alanjjohnstone
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The Western media are reluctant to ask the question that the rebels are fighting a losing battle yet refuse to surrender.The media is reluctant to state that they are holding hundreds of thousands of civilians hostage and using them as human shields.Nevertheless, it is no reason to condone or turn a blind eye to the disproportionate and indiscriminate casualties inflicted by Bashar Assad on those civilians. The US can not point the finger because those were the exact same tactics used by them and their allies in Mosul Iraq.
True colours eventually showed itself, despite the civility you and i conducted the discussion, Robbo
And what about child abuse? Most take place within the family by other family members or family friends. Want to ban the family?Most women are raped by men that they know. Want to ban friendship/ acquaintanceships between genders?Your point is meaningless
I don't think the SPGB ever endorse laws against "thought-crimes", nor do we agree that the State can legislate prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry out of existence.If we do close down the forum, it will be after a full debate and a conference/party poll decision. However, that is very different from the forum dying a natural death – something i previously alluded to in a past post.The socialist case has always had problems, Ike, and the main one is convincing our fellow-workers to reject the ideology that they have been indoctrinated into thinking as the only option for them to choose.You may consider our responses to be weak but i'm guessing by your continued presence, there is still something in them that you find of value, otherwise, i would think your conclusion would be that your contributions and exchanges when you engaged in debate would have been all a wasted effort.
Quote:"…The fear is that immigrants are stealing jobs and resources from citizens in the countries in which they live. However, statistics from the European Union tell us otherwise. The number of non-EU citizens living in Europe (some for a long time) is now 35 million, of whom about eight million are Africans, and seven million Arabs out of a total of 400 million. Those figures also include illegal immigrants.All statistics show that more than 97 percent of immigrants are totally integrated, that they pay on average more taxes than locals (of course, they worry about their future) and to date those who do not have a job are about 2.3 million people who are still awaiting a decision on their juridical status.There is not a single study claiming that immigrants have taken the jobs of Europeans in any significant way. It was the same story with the entry of woman into the labour market. An increasing proportion of women have joined the labour force over the last 30 years, but these increases have not coincided with falling employment rates for men. A study on Brexit demonstrated that immigrants had helped to increase GDP, and that the increase in productivity meant a global increase in employment. But we have reached a point where nobody listens any longer to facts, unless they are convenient. It is clear that the real threat to employment for the large majority of citizens comes from robotisation, not immigration. No employed person has been fired to be replaced by an immigrant, unless we talk of non-qualified jobs that Europeans do not want in any case. Truck drivers, taxi drivers, bus drivers and school drivers, to take some examples, do not fear for their jobs because of immigration. Within a very few years, their jobs will become obsolete in any case, and there will be no plans or preparations for that. When the problem explodes, politics might start looking at it.Perhaps the more responsible thing to do – rather than stoking fear with populism and xenophobia – is that we start to come to terms with the real problem that our society is facing: automation.I accept you are not an anti-vaxer, Meel, so this is directed to Marcos to support his positionhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/19/who-warns-over-measles-immunisation-rates-as-cases-rise-400-across-europe"Every new person affected by measles in Europe reminds us that unvaccinated children and adults, regardless of where they live, remain at risk of catching the disease and spreading it to others who may not be able to get vaccinated,” said Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe.
Quote:Alan seems to think that cosmpolitanism is about having diversity on your doorstep – what I will loosely call Local DiversityOn my doorstep, i seek an Italian, an Indian, a Chinese restaurant and yes, even a Greggs, Vin, because I happen to enjoy diversity in my daily diet.
You should read some of our anti-nationalist posts on the blog Socialist Courier, Ike, especially at the time of the 2014 referendum. Much of the separatist argument was made on cultural/heritage basis. Yet the most successful pro-sovereignty ads was the one which had a variety of immigrants supporting Scottish independence.And as you well-know at one time, the real bitter division was not nationality or race but religion. Thankfully, that bit of cultural heritage is fading away and in a generation or two will be a distant memory. However, i think every Scot can offer a personal anecdote of this bigotry. We still have a segregated school system. Just an example of it is herehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_David%27s_Roman_Catholic_High_Schoolhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalkeith_High_School
Quote:'birds of a feather flock together'.I've had contact with a number of ex-pat communities over the years…i recognise one reason is to share experiences and knowledge as a means to make local life easier.But there is often the darker side…the mutual confirmation of their superiority over the locals, especially when that false assumption is seriously challenged.
I tried, Ike, but the need to meet resident regulations and for the required visa stamps on my passport brought me back to harsh reality.I freely admit i have a very personal grudge against immigration controls, as well as ideological reasons
Quote:Scottish and English people have strong commonalities that an Indian, no matter how British he affects to be, does not share.By coincidence, i was just listening to an interview of the actor Ian Richardson – Edinburgh born and bred who dropped his accent. He played Nehru in Gandhi and in his research for the part he discovered that Gandhi insisted that Nehru who was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and thus spoke with that English upper-class accent had to adopt an Indian English accent to appeal to his Indian audience.His rival, Jinnah, retained all his English influences.I think we can say that people share their class affinities with the fellow members of the ruling class. As another aside, i once met this very old lady…she was Anglo-Indian. I was hard-pressed to take in the fact that she had never set eyes on England because of her very Mrs Marples appearance.
