the Migrant Crisis

[Ian_Wrexham]

Once again, there's only references to this on fash sites like Gates of Vienna and US right-wing shit-stirrers like Brietbart

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

CAN'T FIND IT NOW CAN I

but someone said something

I said that his father didn't make the journey because he was fleeing Syria, he made it because he wanted free healthcare to sort his teeth out, which is true. The Guardian reported on it after his cousin (who lives in Canada), told the press that she was trying to get him Canadian citizenship so he could sort his teeth out there, but that after that proved difficult, the family had the bright idea of telling him to just go to Europe instead. Him had his immediate family had been living in Turkey for three years bankrolled by his cousin. He had no great fear of Syria and took his wife and sons back there to be buried after they died.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Once again, there's only references to this on fash sites like Gates of Vienna and US right-wing shit-stirrers like Brietbart

Yes, it's disappointing that the mainstream and the far-left are surrendering truths to the far-right, but hardly surprising at this point. That's why I always keep a few of those types on my feed.

 

[smat]

I said that his father didn't make the journey because he was fleeing Syria, he made it because he wanted free healthcare to sort his teeth out, which is true. The Guardian reported on it after his cousin (who lives in Canada), told the press that she was trying to get him Canadian citizenship so he could sort his teeth out there, but that after that proved difficult, the family had the bright idea of telling him to just go to Europe instead. Him had his immediate family had been living in Turkey for three years bankrolled by his cousin. He had no great fear of Syria and took his wife and sons back there to be buried after they died.

Someone posted a link to a story where the dad had been accused of being a people trafficker, and said "wow, amazing if true" or something. I can't find it now. I'm guessing it's not you. A heartfelt apology.

Unless it was you and you deleted your post.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Hardly "rioting all over the place" those videos. Fash in this country do far worse all the time and it barely ever makes more than local news. Be really concerned if BBC News led with "Plastic chair thrown by asylum seekers in Germany".

Here's Kurdish news agency rudaw on attacks on Kurdish demos attacked by Turkish fash

http://rudaw.net/english/world/13092015

Worth pointing out that the Turkish fash in question - the Grey Wolves are funded by the Turkish government to carry out political assassinations, were armed by the CIA and were one of the fascist terrorist groups funded and courted by NATO as part of Operation Gladio.

In Germany, they've been active, and co-ordinated violence against Kurds in Germany for nearly forty years so there's very little to associate them with the current crisis of refugees from Syria.

Given the documented links between the Grey Wolves and Turkish and Western governments, it's not unreasonable to say violence by Kurdish demonstrators also counts as resistance to state violence.

 

[mnb089mnb]

I said that his father didn't make the journey because he was fleeing Syria, he made it because he wanted free healthcare to sort his teeth out, which is true. The Guardian reported on it after his cousin (who lives in Canada), told the press that she was trying to get him Canadian citizenship so he could sort his teeth out there, but that after that proved difficult, the family had the bright idea of telling him to just go to Europe instead. Him had his immediate family had been living in Turkey for three years bankrolled by his cousin. He had no great fear of Syria and took his wife and sons back there to be buried after they died.

I would imagine it's more complex situation than just 'teeth'.

She also said this:
“I was even paying rent for them in Turkey, but it is horrible the way they treat Syrians there.”
Which is unsurprising considering they're from a Kurdish background.

And I imagine he doesn't care too much about his safety now his wife and children are dead. It's only right he takes them back home to be buried at home in Syria.

You're a clever chap, but you don't really understand people or compassion, do you?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

I would imagine it's more complex situation than just 'teeth'.

If we're going to talk about complexity we should probably first be seeking to dispel the fantasy that all of these refugees, most of whom are not Syrian, are fleeing for their lives in the first place. I'm sure there was an element of persecution in Turkey, but at the same time the cousin was quite plain about the medical situation being the driving factor behind the sea journey. And this is a Syrian family we're talking about, the motives of the Iranians and Pakistanis and a multitude of others that are arriving en masse thanks to Merkels dumbfuckery are even more dubious. It's about time we challenged this notion that compassion somehow magically leads to positive results.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Yeah, cos neo-colonialism/nativism/stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment/fortifying borders etc have fucking great results, traditionally.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Well if we're going to entertain that particular false dichotomy and reach for extremes, then yeah, those things kinda do have a decent track record actually, at least when compared to the other end of the spectrum.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Well if we're going to entertain that particular false dichotomy and reach for extremes, then yeah, those things kinda do have a decent track record actually, at least when compared to the other end of the spectrum.

