1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
—Mahatma Gandhi
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
"Seven Blunders of the World"
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
—Mahatma Gandhi
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Press One for English, Press Two for Hate-Talk
If you've got email, you've probably received the YouTube country sensation, "Press One For English," in which a burgeoning country duo, Ron and Kay Rivoli, enjoin us all to circle the wagons around our native tongue. No doubt this song is destined to rocket to the top of the YouTube charts and might even make it onto Billboard if they try hard. I'm happy for the Rivolis and the success their song has generated for them--their bookings in 2007 look solid--and wish them all the luck in the world. It's next to impossible to make it as an artist in ANY discipline and music is as unlikely a place to make a living as any other. You have to be saavy. Tough. Racist.
But "Press One" has broken out of the novelty-bin where it was resting next to Weird Al Yankovich, to become an unexpected anthem for people who are proactively stupid. These are the people who laugh when the guy at Casa d'Ice puts up the word 'wetbacks' on his store front sign.1 The same people who forward me countless emails decrying everything from Jimmy Carter's foreign policy (uh, that was 20 years ago) to the law that says congressmen and cops don't pay taxes (uh, yes they do) without expending the required thirteen seconds on Google to verify whether or not these things are true. Like those ridiculous emails, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, "Press One . . ." is popular not because these particular Americans are patriotic but because they hate Mexicans.
Although I would like to accept the argument of these particular Americans that they aren't anti-brown, they're just pro-law, I think a diplomatic description would be to call that argument disingenuous instead of a big fat fucking lie. I don't want to call these particular Americans liars because some of them are friends of mine and some of them are family and I know them to be honorable and ethical people, brave veterans, civic minded, and decent. But they've all given up their god given facility for critical reasoning in order to participate in a little acceptable racism.
I'd like to address this veiled racism and stupidity point by point but since the whole thing tipped when I got that stupid song in my email, but I want to clear up the "Press One . . ." thing first.
The habits of hospitals and retailers act as a leading indicator of where our country stands on the efficacy of the English language in administering service. Language choices on the phone systems of major retailers indicate an overwhelming recognition and acceptance of Spanish-only customers. These choices do not indicate that these patrons are illegal immigrants and they do not indicate a preference for Spanish-only customers and patients.
If you only speak Spanish, then the nice-lady-recording indicating that you can press 2 for Spanish sounds like Wookie. You won't know to press 2. In their effort to make things easier for those people needing medical aide, most health service organizations chose to add a snippet of Spanish language to the very beginning of their recorded message so that the 43.5 percent of the calling population that is Spanish speaking who are calling in because their spleen is hanging out can get the necessary Spanish speaking attendant prior to bleeding to death. In their possibly misguided assumption of the breadth of compassion of the English speaking American citizenry, these institutions felt most people would understand this and not feel threatened or maligned during the 2 seconds of Spanish they are forced to endure.
I can understand how many Americans feel overwhelmed at this point since, if they call in to a hospital, say, 5 times a year, they're wasting 10 whole seconds every year! That's about seven minutes of their entire life (assuming they call the Hospital 5 times a year every year from birth) totally wasted. I mean, think of the effect that has on our economy!
Well, let's look at the economy for a minute. The Spanish-only despleened callers and buyers we're talking about here are not necessarily illegal immigrants. While hospitals do treat illegal immigrants (or let them bleed to death)3, they're not the reason the phone system has the Spanish option. That's for Spanish-speaking citizens and immigrants of legal status which comprise a significant portion of the lower income work forces which tend to have, a) the least amount of health care, and, b) bleed more. Take sugar cane cutters in Florida, mostly Jamaican and Mexican immigrants, who use machetes in mucky fields with footing that could trip a gazelle. They often hack big glistening chunks out of their own ankles because they have to cut the cane low to get the most product. It's very likely that when one of these hardworking people hacks a chunk out of their leg they'll call the hospital. Now, let's pretend that instead of calling the hospital, they fall down in front of you while you're touring a sugarcane field. As you stumble upon a sugarcane worker with a machete stuck in his shin, he looks at you and says "¿Por favor, padre, usted quitaría este machete de mi tobillo?" Do you plant your hands on your hips and say "Sorry, pal, I don't speak spic," or do you drop on your knees, rip off your shirt, and wrap the guy's fucking leg?
Q: Yeah, well, they ought to stay in their own damn country because they're taking our jobs!
A: Fucking idiot.
