raccoon because you bait the trap. Let them all leave and wait two months and I bet you the media is all up in arms over the loss of affordable landscaping. Let the prices on the consumer rise; let the business world feel the pinch of paying all their taxes and I will show you the greatest exodus: American production flooding to foreign factories. Prices will rise just about the time when unemployment dwarfs the 10% we have today. If you want to keep kicking the little guy, you better get longer legs because just about the time you realize the big guy was responsible for orchestrating the whole mess, he'll already be in India and Indonesia, sitting on the beach avoiding taxes and thumbing his nose at you and me.
But you seem to have it all figured out. Numb to the effects our neurotic appetite for cheap foreign goods and labor have on the way we pick and choose our Federal spending priorities, you simply withdraw "some" troops from Afghanistan and invade Mexico. I hate to tell you hoop, but we just don't have the money or resources to beat up every low life on the block. We have just dismantled our "twenty-first century moon landing program" because we don't have the money. Maybe if we got an astronaut from Ghiana, we could pay him $7 an hour and save on the medical coverage. What then do we do with all the other "American" spacemen all suited up with nowhere to go? They might be available to kill pesky wet-backs trying to swim the Rio Grande. . . . but wait! . . that job's been hit hard by lay offs. Seems fewer and fewer brown skinned people even care to come over any more.
-prof. Giov
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Dear Prof. Giov
I never realize how unrighteous I've become. Thanks for getting me to see the light. You did get one thing wrong. It's not an invasion of Mexico that I was looking for. We should just shove our assistance down their throat as our government has been doing to everyone for years. After all, they know what I need.
- Frustrated
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Dear Frustrated,
Las Vegas must have softened your game. Does everyone out there fall for this kind of rope-a-dope? In your sarcastic return I recognize a barb twice turned, yet on its mark; a sniper's shot as viewed in a mirror. Knowing you as I do, it is clear enough that your gratitude is disingenuous, shining ironically on my own percieved Peck-sniffian "righteousness"; a posture you would sooner cross swords with than consider. Better, you have said, to "shoot from the hip" than "stick to the book".
It is just this crazy quilt of logic which keeps me writing my good friend. As long as poor research and contradiction are the chief spices in your philisophical kitchen, it might certainly appear that I default time and again to a fixed set of principles which you find immature and short-sighted. Your insistance, on the other hand, that we employ viscious tactics to win some peace, completely ignores the delicate balance of any surviving economic factors required to sustain the outcome of the greater majority of your proposed "solutions". You seem confident that industry should rise from the bomb craters of every war; whereas I insist that you simply cannot replace all the hostile cultures in the world with "middle American values" and throw a Honky-tonkin' pig roast to celebrate the victory. Civil obedience and cultural pride are as important to the equation of a civilization's self-reliance as the tools needed to repair the roads and the tractors needed to plow the fields. Money will buy tools, but each shop keeper, farmer and mechanic must have a home with a soul to return to at the end of each day. The United States can no longer spend our way out of these quagmires. We simply have too many economic troubles at home.
"According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, in 2003, the world’s major countries gave $108.5 billion in combined foreign aid. Of this, the U.S. contributed $37.8 billion, or 35 percent, of the total."
and . . .
"According to Independent Sector, in 2003, Americans contributed an additional $266 billion worth of their time to charitable enterprises. This is based on a value of $17.12 per hour of time. But even if one assigns a value equal to the minimum wage, this noncash contribution still comes to about $100 billion."
Proof that money alone does not even approach what is needed to repair the stain our global reputation has "unjustly" suffered by unscrupulous diplomatic and industrial activities over the past seventy-five years can be found in the same report from the OECD, which says:
"In 2003, U.S. foreign aid [as a share of national income] came to just 0.34 percent, well below the world leading Dutch at 2.44 percent."