Yeah, I forgot that the ongoing white genocide could have been prevented.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-1059357.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=

De Spiegel on the rise of fascist groups in Germany and the failure of the German state to deal with them.

Sent from my SM-A300FU using Tapatalk

 

[Alty]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-34654460

 

[smat]

Well, if Tony Abbott says so...

What can be our version of Nauru? Guernsey? I'd be up for that, actually.

 

[mnb089mnb]

"No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself."

Australians.

 

[Alty]

"No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself."

Australians.

Tbf the Australian migration figures are high and the days of White Australia are a very distant memory. It's a diverse place. The point about letting absolutely anyone in is true, don't you think?

 

[Alty]

Well, if Tony Abbott says so...

What can be our version of Nauru? Guernsey? I'd be up for that, actually.

Ireland. End the CTA and offer them money to do the work for us. They need a few bob. Everyone wins.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Tbf the Australian migration figures are high and the days of White Australia are a very distant memory. It's a diverse place. The point about letting absolutely anyone in is true, don't you think?

No. To say nothing about the impossibility of maintaining secure borders or the immorality of killing migrants in order to preserve your own wealth or status, the racism engendered by nativist politics is enormously damaging both in terms of building cohesive societies and also in terms of our own internal security.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Abbott didn't seem that concerned about a country fundamentally weakening itself when he defunded remote aboriginal communities.

 

[Alty]

No. To say nothing about the impossibility of maintaining secure borders or the immorality of killing migrants in order to preserve your own wealth or status, the racism engendered by nativist politics is enormously damaging both in terms of building cohesive societies and also in terms of our own internal security.

You've never really explained convincingly how it's a net benefit to a country to let absolutely everyone in who wants to come in. Unpleasant as it is to have to face up to reality, there are a hell of a lot of bad people in the world. I can't think why you wouldn't want to stop as many of these bad people coming to your country as possible.

Of course it's impossible to stop all illegal/unwanted immigration. But it's a hell of a leap to suggest that because of that, we should just abandon border control altogether. It's similar to trying to deal with crime, is it not? You might favour tougher sentences, you might think the answer lies in fighting poverty or you might look to a softer, more rehabilitation-focused prison system. But what you don't do is abandon trying to reduce crime because you know it'll never be eradicated.

I don't understand the "killing migrants" line but would just point out that the Australian system has drastically reduced the number of people making the perilous boat journeys. Your best option if you want to preserve human life is probably a) to make clear that there's absolutely no value in making a dangerous journey because you're not getting in that way, b) to provide financial and logistical assistance in places where people are truly destitute and c) to have an ethical asylum/refugee policy that involves taking people directly from UN refugee camps.

Removing border controls is not the panacea to bring about the end of racism. Re cohesive societies...tbh the best way to ensure that is probably to closely guard against any different cultures coming into a country. Which wouldn't be what you, I or I suspect the vast majority of British people want. The balance to be struck is finding an immigration policy that allows for an element of diversity without negatively impacting on the economic fortune of the country or completely diluting the culture(s). In the grand scheme of things we've done alright in Britain even if there are still improvements to be made.

The idea that security would be enhanced by totally open borders is absolutely ludicrous, by the way.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

I don't understand the "killing migrants" line but would just point out that the Australian system has drastically reduced the number of people making the perilous boat journeys. Your best option if you want to preserve human life is probably a) to make clear that there's absolutely no value in making a dangerous journey because you're not getting in that way, b) to provide financial and logistical assistance in places where people are truly destitute and c) to have an ethical asylum/refugee policy that involves taking people directly from UN refugee camps.

Do you think people just stay home when they can't get into Australia? No. They go other places. Places they're less safe. Places more dangerous to get to. Places with less infrastructure/wealth to be able to accommodate them.

