Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
It's really very simple...
British Olympian Mo Farah was detained by US customs under suspicion of being a terrorist. All it took for the Sun to offer its solidarity was him winning two gold medals. There's a lesson in that for all of us. If only all Somali refugees could win gold medals we'd all be set and the Sun would be the pillar of civil liberties and anti-racism.
You can prove anything with facts
The future of Reality-Lite politics in Britain Britain
No doubt the Reality-Lite will grow in leaps and bounds with further published statistics from the 2011 census (notice how news stories now unquestioningly group statistics about religion with statistics about immigration). There was a net increase in the number of foreign-born residents inEngland Wales England Wales
The Multiculturalism/Immigration is of course a means of smuggling racism into popular discourse. No one ever is racist, at least no one ever admits to it; but once the debate starts out comes the code words and the dog whistles. There is no practical way to win an argument as things presently stand because reality has been replaced by ‘legitimate concerns’.
No doubt the Reality-Lite will grow in leaps and bounds with further published statistics from the 2011 census (notice how news stories now unquestioningly group statistics about religion with statistics about immigration). There was a net increase in the number of foreign-born residents in
The number of people identifying themselves as Muslim has risen over the same period from around 3% to around 5%, compared to a fall of 4 million in the number of people identifying themselves as Christian. That’s a 2% increase relative to the overall population, 60% relative to the previous percentage. By my reckoning, if that trend continues, we’re looking at 8% by 2020, 12% by 2030, 18% by 2040. Even on their own deranged, racist terms, the anti-islamicisation crowd have nothing to worry about for at least fifty years.
But that won’t stop them. The basis for, what we will loosely call, progressive politics is growing. The working class is growing. That’s why the right, and the far right in particular, are so agitated right now. Britain
To win the argument means returning it to reality, no pandering to ‘legitimate concerns’, calling out racism at all times and dealing in facts.
A fool or a knave?
Immigration and race are right wing wedge issues. The ruling class's wants a stratified and atomised work force in order to up the general rate of exploitation, boosting profits. That's the plan, anyway.
Modern governments are compelled to violently manipulate the working population. That's why, regardless of their political persuasion, a generation of Home Secretaries have tried to outbid their predecessors in obnoxious authoritarianism.
The only trouble is, at least for the Labour Party, is, as (former Home Secretary) David Blunkett has pointed out:
When you play this game you aren't triangulating but helping to shift political discourse to the right.
If Blunkett is sincere there is a degree of irony involved. He was the Minister who introduced the Britishness Test (because nationality can not only be measured but sorted into increments). Blunkett also had the children of asylum seekers segregated from other children to prevent swamping; yes, your children are being swamped by a tiny minority and no it's not to facilitate divide and rule, preventing local families getting dangerously familiar with potential refugees... oh no. Blunkett also did his bit to improve race relations in Britain by describing the young men incarcerated for trying to stop violent nazis from rampaging through their neighbourhoods as whining maniacs.
Erstwhile war-supporters used to say things along the line of "it's all very well making these points with the benefit of hindsight". The obvious answer was that many of us seemed to have the benefit of foresight. If Blunkett knew all this before and during his career in government then he is a deeply cynical man. If he's only just realised this now he's merely a total and utter fool.
Modern governments are compelled to violently manipulate the working population. That's why, regardless of their political persuasion, a generation of Home Secretaries have tried to outbid their predecessors in obnoxious authoritarianism.
The only trouble is, at least for the Labour Party, is, as (former Home Secretary) David Blunkett has pointed out:
You can't outdo the Conservatives in relation to immigration.
When you play this game you aren't triangulating but helping to shift political discourse to the right.
If Blunkett is sincere there is a degree of irony involved. He was the Minister who introduced the Britishness Test (because nationality can not only be measured but sorted into increments). Blunkett also had the children of asylum seekers segregated from other children to prevent swamping; yes, your children are being swamped by a tiny minority and no it's not to facilitate divide and rule, preventing local families getting dangerously familiar with potential refugees... oh no. Blunkett also did his bit to improve race relations in Britain by describing the young men incarcerated for trying to stop violent nazis from rampaging through their neighbourhoods as whining maniacs.
Erstwhile war-supporters used to say things along the line of "it's all very well making these points with the benefit of hindsight". The obvious answer was that many of us seemed to have the benefit of foresight. If Blunkett knew all this before and during his career in government then he is a deeply cynical man. If he's only just realised this now he's merely a total and utter fool.
Jim Crows again...
The state of Alabama has passed a law making immigration all but a crime in itself. The same law also allows private prisons to use prisoners far more extensively for work. A Guardian writer wonders where this is going?
It has been well observed that the American prison industry is huge. The justice system is a racist system, the cutting edge of a racist society, disproportionately punishing ethnic minorities. Work is effectively forced. Slavery has effectively been restored.
But the relation of work to compulsion and control. We are all wage slaves. We don't need a whip, merely an alarm clock to make us fall into line. We don't have to work for anyone in particular, but we have to work for someone. What the capitalist class wants is, in effect, labour like water. It can turn the tap off and on as and when it needs to.
The capitalist class's plan, it's only plan, for dealing with the current depression is to hold down costs, especially wages, and export. Individually this makes sense, as a collective this is madness, but competitive accumulation drives this system, the first point of view must dominate. Racist laws such as the one passed in Alabama are not just an attack on a people but a class, an experiment in setting a new, lower baseline in working class life. A portion of the working class will go from working for next to nothing to all but nothing, a further downward pressure on all working people, at least in Alabama. It is another illustration why the working class, if it is to be a class for itself, for its own interests, must be staunchly anti-racist.
The difference between Alabama and adjoining states is that it is willing to go further down this track. Recently, John McMillan, agriculture commissioner, proposed that the farm work left behind by immigrant workers be supplied with inmate labor. Decatur, a private detention center about 50 miles to the north-west of Alabama, which had been unable to find jobs for inmates, has now witnessed record numbers of requests for labor (for an estimated 150 detainees a day).
So, here is how it goes. First, the state passes a harsh immigration law. Then, it detains large numbers of immigrants. Third, private prisons (LCS, CCA, GEO) receive fresh inmates. And finally, the artificially created labor shortage is supplied by the new inmates. Does this sound like modern-day slavery to anyone?
It has been well observed that the American prison industry is huge. The justice system is a racist system, the cutting edge of a racist society, disproportionately punishing ethnic minorities. Work is effectively forced. Slavery has effectively been restored.
But the relation of work to compulsion and control. We are all wage slaves. We don't need a whip, merely an alarm clock to make us fall into line. We don't have to work for anyone in particular, but we have to work for someone. What the capitalist class wants is, in effect, labour like water. It can turn the tap off and on as and when it needs to.
The capitalist class's plan, it's only plan, for dealing with the current depression is to hold down costs, especially wages, and export. Individually this makes sense, as a collective this is madness, but competitive accumulation drives this system, the first point of view must dominate. Racist laws such as the one passed in Alabama are not just an attack on a people but a class, an experiment in setting a new, lower baseline in working class life. A portion of the working class will go from working for next to nothing to all but nothing, a further downward pressure on all working people, at least in Alabama. It is another illustration why the working class, if it is to be a class for itself, for its own interests, must be staunchly anti-racist.
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