Let's just get into the Mexican part of it and leave the Sengalese Taxi cab drivers and the Filipino dead turkey de-featherers off the plate for now. Most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, take the following jobs:
Chicago and Illinois migrant worker stats break down like this:
Q: Well why can't you see that they're a huge drain on the economy?!
A: Because they're not.
Let's just try to narrow this problem down to one 50th of it's actual size so you can maybe squeeze it in next to all the fantasy football stats, hymn lyrics, and black-on-black lesbian porn URLs rattling around in your head.
Q: I'm not anti-Mexican, I just want them to obey the law.
A: You malignant, lying, jackass.
How many anti-illegal-Canadian jokes did you forward this year? If the core of these particular Americans' argument was based exclusively on the legality of the situation of illegal immigrants, then they'd bitch about how all the illegal Pakistani's were filling up the emergency rooms. You'd wait for a cab driven by a legal citizen. You'd ask for greencards from all the people who cook your food, mow your lawn, wash your car, and deliver your paper; you'd demand that meat distributors prove their product was packed by legal citizens; you'd only buy oranges with NOT PACKED BY ILLEGAL FRENCH GUYS stickers; you'd quit eating lettuce, spinach, apples, oranges, apricots, chiles, celery, rice, bananas, asparagus, cilantro, and chard because it's ALL picked by illegal immigrants. You'd write your congressman about the instructions for your weed whacker being printed in 8 languages. You'd act.
Instead, it's stuff like this:
As much as I've tried, I can't find a non-mexican equivalent--well, except for this:
Q: These people come over here and buy champagne with their welfare checks and get free medicine and then protest our government policies--is this why my grandfather and his father fought and died?
A: You damn right.
The only way newly arrived immigrants can abuse welfare policy, protest immigration reform, and get free medical attention is because our government decided they deserve welfare, freedom of speech and the right to assemble, and healthcare. They are policies written by, legislated by, enacted by, and upheld by the United States of America and if you don't like the laws of this country, well, you can leave. Otherwise, my forefathers fought and died so anyone living in the United States, legal or illegal, won't get their balls blown off for expressing themselves, feeding their kids, or getting sick. If you want to live like that, I invite you to review the bylaws of the Taliban.
Q: Well, you're un-American if you support illegal immigrants!
A: Go fuck yourself, gringo.
The only people who are truly unAmerican are those people who try to retard my freedoms, rights, and privileges or those of my neighbor. People like these particular Americans who want all illegals to drop dead on the spot or move back to Mexico (which has GOT to piss off the illegal South Afrikans). And hell yes I support illegal immigrants--hell, I employ some I'm certain, since none of my Russian and Polish maids speak much more English than "there?", "or there?", and "we finish now." I love my maids and they're cheap as hell. It can be a little frustrating sometimes when I want to explain that if they use Johnson's Wax to clean the bathroom floor, I tend to slip and fall down. But such is the cost of cheap labor in America.
And what should I do? I know at least five people--not my maids--who go to my church who are illegal immigrants. They didn't start out that way. They came here on a work visa but when they got here, they successfully retained a decent job, got married, bought a house, had kids--then their visa expired. I know a guy, an Irish Immigrant who ran a very successful remodeling company employing a number of people making millions every year. He paid taxes, voted, was an important member in the church, was a strong mentor and kept his people employed year round. He got deported. Just out of the blue. He'd been here for years, had contributed to the tax base, had done everything except, whoops, get that citizen thing finished off. He didn't even have time to disassemble his business. He got 10 days. He just chucked his hands of it all and got on a plane. He paints houses in Dublin now.
1 I like some of these signs, like the ones that say Cheny doesn't know his job, even though it's spelled wrong, but I can't take the racism.
2 Yeah, I know the current system asks you to press one for English and that's why you're mad. I'm making a supposition here. Try to keep up.
3 Yes, I know she wasn’t an illegal immigrant. Very good, Obi Wan, here’s a cookie. Thing is, the 911 dispatcher treated the caller, her husband, who had a pronounced Mexican twang, like a dirty wetback and gave him a ton of shit for using the 911 line inappropriately. What he should’ve done was to dispatch officers ALREADY IN THE HOSPITAL to check it out. That’s the job he gets paid for. He could do that THEN argue with the guy. He let the woman die to make a point. Thanks,Mexican hating 911 guy, I can't wait to hear that one in a Budweiser commercial.