By securing your borders, you're killing migrants even when it's not on your borders that they die.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

You could just as easily argue that sapping the developing world of it's working age adults, those that are disproportionately affluent and educated with the means to travel, makes their native countries that much worse and that much more likely to cut lives short. This no borders ideology is typically short-sighted and emotion-driven. It has no end game, it has no long term plan, it perpetuates a cycle of misery on one end and back-patting on the other that treats the symptoms and not the cause, something that is becoming characteristic of the so-called progressive left. The people who primarily stand to gain are leftist parties (or any party that can paint their opponents as racist) that can count on new voters, the relatively few migrants that have the means to travel (for as long as Western countries can cope), big business that gets a surplus of workers with which it can use to lower wages and raise profits, and teary-eyed internationalist simpletons clad in 'refugees welcome' t-shirts who've convinced themselves that they're just such bloody great people. The ultimate price of regressive-liberal feelz™ being more wealth inequality, cultural catastrophe, and an even poorer developing world. Brilliant.

Oh, and that rationale you've used to paint nationalists as killers could just as easily be used to paint anyone who doesn't donate all of their disposable income to charity in the same manner. The West never made the progress we have done by trying to artificially make everyone as rich/poor as each other. If you want to help the world's poor then you help them create a prosperous, competitive nation for themselves, you don't just write-off half the globe and let everyone move to the West instead.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Not sure if you're paying much attention, but liberals don't tend to be that keen on migration, and are keen on border controls. Liberals also have fucking useless politics generally. Let's not be ascribing useful, good things like "no borders" to liberals now.

Your comment about "big business" liking immigration is economically illiterate. If there was complete freedom of movement workers would be able to take their labour where the price was highest. That would mean that the price of labour would equalise on a global scale and it would mean that capitalists could no longer exploit an uneven labour market to make the biggest profits they could.

It's only because a Bangladeshi sweat-shop worker has less economic power (owing to the fact that they can't take their labour elsewhere) than a factory worker in the UK that it makes sense for Next to make their clothes there. If the price was equal, clothes would be made in Bangladesh for Bangladeshis and in Britain for British people. There would be no need for exploitative multinationals because there would be no economic benefit from globalised industry.

Borders hold back labour rights in the developing world. If Bangladeshi sweatshop workers strike for better pay and conditions, Next or Nike or whoever can just up-sticks to India, Vietnam, Myanmar. The movement of workers across national barriers creates a greater international solidarity and allows struggles to be more easily linked. Capitalism relies on borders. Smash them down and it will no longer function.

That's the long-term plan.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

84 year-old dies in chains at hospital after being detained.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rtation-died-in-handcuffs-home-office-inquest

Five doctors testified that he wasn't fit for detention but it wasn't until he stopped breathing that the handcuffs and chains were removed.

Course, that the British state should stop fucking killing people is all liberal feelz.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Not sure if you're paying much attention, but liberals don't tend to be that keen on migration, and are keen on border controls. Liberals also have fucking useless politics generally. Let's not be ascribing useful, good things like "no borders" to liberals now.

Your comment about "big business" liking immigration is economically illiterate. If there was complete freedom of movement workers would be able to take their labour where the price was highest. That would mean that the price of labour would equalise on a global scale and it would mean that capitalists could no longer exploit an uneven labour market to make the biggest profits they could.

It's only because a Bangladeshi sweat-shop worker has less economic power (owing to the fact that they can't take their labour elsewhere) than a factory worker in the UK that it makes sense for Next to make their clothes there. If the price was equal, clothes would be made in Bangladesh for Bangladeshis and in Britain for British people. There would be no need for exploitative multinationals because there would be no economic benefit from globalised industry.

Borders hold back labour rights in the developing world. If Bangladeshi sweatshop workers strike for better pay and conditions, Next or Nike or whoever can just up-sticks to India, Vietnam, Myanmar. The movement of workers across national barriers creates a greater international solidarity and allows struggles to be more easily linked. Capitalism relies on borders. Smash them down and it will no longer function.

That's the long-term plan.