Quote:I'm not going to tell other people what they should think. Fundamentally, my attitude is that people should be allowed to live as they wishBut you are very willing to tell other people where they are allowed and not allowed to live, Ike. And you insist that if they do move they must think and act as the locals do.
I certainly did not expect the article to meet with your approval, Ike. You have made your nativist views very explicit in your previous posts.
Quote:It can't be that mass immigration and imposed diversity have damaging economic, cultural and social effects on their own, it must be that workers are credulous or stupid. Yes, that must be it.Hungary certainly has not suffered any mass immigration and certainly has not suffered imposed diversity.https://www.ksh.hu/docs/eng/xstadat/xstadat_annual/i_wnvn001b.html (you work out the percentages)The EU agreement was for a very limited quota of asylum seekers to be admitted. Hungary was asked to take 1,294 asylum seekers. Scarcely registering any impact on economy or culture if acceptedA demagogue such as Orban created fear and hate by the misinformation and disinformation. Was it from genuine sentiment or political opportunism? I little care, for it is the negative consequences of such policies, shared by many more than Orban as i tried to indicate that was worrying. We have seen the rise of the Right (i have to agree with you, the terms right and left when it comes to populism is not ideal). As in Ukraine, Bulgaria, a nation that was the first in Europe to build the fences against refugees have been marching in commemoration of a Nazi nationalist.http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/far-right-nationalists-parade-in-bulgarias-capitalHungary (as the later Israel article of deportation of Africans also makes the points out, too) neglects its own tragic history and the welcome and warm reception its own refugees received in 1956 – (Joe Bugner the boxer being a famous one).How the exodus of Hungarians fleeing the Russians were distributed around various countries was the template for the EU asylum-seeker resettlement plan. Plus Orban's double-standards when it comes to Hungarian migrants to the UK where he fully endorses migrants mobility.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hungary-pm-viktor-orban-tells-david-cameron-hungarians-in-uk-aren-t-migrants-or-parasites-treat-us-a6801216.htmlI visited Hungary during its relaxation period of state-capitalism and the virulent racism that existed then was aimed at the Roma. As i have stated before, capitalism will always involve competition for jobs and services and it will use divide and rule to ensure control. I decline to acquiesce to those sections of fellow-workers who feel they have a privileged right by accident of birth to gain the advantage over others.
I'm more influenced by James Connolly's take on the Catholic Church.
Quote:To use a homely adage the Church “does not put all her eggs in one basket,” and the man who imagines that in the supreme hour of the proletarian struggle for victory the Church will definitely line up with the forces of capitalism, and pledge her very existence as a Church upon the hazardous chance of the capitalists winning, simply does not understand the first thing about the policy of the Church in the social or political revolutions of the past. Just as in Ireland the Church denounced every Irish revolutionary movement in its day of activity, as in 1798, 1848 and 1867, and yet allowed its priests to deliver speeches in eulogy of the active spirits of those movements a generation afterwards, so in the future the Church, which has its hand close upon the pulse of human society, when it realises that the cause of capitalism is a lost cause it will find excuse enough to allow freedom of speech and expression to those lowly priests whose socialist declarations it will then use to cover and hide the absolute anti-socialism of the Roman Propaganda. When that day comes the Papal Encyclical against socialism will be conveniently forgotten by the Papal historians, and the socialist utterances, of the von Kettelers, the McGlynns, and McGradys will be heralded forth and the communistic utterances of the early fathers as proofs of Catholic sympathy with progressive ideas. Thus it has been in the past. Thus it will be, at least attempted, in the future.Just as C of E bishops can reject the Bible, religionists will tailor their beliefs to fit with realities of the modern world…even if the progress is in fits and starts
Quote:Are Norwegians racist if they want to keep Norway ethnically Norwegian?My aunt certainly would have considered it racist since she is a Shetlander who married a Norwegian during the war (he was a Shetland Bus resistance fighter) and settled in Norway and before you say being Shetlander made her half-Norse anyway by blood, the family were relatively recent newcomers to Shetland. (It is interesting that the Norwegians rejected the Nazi Nordic propaganda) My cousins would be appalled that being born and brought up in Norway deprived them of their Shetland heritage. Although it was misinterpreted, i recall the Communist Manifesto saying:“The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life." Explained by Engels in the Housing Question as "the isolation and stupor in which it has vegetated almost unchanged for thousands of years." They were not referring to the peasants in the sense of being idiots – living in a state of stupidity – but that urbanisation created a lot more social interaction – widened their culture…and dare i say again – makes people cosmopolitan in their thinking. I think it has been verified that where there are high numbers of migrants there is more acceptance, and it is in regions with lesser numbers that oppose immigration more – because they have less contact and relations with them – the unknown does result in fear. But as you pointed out smaller towns have more community and as Rothesay on Bute discovered, refugees settled there were integrated very easily into small-town daily life.
