Cutting Through The Bullshit…. Machetti’s Blog

With the ongoing ignorant debate about illegal immigrants I find it is important to have some straight talk on this issue. By straight talk I don’t mean Lou Dobb’s demonizing of every brown person in the racist way he does.
I want to talk about Alex, my friend, and an employee at my company. Alex is the same age as me 24, hes sorta married (married in a church but can’t get the license) he has a child with his wife who is 2 years old and born here. Both he and his wife work at my company and both have fake IDs and social security numbers because they are not legal. Alex became a criminal here at 2 years old when his parents illegally immigrated to this country. His parents having been here long enough could have become legal if they returned to mexico for 1-10 years, this was not practical for them and their 5 children, 2 of whom are citizens having been born here in the US. Alex is a bright guy, he works harder than anyone in his department and has been with the company for a few years. Alex runs the shipping department and is the go-to guy when it comes to shipping matters, everyone depends on him because they know he is the most capable, intelligent and dilligent employee in that department. Alex makes 11 dollars an hour, which is less than either of his co-workers. The reason he makes less is because our Human Resources department knows his social security number is fake, and know that due to new crackdowns it will be very hard for him to be employed anywhere else. They take advantage of him. His position at any other company would earn him 18-20 dollars per hour. Every 2 weeks when Alex gets paid, money is taken out of his check and sent to Federal, State, Medicaid, and Social Security tax accounts. But Alex will never get credit for this contribution. Alex cannot file for taxes and get back part of that federal money which is owed to him for falling below the poverty line. Alex is bilingual and speaks Spanish and English with equally high levels of proficiency, his English is better than some of our native born Caucasian employees. Alex wants to become a mechanic some day and has taken some community college classes towards this. But Alex knows he can never get certified as a mechanic because he’s not a legally immigrant. Alex is a citizen of this country, he pays taxes, his rent check goes towards his landlord paying municipal taxes, so through that he pays for the fire, police, and hospital services that many argue that illegals do not pay for. Alex isn’t illegal to me, he’s my friend. At the age of 2 when he was brought here he by any standard of our law could not be charged with committing a crime, in our society we believe 2 yearolds do not know the difference between right and wrong. But our system which ignores him and his peers have forced him to break the law by obtaining fake identification. His fake social doesn’t belong to anyone, it’s unassigned so he is just contributing and contributing towards someone else’s retirement that has yet to be born.

Alex lives in fear of his employers, he knows that they will use his immigration status against him when he asks for a raise. His wife is an employee here too, and and more grossly underpaid than him.

I wouldn’t want you to be treated this way. I say legalize all people now. No 2nd tier visas/ temporary worker permits, no fucking 2nd class citizens anymore. This is modern slavery. No more gross profits on the backs of underpaid employees. No more mistreatment of my friends.

No legal citizen would want to work in the sweatshop conditions Alex faces. He and his coworkers literally do work legal citizens are incapable (industrial sewing) or unwilling (shitty work conditions and pay) to do.

If you do not support Alex being legalized, I can not support you, Alex is my friend and I would do the same for you.

This morning I was driving back from the city, taking my normal route, and drove past an old fermiliar road. Munger Road in Wayne/Bartlett brings back memories. As an early teen 15/16 I went there with friends, we parked off the road behind some bushes to avoid being spotted by the park rangers that patrol that section of the Dupage County Forest Preserve.  We walked across the street to the frame of an old burnt skeleton of a farm house. The story that was told to me was that a former FBI agent went insane, killed his family, and torched the place. I wasn’t shown any evidence of this story, like an old newspaper or anything, but being 15 I took the story at face value. Inside the house was the charred remains of a traditional 2 story farm house. The basement was coated in blood, a pentagram on the floor with candles… Either a satanic ritual, some kids making a prank, or wannabe goths being spooky. Anyways the place was dangerous to walk through due to the charred frame and we eventually scampered out of there more in fear of getting caught be the forest cops than anything else. Today driving by I was inspired to use the tools of modern technology to discover the source of the haunting. I found no story of an fbi agent what goes crazy. I heard stories that if you drive down the road, park on the tracks, get out of your car while it’s running, the doors will lock. I heard a train really did derail 100 yards south of that house and came close to hitting a 2 room shack near the tracks, but no one was hurt. I learned that in that shack an old man lived till 1999 and he was frequently egged and harassed by teens for many years until one day succumbing to illness. Both the burnt house and that mans 2 room shack became property of the county and were demolished in 2000.