This reminds me of the arguments that get put forward for socialism and communism, or even pacifism. They work beautifully on paper, but that's the only place they work, because in practise they rely on human beings not acting like homo sapiens. There's no mechanism by which you can force a human population to forego an obvious advantage (like borders, or capitalism, or imperialism) than by the use or threat of force, so what it would actually require to smash all borders down, would be some form of oppressive world government. These wide-eyed far-left ideas always end in authoritarianism, because that's what it takes for such perverse social structures to be held in place. The key to our progress has always been harnessing ills like greed and envy and aggression, that's why enterprise and military strength has always seen civilizations prosper. Trying to abstain from those core facets of human nature never works, and even if it did it would only make you vulnerable to those that embrace them.

84 year-old dies in chains at hospital after being detained.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rtation-died-in-handcuffs-home-office-inquest

Five doctors testified that he wasn't fit for detention but it wasn't until he stopped breathing that the handcuffs and chains were removed.

Course, that the British state should stop fucking killing people is all liberal feelz.

There's nothing in that article that suggests his heart attacks had anything to do with being cuffed, nor is there anything in there about five doctors testifying that he wasn't fit to be detained.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

This reminds me of the arguments that get put forward for socialism and communism, or even pacifism. They work beautifully on paper, but that's the only place they work, because in practise they rely on human beings not acting like homo sapiens. There's no mechanism by which you can force a human population to forego an obvious advantage (like borders, or capitalism, or imperialism) than by the use or threat of force, so what it would actually require to smash all borders down, would be some form of oppressive world government. These wide-eyed far-left ideas always end in authoritarianism, because that's what it takes for such perverse social structures to be held in place. The key to our progress has always been harnessing ills like greed and envy and aggression, that's why enterprise and military strength has always seen civilizations prosper. Trying to abstain from those core facets of human nature never works, and even if it did it would only make you vulnerable to those that embrace them.

And you don't think borders are authoritarian? That they need to be militarily defended? That they run entirely contrary to human nature? That they require literally killing people in order to exist.

You're confusing "human nature" with "the interests of capital". Capitalism isn't natural. Globalised capital isn't natural. Land-ownership isn't natural. And it's simply true that capitalism depends as much on state violence as the worst socialist regimes. It's just violence is normally removed from us - the killings that our state depends on happen half a world away - in Congo, in Bangladesh, in South America. But lets not pretend our economic system doesn't depend on those killings, nor that it doesn't lead to authoritarianism.

You basically don't have a solution to mass-migration that isn't secure the borders and pretend it isn't happening.

There's nothing in that article that suggests his heart attacks had anything to do with being cuffed, nor is there anything in there about five doctors testifying that he wasn't fit to be detained.

Oops, wrong link
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...more-help-man-who-died-shackles-alois-dvorzac

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

And you don't think borders are authoritarian? That they need to be militarily defended? That they run entirely contrary to human nature? That they require literally killing people in order to subsist.

Well they certainly need to be militarily defended, which can result in loss of life, but I completely reject your characterization of the state killing migrants. It's such a detached and indirect form of blame you could use it to pin just about anything on just about anyone, it requires the idea of personal responsibility to be watered down to the point that it's practically non-existent. It would be like, as I've already said, blaming someone for the deaths of the disadvantaged simply because they didn't donate all of their disposable income to charity. The fact is it's not the job of the British government to secure the well being of random foreign migrants who wants to come here in the first place.

Tribalism is a core part of human nature. It's rational and practical and is a fundamental reason for our survival as a species. You protect your tribe because your tribe protects you. States and borders and citizenships are just a natural extension of that. I don't consider a border authoritarian because it doesn't restrict the people the states serves, only the people outside it.

You're confusing "human nature" with "the interests of capital". Capitalism isn't natural. Globalised capital isn't natural. Land-ownership isn't natural. And it's simply true that capitalism depends as much on state violence as the worst socialist regimes. It's just violence is normally removed from us - the killings that our state depends on happen half a world away - in Congo, in Bangladesh, in South America. But lets not pretend our economic system doesn't depend on those killings, nor that it doesn't lead to authoritarianism.

