What is Obama Trying to Achieve?

 

I worry when stuff like this starts flying around. The fact that there have been so many attempts to achieve something that clearly "the people" don't want the government to have just smacks of, it will eventually happen. They will wait until you least expect it or forget about it or it can be appropriately cloaked. The founders of this country fought against a central bank too, but over time, now we have a privately owned Federal Reserve, and look at where we stand financially now. The banks practically own the government. Maybe that's the top of the capitalist food chain, corporations are the government.

 

Obama Threatens Senate with Cybersecurity Executive Order

 

White House trying to Overturn Ban on Indefinite Detention Legislation 

 

This really confuses me. From a guy who campaigned on shutting down Guantanamo Bay, now fighting to keep his apparent "right", to imprison whoever he wants indefinitely and without charge by defining that person as being connected to terrorism, is just perplexing. That we already know that the President is not against redefining people with proximity to terrorism as terrorists is scary. Potentially with the right spin anyone could be defined as a terrorist. This President's blatant pursuit of these powers should be scaring the crap out of everyone.

Job Hunting: The Most Demeaning Thing Ever?

I am currently unemployed and looking for work. I had worked at my previous job for almost 4 years and prior to that I had tried my hand with a business partnership that failed after a few years and prior to that I worked for the State of California for over 5 years. All totaled this is easily the first time I have been pounding the streets looking for work in about a decade. Now I don't know if I just didn't realize this when I had done job searching in the past, or if things have changed, but this seems to me like one of the most intrusive experiences I have ever had.

First of all, it takes a good 30 minutes to a hour to fill out one job application. The sad part being that you will have to be doing this several times filling out almost the exact same information over and over and over again, and most of this information is already on your resume. I find it to be highly unproductive, but I guess the theory goes, you are unemployed and therefore your time is of low value, but toiling away and being employed at some point in the future makes the time spent more productive than, say writing something like this. Since I am writing something like this, clearly I'm of another opinion.

Secondly, the questions ask are just things that I feel really violated answering due to there personal nature. Have I ever done drugs? Have I ever been convicted of a crime? What color am I? Where have I lived in the last 10 years? Can we check your credit? I feel like I'm being grilled by the father of a woman I've asked to marry me. Even in a situation like that I might have an overwhelming urge to say, that's none of your fucking business. However, in this job hunting process it seems common and surprisingly accepted. I mean, you need money to live right? How exactly do you expect to obtain this money unless you jump through whatever hoops a potential employer asks to get that job, so you can get the funds that will allow you to live your life, which likely will be mostly composed of toiling away within this new employment relationship. Oh, and by the way, we just want you to know, this is “at will” employment agreement, which can be summed up by saying we can fire your ass at our discretion.

Is it just me or am I not the only one that finds going through all this trouble to obtain a job for a company who wants to insure they can terminate me at any moment for virtually any reason. If I want to leave my job however, it's customary for me to give two weeks notice so they would not be left in the lurch with a position and no employee to do the work, but if they want to leave me without a job to pay for food and shelter, well that's perfectly acceptable. In 1869 The New York Times described the system of wage labor as "a system of slavery as absolute if not as degrading as that which lately prevailed at the South". At this point I really relate to that quote. What are your thoughts?