The same year a real horror came to Munger road, one that I never heard of until today. One that is more newsworthy than Paris Hilton. It’s also a story of rich kids out of control. Please follow the link below and check out a real horror:
http://www.topix.net/content/trb/0614317033362472330216157410682727172342

Last night 8 Fire-fighters died fighting a fire in South Carolina. Numerous news coverages, hour long news talk shows have been dedicated to this story. It is truly tragic when a public servant dies. But why do we value the lives of firefighters and police officers more than our soldiers. We say we support our troops but that is only in life. The coverage of the deaths of municipal public servants from communities seems to be given a lot lot more coverage than the death of each American fighting person in Iraq. Sure you see how bad things are going in Iraq but little attention is given to the individual loss of life. Why do we as a society deem sticking a bumper magnet on our car is enough attention to the loss of life, but others who lose their lives in domestic service get hours of television discussing the events surrounding their early and tragic death. A death of a soldier, sailor, airman or marine is no less tragic than the death of a firefighter in Charleston SC. Further, the service member who dies in the line of duty dies in service to a whole nation and not a local municipality. Each service members death is a national tragedy and should be the cover news story until the deaths end. Shit, if we gave nearly as much attention to service members deaths, maybe there would be enough movement in the country to end this war in Iraq. If most Americans with money knew people serving, maybe they wouldn’t be there in the first place. But like all wars this war is carried on the backs of the poor, those who do not gain the attention of the media, those who do not know people who can afford to contribute to presidential campaigns. Save for World War 2, the civil war and the Revolution… all American wars have been been carried solely on the backs of the poor. The fact that so many middle class served in World War 2 is the only reason we have veterans benefits today. This was started though after World War 1 when returning volunteers found themselves out of work and without pension, and they marched on Washington demanding rights. Today, in the all volunteer force it is not the children of the wealthy who volunteer. This is why the faces of those lost are left to local news coverage of just a blip, and nationally we do not mourn. We show numbers instead of names, 8 died today, 6 yesterday… grand total 3400+ THESE ARE HUMANS like you and me, they are not numbers. I want their sacrificed appreciated equally as all others. Take the Paris Hilton goes to jail shit off the news, and replace it with biographies of who is no longer with us because we allowed this President to conduct and illegal war.
Big kudos goes to my brothers and sisters in arms at the IVAW guerrilla protests in Chicago, their Operation First Casualty (Truth is the first casualty) yesterday. I was most impressed by the idiotic comments of Loop Businessmen like “well I hope they support the troops” my thoughts “you fucking moron they troops, and you and your stock portfolio of  Haliburten, McDonald Douglas and Boeing are profiting off their sacrifice”

Keep up the great work IVAW I stand with you, and I am angered by the government trying to silence you.

Working for a manufacturing company has introduced me to a lot of weird ways people make money. There are people employed to take .jpg artwork and turn it into hi resolution artwork for printing. There are people who make a living teaching common sense safety information to employees of other companies. Then there are people who scavenge through companies garbage and take pallets and turn them in for cash (The Pallet People.) For those of you who do not know what a pallet is, it’s what most things /boxes are packaged on for shipment via trucks, they allow for forklifts to pick up a whole stack of material for ease in transportation. A company like ours reuses some pallets (aka skids) but we bring in a lot more skids than we ship out so many we put out by the trash. Throughout the day people (mostly hispanic in this area) arrive in pickup trucks or larger panel trucks and take the skids. Some people only take the nice skids in good condition because they are worth more. Some take all skids because even the poor condition ones are worth something. They then throughout the day deliver these pallets to a pallet company who pays cash for them, refurbishes them (??? some they probably don’t have to do much to) and resells them to companies. This, a small industry has stiff competition as pallet people race through the industrial parks scouting out pallets to take. Smaller vehicles tend to take only nearly perfect pallets while larger trucks take all they can. It reminds me of  that show “the deadliest catch” as the fishing boats race around the north pacific trying to get lucky and where most of the crabs are. This industry used to be male dominated but I see more and more teams of Hispanic females out collecting pallets. I suppose this “trash” industry is more profitable than collecting cans, but still is a cash business under the table.

Happy flag day everyone. Working here at a flag company we make a ridiculously big deal about it. I doubt most people even know there is a flag holiday. It is also the birth day of the Army. Hooah to all.

So here at this Flag company at 1:30pm we will be forced to walk outside and recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I am often forced to lead this because they assume I know it. It is a token of embarrassment I find similar to making Ira Hayes raise and lower the flag at the prison. Of course Ira was a hero and I am not but I feel pretty gross doing it. The idea of allegiance is so nationalistic in nature. Reciting an oath is so tribal and out dated, it really means nothing to me. Be a patriot by actions not words, slogans, bumper stickers, magnetic ribbons, and flags.

The whole ironic this of this pledge charade is that most of our employees are Mexican migrants of questionable documentation. Neither do they know the pledge nor give a shit, their allegiance is to Mexico and their families that they support there. Forcing them to recite this pledge is simply a charade for our owners to lie to themselves about the immigration status of their employees. After reciting the pledge we are rewarded with ice cream bars, a designated “employee benefit” as described in handbook. This “benefit” would be better served to me at cash value (1 dollar or so) than a dessert which I will not eat. Irregardless this is just an expression of our ignorance to the realities of the world and I am embarrassed to be part of it, just as Ira Hayes was probably embarrassed raising the “symbol of freedom” from inside the walls of jail.

Our experiences, sacrifices and patriotism are not contained in a piece of fabric sewn together by under payed disenfranchised migrants. Our patriotism is found in our hearts, minds and actions.