And for this we are percieved across the globe as stingy. I don't know about you, but I've got half a mind to spend that money creating jobs right here at home, were it not for two factors. Americans have less money these days to buy the very products produced by the imaginary factories built with this speculative windfall, despite the inevitable creation of the jobs needed to run these same factories. Thank you Wall Street and friends. (I wonder how many illegal immigrants worked on Wall Street at the time . . ) And secondly, pissing the global customer base off by thumbing our nose at the IMF, the World Bank and all other recipients of our philanthropy will only reduce further any incentive for foreign consumers to purchase goods made in America.
We the "little" people are nonetheless stained in the eyes of our global cousins by our tradition of quiet deference to the corporate invasion of their home lands. We are to them no less than an enemy soldier following "orders" from our superiors, contributors to the rape of vast resources from their own culturally immature, hence vulnerable regions; quite literally thieves. Our brief moments of international glory and compassion, including two world wars and the Marshall Plan, appear to weigh-in quite insufficiently on the scale of modern day global perceptions. We have delivered our vision, our wheel house into the hands of our own lowest navigational impulses: corporate greed and gluttony; throwing our moral compass over the rail and watching our glorious bow slice the foreign seas before us on well scripted High Definition television broadcasts; drunk on a conditioned need to consume. We have left entire regions cherry-picked and barren; we have used our diplomatic influence to manipulate regional politics and engineer wars for profits harvested by a nation of "fat, pale skinned Satans" half the world away. And by doing so we have created jobs at home and a new middle class of people who have money to spend and are dependent on spending it.
These activities over many decades have left deep scars across many nations, across many continents. Though the overwhelming majority of Americans are not consulted on these matters, we all play our roles in the scheme by working at our innocent jobs, turning our wrenches and pushing our pencils; buying our comfortable Norman Rockewell homes, watching our sitcoms and filling the air with our glade fresheners and carbon. This my friend is the perception of our "superiority" in the eyes of those who continue to upset the comfort and quiet you agonize over. They simply consider your suffering retribution and only the beginning. You and I have seventy years of abuse, oppression and rape before we understand the level of hatred we are up against in many parts of the world.
Another pragmatic reason to avoid "from the hip" logic is this reminder from our friends at Oxfam, who published the following statement in a paper, Meeting the Challenge of Poverty Reduction, published March 2, 2002:
"Some Northern governments have stressed that “trade not aid” should be the dominant theme at the [March 2002 Monterrey] conference [on Financing for Development]. That approach is disingenuous on two counts. First, rich countries have failed to open their markets to poor countries. Second, increased aid is vital for the world’s poorest countries if they are to grasp the opportunities provided through trade."
Now you and I both know that by 2010, our country has spent $710,000,000,000 on the war in Iraq, $256,000,000,000 on the war in Afghanistan; $4,616,5000,000,000, (that's trillions!!) bailing out the Banks while leaving a $1,2000,000,000,000 debt for us average Americans to bequeath our grandchildren. How many more services need to be cut to fix your immigrant problem? You see my dear friend, what on the surface appears to you a snivelling, sanctimonious approach to some of these problems is merely the recognition that too many of them are so self-inflicted, so-wrapped up in a candy-coated, flag waving distortion of the truth that it would exhaust me to have to play the same song before every game. My failure to do this however has taken for granted the short, selective memory of my good friend, and for this i sincerely apologize. Thank you for getting me to see the light.
If you haven't turned your computer off by now and dismissed me as a threat to all that is sensible and holy, I would like to step out of the pulpit and summerize the situation. You want to shoot the bad guy. I see his finger on a big red button. You go to pull the plug. I see an extension cord running from the plug into the next, glass enclosed room where it supplies juice to a machine that keeps a young child breathing. I am prevented from negotiating with the bad man because I'm too busy arguing with you over a need to try and save the child's life. The bottom line is that we are fighting with each other when we should recognize that we share the same fate and would profit most by working together. For me the process begins by peeling back the years of bullshit paint and spackle and fake paneling and formulate a solution at the core studs. Tearing down the house for me is no more an option than simply hanging another roll of wall paper. We as a Nation are not innocent victims to every problem that distresses us. My question is and always has been: Why are we, as a nation, so reluctant to address the facts regarding our own DNA at the crime scene? This is not "righteousness" at work my good friend. This is merely being effective.