And let's not pretend that in a borderless world, when economies start to equalize and the East gets richer while the West gets poorer, that this commitment to open borders could ever survive. The idea that we would willingly sacrifice our prosperity like that is patently absurd, and runs more counter to human nature than anything else that has been suggested here. You can argue that land-ownership isn't natural much like you can argue that aeroplane-ownership isn't natural, it's an inane point, what's natural is greed. I accept entirely that Western prosperity is currently dependent somewhat on Eastern poverty. That's life, a constant struggle against competitors. If it were not us exploiting them, then it would be them exploiting us. I know which I'd rather. I don't see how that could conceivably change until we reach a point technologically when energy is so easily generated, resources so easily mined (from space) and workloads so easily automated that we're not scrabbling over the same finite rock the way we are today.

You basically don't have a solution to mass-migration that isn't secure the borders and pretend it isn't happening.

We don't need to pretend anything. Any Western state can stop it if they really care to.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Well they certainly need to be militarily defended, which can result in loss of life, but I completely reject your characterization of the state killing migrants. It's such a detached and indirect form of blame you could use it to pin just about anything on just about anyone, it requires the idea of personal responsibility to be watered down to the point that it's practically non-existent. It would be like, as I've already said, blaming someone for the deaths of the disadvantaged simply because they didn't donate all of their disposable income to charity. The fact is it's not the job of the British government to secure the well being of random foreign migrants who wants to come here in the first place.

Tribalism is a core part of human nature. It's rational and practical and is a fundamental reason for our survival as a species. You protect your tribe because your tribe protects you. States and borders and citizenships are just a natural extension of that. I don't consider a border authoritarian because it doesn't restrict the people the states serves, only the people outside it.

And let's not pretend that in a borderless world, when economies start to equalize and the East gets richer while the West gets poorer, that this commitment to open borders could ever survive. The idea that we would willingly sacrifice our prosperity like that is patently absurd, and runs more counter to human nature than anything else that has been suggested here. You can argue that land-ownership isn't natural much like you can argue that aeroplane-ownership isn't natural, it's an inane point, what's natural is greed. I accept entirely that Western prosperity is currently dependent somewhat on Eastern poverty. That's life, a constant struggle against competitors. If it were not us exploiting them, then it would be them exploiting us. I know which I'd rather. I don't see how that could conceivably change until we reach a point technologically when energy is so easily generated, resources so easily mined (from space) and workloads so easily automated that we're not scrabbling over the same finite rock the way we are today.

You, yourself, have been claiming there is a migration crisis. I agree. I think people freezing to death in their thousands in camps around Western and Southern Europe is an atrocity - that people who seventy years ago said "never again" are now saying "well, maybe again, if the alternative is sacrificing a tiny sliver of our prosperity".

The fiction that Europe tells itself is that we are civilised. That's what we convinced ourselves as we conquered the world. It's the rationale people use to justify bombing people now.

We believe in human rights. We have values that have transcend our bestial nature - something that makes us fundamentally different to those who lock people in cages and set them on fire.

Obviously this is and always has been a lie. But it's a little bit galling to hear people who've trotted it out for years now going "ah, well, tribalism's in our nature" the minute tens of thousands of desperate people start freezing to death on our doorsteps.

Of course, even if tribalism were in our nature, a quick glance at history suggests it's not always wise. Look at the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was caused, in the first instance, by a crisis of refugees displaced into the Roman Empire by the Huns. The Empire's refusal to provide food to the refugees or give them land on which to resettle led to a revolt. Two years after that point, the Emperor was killed and a Roman Army destroyed at Adrianople, a quarter of a century from that point, Rome was sacked by Visigoths (the people who'd sought refuge), and a century later the Western Roman Empire was no more.

 

[Alty]

There you go, lads. Best open the borders or else London will be taken by the Syrian Army in 2040.

 

[Aber gas]

" western society can't cope" " our culture will be swamped" " infrastructure will crumble" these arguments aren't new. The same thing has been said about every migration to Britain from the Huguenots to the Polish. My house is still standing, I can still get red wine in the shop and as far as I can tell the football is going ahead tomorrow. Anti immigration politics are dominated by the frightened and the bigoted. What date is the destruction of the western world lads? ( so I can cancel the milk)