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Monday, June 25. 2007
Job Hunting
(sigh) ... Ever wonder why it is you don't like your job, but you don't want to be without one? Actually, I never wonder that, I just hope to win the lottery so I don't have to worry about it.(sigh) ... I haven't won the lottery yet so I'm out searching for jobs. I've applied to the TSA -- the Transportation Safety Administration. As a security guard/screener, one of those people who ask you to remove your shoes and show us your panties -- strip search in other words. My hair is cut, and I like it, so I look more like one of those cretins caught on the MSNBC program, "To Catch a Predator."
The main idea I have is to start a business of my own: photography. I have cameras, need some lighting equipment and a studio space and voila! I'm in the photography business! But that's more difficult than finding a job so I'm looking into a few security guard "opportunities." (sigh)
Thankfully, the dry cleaners won the lawsuit brought by the judge who sued them for 67 mil for losing his pants. The pitfalls of owning your own business. People feel a need to sue you, justifiably or otherwise. As an employee, your employer is ultimately responsible for customer relations. On the other hand, being a self-employed photographer has the benefit of having one's own schedule, setting one's own paycheque and answering to no one but the customer. I'm looking into it.
Here's another tangent: Pat Buchanan wrote a very incendiary book about immigration: State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. Talk about demagoguery gone wild! Invasion and conquest??!! Well, Pat's old, his title as chief right wing wing nut has been supplanted by the Harpy and other young kooks, so some wildly dramatic sub title for his book puts him back in the limelight. But I've been pondering; why is immigration such an issue now? It wasn't an issue five years ago; ten years ago. Maybe it's an issue today so the neocons and their followers can take the spotlight off the horrible atrocity that is Bush's war in Iraq. I have yet to see how "illegal" immigration has cost me anything; there are no studies or statistics to support any claims that illegals are costing me, the tax payer, money. Nor are there any statistics to support the claim that illegals are breaking the back of California financially.
What people don't want to believe is that these stupid, ill-conceived ballot initiatives that mandate 85% of California's state budget are breaking the financial back of the state. That's the reality. "Illegal" immigrants keep the state's produce farmers in business. They keep the car washes cheap, and when I move to Santa Monica (okay, I'm dreaming) they will make the move affordable.
What we don't see or read much about is the number of American soldiers and Marines killed in the quagmire of Iraq; about 20 just this past weekend. George Bush and Dick Cheney -- and Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice, et.al, are guilty of war crimes for starting this awful war. Would we be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power? Absolutely yes. Would he still be murdering his own countrymen if we hadn't deposed him? Absolutely yes, but not at the rate Iraqis are dying today. And we wouldn't be losing over 100 Americans each month, let alone taking care of thousands upon thousands of severely wounded veterans returning from that war, which is now in its fifth year.
For those who claim we were justified because of the possible threat from Saddam, let's remember that in 2001 Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condoleeeza Rice all said Hussein's Iraq was contained by the sanctions imposed by the U.N. It wasn't until PNAC had its "Pearl Harbor Moment" on September 11, 2001, that Iraq became such a "threat."
I just finished Anne Garrels' book, Naked in Baghdad, taken from her NPR news reports from Iraq leading up to and then through the initial invasion and occupation of Baghdad. From 2002 Garrels was reporting on the inconsistencies of the Bush Administration's claims and the reality on the ground in Baghdad. There were voices out there warning us that what we face now is exactly what experts were predicting five years ago when the administration began its P.R. campaign to start the war.
Even Brent Scowcroft, a hawk of very hawkish credentials and the chairman of Dubya's transition team in 2000-2001, made the dire warning in 2002 that invading Iraq would lead to the mess we find ourselves in today. Yet, here we are.
Illegal Immigration is just a smoke screen; a non-issue for people looking to rant and rave about something other than Iraq. If the promoters of Bush's War in Iraq are exposed and forced to explain what they did, immigration as a political issue will float away, just like the Dubai Ports Deal did last year.
For the Democrat candidates for president, I have just five words: "It's the Iraq War stupid!"
Now I have to get ready for a job interview and an afternoon at the beach ...
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