Stop allowing Businesses to pay undocumented workers and undocumented workers will either go back home or become tax paying citizens. Those without a place to work yet choosing to stay will be reduced to a smaller, more managable sized group, illegal still, yet without American complicity.
-prof. G
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Dear P. G.
I would never point the scope on my snipers rifle at you, unless you consider yourself to be part of the problem. With respect to my game, what game do you reference? Perhaps you refer to a seat at the table of the survival game that the collapsed housing market has provided me. The game is old and very similar to tic-tac-toe. No winners or losers. Only the hopes of a win or the fears and panic that accompanies losing; a game of futility that is pointless to play. I would much rather sit in stands, eat my hot dog, and watch the game at this stage of my life.
On war, bring the troops home. I believe I've stated this on several occasions. But if you’re going to send them to do the work of embasaries, allow them to work and expect collateral damage. The growing theme of sensitivities can't allow one American soldier to die through a tactical change that will put us at risk. You shoot at me, I'm shooting back and God be with the unfortunate individual that your cowardly ass hides behind.
The issue of replacing all cultures with American values is not on my plate. If industry is to rise from bomb craters it shouldn't be from our bombs and it definitely shouldn't be our industry. Again, we don't belong there. If you feel so strongly about interfering with civil obedience, a foreign country's cultural pride, and the tools and tractors they require to maintain their fields, I suggest you join the peace core. There is no need to spend our way out of anything. All we need to do is keep the National Wallet in out fucking pocket.
And my research extends no further than the in box on my desk. I research ways to exists and pay my bills. You are right as I don't dedicate too much time to understanding the politics of the Afghan poppy fields and those whom control Afghanistan . I don't research the history of religious civil wars that have been going on for thousands of years to try and find ways to promote the humane treatment of the oppressed in the countries that we occupy. In short, I don't have the time or inclination to give a shit. My government has left me to stand alone with the collateral damage I suffer from their turning of a blind eye with respect to the mismanagement of an industry within our borders that has crippled my livelihood.
Love your research but I don't give a shit about how much money has been doled out and by whom in an effort to help the world. I've kick into my country's kitty for better that thirty years and a little quid pro quo is in order here.
With respect to the monies that have been wasted?, spent for a good cause?, call it what ever you'd like to, I do understand but I didn't to the exact dollar so I thank you for that. I do understand that the glutinous ways of the American people depend on the labyrinth of world business we forced across the globe. But I also understand we need to change how we do business. I've apparently misunderstood your views on world interference. I recall that you promoted “business as is”or we as a country would collapse. You have clarified your reasons for why things must remain as they are for now. These issues can't be changed on the turn of a dime but I don't see anyone doing anything about change whatsoever. Where ever it is we start will be painful for many but if we focus on the sensitivities of those who will be affected by pulling back we will never pull back. It's going to hurt someone and we'll, in our best political correctness, have to say tough shit.
You include a quote about trade. It's a great idea but many nations have nothing to trade. Many of them have only the business we've exported. We buy what we need from them and the business owners are the only ones that benefit from the savings of sweat shops. How about high tariffs on these goods. Maybe some business will come back as a result and yes the people working for those businesses abroad would be hurt by losing their jobs. (Sorry, I've lost my field of work and I live here.) But Senator Greedy would vote Nay as some lobbyist asshole has already guaranteed him lifetime supply of Levis for his vote. We need to get strong again then maybe someday we could continue with assistance on some level. As long as we just give they will just take and we will just lose. We can start trading right here. If you want us to give you a support check, give us a clean urine sample. Someone will get hurt, and I really don't want to say it but, you have to break a few what? Maybe with term limits in the House and Senate we would rid those who won't examine our own DNA.
To answer your question, if the illegals could become tax paying citizens I'm sure the majority would. But as they don't feel it comes up within their time frame, my final answer is "a". Just as due process applies to us, it needs to apply to them.
- F.U.S.J.S.