But "Press One" has broken out of the novelty-bin where it was resting next to Weird Al Yankovich, to become an unexpected anthem for people who are proactively stupid. These are the people who laugh when the guy at Casa d'Ice puts up the word 'wetbacks' on his store front sign.1 The same people who forward me countless emails decrying everything from Jimmy Carter's foreign policy (uh, that was 20 years ago) to the law that says congressmen and cops don't pay taxes (uh, yes they do) without expending the required thirteen seconds on Google to verify whether or not these things are true. Like those ridiculous emails, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, "Press One . . ." is popular not because these particular Americans are patriotic but because they hate Mexicans.
Although I would like to accept the argument of these particular Americans that they aren't anti-brown, they're just pro-law, I think a diplomatic description would be to call that argument disingenuous instead of a big fat fucking lie. I don't want to call these particular Americans liars because some of them are friends of mine and some of them are family and I know them to be honorable and ethical people, brave veterans, civic minded, and decent. But they've all given up their god given facility for critical reasoning in order to participate in a little acceptable racism.
I'd like to address this veiled racism and stupidity point by point but since the whole thing tipped when I got that stupid song in my email, but I want to clear up the "Press One . . ." thing first.
Q: Why do real Americans have to push 1 to hear English!?
A: Because they are ethical, compassionate people who already speak English.The habits of hospitals and retailers act as a leading indicator of where our country stands on the efficacy of the English language in administering service. Language choices on the phone systems of major retailers indicate an overwhelming recognition and acceptance of Spanish-only customers. These choices do not indicate that these patrons are illegal immigrants and they do not indicate a preference for Spanish-only customers and patients.
If you only speak Spanish, then the nice-lady-recording indicating that you can press 2 for Spanish sounds like Wookie. You won't know to press 2. In their effort to make things easier for those people needing medical aide, most health service organizations chose to add a snippet of Spanish language to the very beginning of their recorded message so that the 43.5 percent of the calling population that is Spanish speaking who are calling in because their spleen is hanging out can get the necessary Spanish speaking attendant prior to bleeding to death. In their possibly misguided assumption of the breadth of compassion of the English speaking American citizenry, these institutions felt most people would understand this and not feel threatened or maligned during the 2 seconds of Spanish they are forced to endure.
I can understand how many Americans feel overwhelmed at this point since, if they call in to a hospital, say, 5 times a year, they're wasting 10 whole seconds every year! That's about seven minutes of their entire life (assuming they call the Hospital 5 times a year every year from birth) totally wasted. I mean, think of the effect that has on our economy!
Well, let's look at the economy for a minute. The Spanish-only despleened callers and buyers we're talking about here are not necessarily illegal immigrants. While hospitals do treat illegal immigrants (or let them bleed to death)3, they're not the reason the phone system has the Spanish option. That's for Spanish-speaking citizens and immigrants of legal status which comprise a significant portion of the lower income work forces which tend to have, a) the least amount of health care, and, b) bleed more. Take sugar cane cutters in Florida, mostly Jamaican and Mexican immigrants, who use machetes in mucky fields with footing that could trip a gazelle. They often hack big glistening chunks out of their own ankles because they have to cut the cane low to get the most product. It's very likely that when one of these hardworking people hacks a chunk out of their leg they'll call the hospital. Now, let's pretend that instead of calling the hospital, they fall down in front of you while you're touring a sugarcane field. As you stumble upon a sugarcane worker with a machete stuck in his shin, he looks at you and says "¿Por favor, padre, usted quitaría este machete de mi tobillo?" Do you plant your hands on your hips and say "Sorry, pal, I don't speak spic," or do you drop on your knees, rip off your shirt, and wrap the guy's fucking leg?
Q: Yeah, well, they ought to stay in their own damn country because they're taking our jobs!
A: Fucking idiot.
Let's just get into the Mexican part of it and leave the Sengalese Taxi cab drivers and the Filipino dead turkey de-featherers off the plate for now. Most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, take the following jobs:
- turkey processing (and pork, and chicken)
- meatpacking
- dishwashing
- agricultural labor
- light manufacturing
- cooks
- general labor
Chicago and Illinois migrant worker stats break down like this:
- 30% Mexicans, most of which have a 9th grade education at best. These people join up with established, usually legal, families or friends and take the very lowest paying jobs out there. Several of them. They are usually unskilled workers.
