The folks down at the crossroads store where I buy gas have a sign up that says "Boycott Chicken in March to Protest Illegal Aliens." I told them I thought that wasn't very good for our community, which includes a goodly number of chicken farmers. The woman made a face at me and said the farmers were for it too, so probably I pissed them off, and I guess for a while I'll probably go to the other crossroads store for gas, keep my head down, keep the peace. I had shrimp in black bean sauce this past weekend and yesterday a hamburger for lunch, and I wondered, both times, if I'd struck a small blow for the folks at the country store. Since chicken is probably the most common meat most folks eat, I wondered, too, if the boycotters are including in the boycott stuff like a McChicken or KFC? What are they going to do, eat beans? Like the Mexicans?
I expect most of the boycotters voted Republican last fall, and I don't know why they don't get on their President about this situation with the chicken plants. After all, the illegal aliens come here because the plants hire them to work. Everyone knows that, including the government. Looks like the government could either seal the border or fine the plants big bucks. Here these folks walk across the Sonoran desert for 100 miles, some of them dying on the way, some being sniped by right wing cowboys, to get here and live in a trailer with 15 people and work in a chicken plant for under minimum wage probably. Why boycott chicken?
And if the boycotters don't want to ask Bush why he turns a blind eye to this porous border we have, in this time of terrorism, maybe they need to boycott food. It's well known that illegal aliens are deeply a part of food production, generally, in the US. It's not just chicken. They pick the crops. They probably butcher the hogs and the steers too. I bought a pack of nabs at the store before I said anything about the boycott, and I'll bet some Mexican, most likely illegal, had something to do with even that lowly cracker.
I also wonder why the folks at the store don't run down there to the chicken plant and ask for a job. I'd think anyone who speaks English would get hired in a jiffy if they were willing to do horrible, nasty work for 8 hours a day for minimum wage. If Americans would just go do these nasty, low paying jobs, then we wouldn't have a problem with illegal aliens. If money's the issue, maybe the GOP ought to raise the minimum wage up to $6.25, the way Rick Santorum proposed the other day. That'd get more Americans interested in these jobs.
In the meantime, I guess I'll just go back to work and maybe at lunch today I'll go to the nice little Mexican restaurant that's opened up over on 54 at White Cross. They have various kinds of great meals at reasonable rates--including my favorite, chile rellenos. You can have chicken there, but I usually like a veggie meal when I eat Mex. And now I'll be able to strike another blow for freedom at the same time as I'm washing down the last of my refrieds with my last swallow of Negra Modelo.
--Bill Hicks, Silk Hope, March 15, '05
For a more sober assessment of the boycott chicken issue our gentle readers might wish to consult http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/ entry for March 31 on the vigilante movement being established on the Arizona border below Tucson.
