50 Million Websites and Nothing On

I'm bored with the news these days. We're still waiting for Karl Rove to finally be indicted, so this whole sorry little chimpeachment affair can finally start building up steam. Stephen Colbert completely got in the President's face and it's freaking out the squares. And this immigration thing is seriously a complete non-issue.

I'm telling you, it's crap. These people aren't here to threaten or steal or reclaim lands owned by their forefathers or suck of the public teat or any of the other bullshit they've been accused of recently by mouth-breathers. Don't people realize that you go years without really hearing much about illegal immigration, and then whenever rich, powerful people need to distract everyone we suddenly hear a ton about our dire need to seal up the borders. It's so predictable.

A guy bought a whole lot of merchandise, just over $600 worth, from the store on Monday. Apparently, a radio station was having a contest: you shop at a business that remained open during the May Day boycott and send in your receipt, and one lucky winner will be reimbursed up to $600.

For some reason, the guy chose to buy $600 worth of movies that were all released in 1971. Weird, right? I mean, the radio contest just sounds vaguely hostile to me, but why only '71 films? It did give me some good rental ideas for next week. (I've never seen Robert Aldrich's The Grissom Gang!)

What's the point of such a gesture? The boycott, lasting only one day, is all about making a symbolic point. "We're here, we matter, you would miss us if we were gone." And the racist, hateful Americans who unfortunately seem to make up the vast majority of us, responded to this symbolic effort, aimed at boosting activism and a sense of community, with scorn.

"We won't miss you dumb immy-gants at all! I'm gonna indulge my every shopping fantasy and eat a bucket full of Peanut M&M's like the consumer whore that I am in order to establish my superiority over you! See? I'm spending your monthy food budget on DVD's, just because I can, on the off chance that some jackass DJ will give me all my money back just for agreeing with his spiteful take on contemporary urban life. Take that, browns!"

A guy came in the store, a regular customer whom I chat with about movies all the time, and gave me the same attitude. His modest proposal for the immigrant problem was to massively fine and criminally prosecute any employer caught hiring illegals. I helpfully explained that this tactic has a few downsides, namely the sudden presence of many newly-unemployable Americans in most of our major cities. Not to mention the infalted cost of produce, landscaping and all the other sectors hiring the undocumented.

He seemed genuinely surprised when I suggested that the best solution may be no "solution" at all, but rather in recognizing that corporate greed, not population movement, lies at the root of this situation. Big companies (and some small companies too) don't feel like paying the lowest wage permitted by law. So they hire people off the books, generally people willing to work for next to nothing because they're not supposed to be around here.

You want to solve the "immigrant" problem? Force companies, under penalty of law, to pay all employees at least minimum wage and to subscribe to all labor laws regardless of the nationality and citizenship status of the employee. Done. I'm not one of these people who believes there are certain jobs that only immigrants will do, and if there's no longer a monetary benefit to hiring illegals, many employers will switch back to actually paying American citizens a living wage in exchange for work.

Notice that this doesn't solve for all the made-up immigrant criticisms, like that "we pay for their health care with tax dollars" crap. People aren't moving here from Mexico just make use of our clean, well-appointed emergency rooms and individual-stall showers at the YMCA. They're coming here to work.

Oh, and also, I think we should protect the border from people bringing in dirty bombs, but let in everyone who just wants to work. They're coming over here anyway, right? What's everyone so worried about? Los Angeles will suddenly be filled with Mexican people? Oh, the unimaginable horror! The fact is, the area we call the American Southwest has always had a lot of Mexican people living on it. And I don't just mean before it was a part of the Unitd States, when it actually still belonged to Mexico. I mean, since before white people first came here.

Ever see a Western? You notice all those darker-skinned guys with moustaches who get drunk and occasionally shoot at the good guys while walking around with a burro in an oversized hat? They represent the Mexicans who were here all along, as white guys were busy winning the West and scamming one another out of buried treasure or nuzzling in pup tents. You can usually spot these Mexican characters easily in spaghetti westerns because they are played by white guys like Rod Steiger sporting ludicrously fake tans.

Basically, my point is, you wouldn't build an igloo at the South Pole, move in for a few months and then start bitching about all the fucking penguins mating everywhere. Penguins live at the South Pole...it's what they do. Well, that's like Latin people and Southern California. They're here, it's fine, we all get along pretty well together, and if you've never tried any, their spicy carnitas dishes are particularly delicious.

I think I probably got a little shrill with this guy at the store, because he pretty much backed off after I countered his original statement. I wondered whether to feel bad. On the one hand, I may have come off a big short with this guy, who has always been nice to me and is a good customer. But on the other hand, he was probably walking around spouting this drivel to people all day, and I find people spreading ignorance around that way very irksome.