Joe Biden - Shut up, you are getting in the way.
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton - I wanna be a star
Christopher Dodd - See Joe Biden
John Edwards - If you were a foot taller you’d be President. Mike Gravel - Grandpa! Wonderful ideas, please write them down though before you die of old age.
Dennis Kucinich - Hot wife! Great ideas! I wish I wish I wish… but in reality…. not electable.
Barack Obama - My man! My candidate. A leader, Teacher, the 2nd coming and lesser evil Bill Clinton.
Bill Richardson - Stick around, we will need you.
Wesley Clark - Keep up the good work, too bad you are too short to be President. Thank you for being the one big name helping out today’s vets.
Al Gore - No balls. You won the election in 2000, you betrayed us by not fighting to hold onto it.

So why would a progressive like me care about the Republican Debates? You’d think I’d rather be doing anything else. On the contrary, I enjoy it a lot and here is why:

I love a good comedy, especially a reality comedy. I find the republican primary debates are some funny shit. My main motivation is watch one honest man stand with a group of liars and be treated like the town drunk. Rep. Ron Paul is the one honest one of the bunch. It is fun to hear him speak to facts and truths that the other candidates are not willing to accept or allow into the public discourse.
The Republicans outside of Ron Paul live in a world slogans, talking points, and something I like to call illusion linguistics.
Illusion linguistics are lies that are believed to be true by so many, they create an illusion of truth. Some of the more famous ones…

“They hate us for our freedom”
The Truth: They hate us for our support of Israel, our military bases and influence in the Persian gulf, our unilateralist (at the end of the barrel of a gun) diplomacy, and our treatment of Muslim prisoners.
How do I know: Because that’s what they fucking said.
Now read the transcript from the debate in South Carolina

MR. GOLER: Congressman, you don’t think that changed with the 9/11 attacks, sir?

REP. PAUL: What changed?

MR. GOLER: The non-interventionist policies.

REP. PAUL: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East — I think Reagan was right.

We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?

REP. PAUL: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we’re over there because Osama bin Laden has said, “I am glad you’re over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.” They have already now since that time — (bell rings) — have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don’t think it was necessary.

—- Ok makes sense me but wait here come Rudy trying to turn this conversation into something it’s not—

MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)

And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Congressman?

—- More facts and truths—–

REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.

——- End transmission
Does Rudy think that Republican voters are 8 year olds? But he certainly insulted my intelligence, I hope some republicans were as offended as I was by his spin.
Now I will say that I was at one point in my life a libertarian like Ron Paul. I severed my ties headed more to the left of that party based on their stance on immigration and the fact that there are certain things socialism is best for and libertarians want so little government it’s almost like anarchy. Ron Paul is a libertarian but he is running on a republican ticket and has been elected as a republican rep from Texas. If Ron Paul was the Republican candidate, I’d probably vote Repub for the first time in my life. I think he’d be a better President than Hillary who seems more motivated by fame and fortune than real governance. Barack is still my preferred candidate but I doubt we will see a black president in my lifetime. I think it is time we had a smart person running things. It is going to take a lot of brains to fix all the things the retarded (special olympics) kid has fucked up since 2000.  Hopefully Americans will vote not for the candidate that is most like them IQ wise, and vote for a leader that can teach us all a thing or two. Barack did teach at University of Chicago Law School.

My favorite drink until last week was Rockstar energy drink. I had a serious habit and was drinking 1-2, sometimes more per day.

Recently I have been more proactive in finding out about the companies I buy things from. Lets face it, in a world with electoral votes and $$ = successful campaigns, our elected officials are chosen for us. The only true democratic choice we have is where we spend our money. Many people have become more conscious about this with the rise in organics and fair trade products. The success of trader joes is another example as well as people boycotting companies like Coca-Cola, Walmart, and many Chinese made products due to them being anti-worker anti-union etc. Being that I spent so much on the RockStar beverage I was motivated to find out more about the corporation. What I discovered was shocking, and made me feel quite guilty.

The creator and CEO of Rockster is Russell Weiner.
Russell Weiner is the son of Doctor Michael Weiner aka talk show host “Michael Savage.” His mother is CFO of the company. All three are herbalists. Michael is the 3rd most popular conservative talk show host. To get you a better picture of what sort of tool Michael “Savage” Weiner is let me share with you some of his more offensive quotes:
On the November 27 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage declared that in order to “save the United States,” lawmakers should institute “an outright ban on Muslim immigration” into the country. Savage also recommended making “the construction of mosques illegal in America, and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law.” -http://mediamatters.org/items/200611290005
My thoughts: What an interesting idea and great way to create more terrorists. Way to go Doctor Weiner.

Some more from http://users.nlamerica.com/tharden/savage.html

Savage has described single career women in their 40’s and 50’s as, “burnt out liberal hack women”, and “human wreckage in high heels.” Michael Savage has referred to the handicapped as the, “Wheelchair mafia.”

Well how does this all tie into rockstar? Sure the owners dad is a nut job…. but why avoid the product all together? Well Father and Son have a special society they started called “Paul Revere Society.”  A nationalist, racist, and homophobic organization. They want more religion in government, english as an official language, any “leftist” ideals removed from our countries minds.