- 10% Polish immigrants, most of which have a high school level education or some college. These people are often highly skilled workers and can be found in many of the skilled labor trades in Illinois--granite cutters, finish carpenters, painters, and tilers. Polish women more often take lower paying jobs like cleaning.
- 10% Indian, most of which have a bachelor's degree and compete for highly skilled, high paying jobs in the tech market or in retail management.
Q: Well why can't you see that they're a huge drain on the economy?!
A: Because they're not.
Let's just try to narrow this problem down to one 50th of it's actual size so you can maybe squeeze it in next to all the fantasy football stats, hymn lyrics, and black-on-black lesbian porn URLs rattling around in your head.
Q: I'm not anti-Mexican, I just want them to obey the law.
A: You malignant, lying, jackass.
How many anti-illegal-Canadian jokes did you forward this year? If the core of these particular Americans' argument was based exclusively on the legality of the situation of illegal immigrants, then they'd bitch about how all the illegal Pakistani's were filling up the emergency rooms. You'd wait for a cab driven by a legal citizen. You'd ask for greencards from all the people who cook your food, mow your lawn, wash your car, and deliver your paper; you'd demand that meat distributors prove their product was packed by legal citizens; you'd only buy oranges with NOT PACKED BY ILLEGAL FRENCH GUYS stickers; you'd quit eating lettuce, spinach, apples, oranges, apricots, chiles, celery, rice, bananas, asparagus, cilantro, and chard because it's ALL picked by illegal immigrants. You'd write your congressman about the instructions for your weed whacker being printed in 8 languages. You'd act.
Instead, it's stuff like this:
As much as I've tried, I can't find a non-mexican equivalent--well, except for this:
Q: These people come over here and buy champagne with their welfare checks and get free medicine and then protest our government policies--is this why my grandfather and his father fought and died?
A: You damn right.
The only way newly arrived immigrants can abuse welfare policy, protest immigration reform, and get free medical attention is because our government decided they deserve welfare, freedom of speech and the right to assemble, and healthcare. They are policies written by, legislated by, enacted by, and upheld by the United States of America and if you don't like the laws of this country, well, you can leave. Otherwise, my forefathers fought and died so anyone living in the United States, legal or illegal, won't get their balls blown off for expressing themselves, feeding their kids, or getting sick. If you want to live like that, I invite you to review the bylaws of the Taliban.
Q: Well, you're un-American if you support illegal immigrants!
A: Go fuck yourself, gringo.
The only people who are truly unAmerican are those people who try to retard my freedoms, rights, and privileges or those of my neighbor. People like these particular Americans who want all illegals to drop dead on the spot or move back to Mexico (which has GOT to piss off the illegal South Afrikans). And hell yes I support illegal immigrants--hell, I employ some I'm certain, since none of my Russian and Polish maids speak much more English than "there?", "or there?", and "we finish now." I love my maids and they're cheap as hell. It can be a little frustrating sometimes when I want to explain that if they use Johnson's Wax to clean the bathroom floor, I tend to slip and fall down. But such is the cost of cheap labor in America.
And what should I do? I know at least five people--not my maids--who go to my church who are illegal immigrants. They didn't start out that way. They came here on a work visa but when they got here, they successfully retained a decent job, got married, bought a house, had kids--then their visa expired. I know a guy, an Irish Immigrant who ran a very successful remodeling company employing a number of people making millions every year. He paid taxes, voted, was an important member in the church, was a strong mentor and kept his people employed year round. He got deported. Just out of the blue. He'd been here for years, had contributed to the tax base, had done everything except, whoops, get that citizen thing finished off. He didn't even have time to disassemble his business. He got 10 days. He just chucked his hands of it all and got on a plane. He paints houses in Dublin now.
1 I like some of these signs, like the ones that say Cheny doesn't know his job, even though it's spelled wrong, but I can't take the racism.
2 Yeah, I know the current system asks you to press one for English and that's why you're mad. I'm making a supposition here. Try to keep up.
3 Yes, I know she wasn’t an illegal immigrant. Very good, Obi Wan, here’s a cookie. Thing is, the 911 dispatcher treated the caller, her husband, who had a pronounced Mexican twang, like a dirty wetback and gave him a ton of shit for using the 911 line inappropriately. What he should’ve done was to dispatch officers ALREADY IN THE HOSPITAL to check it out. That’s the job he gets paid for. He could do that THEN argue with the guy. He let the woman die to make a point. Thanks,Mexican hating 911 guy, I can't wait to hear that one in a Budweiser commercial.
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