Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign

[Young Master Smeet]

Just to quote from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Quote:

Although most people continue to think of races as physically distinct populations, scientific advances in the 20th century demonstrated that human physical variations do not fit a “racial” model. Instead, human physical variations tend to overlap. There are no genes that can identify distinct groups that accord with the conventional race categories. In fact, DNA analyses have proved that all humans have much more in common, genetically, than they have differences. The genetic difference between any two humans is less than 1 percent. Moreover, geographically widely separated populations vary from one another in only about 6 to 8 percent of their genes. Because of the overlapping of traits that bear no relationship to one another (such as skin colour and hair texture) and the inability of scientists to cluster peoples into discrete racial packages, modern researchers have concluded that the concept of race has no biological validity.

[alanjjohnstone]

"APARTHEID""We already have this.  Have you been outside recently?" I have already made it clear that i couldn't care a toss if there exists a race or not. Hrothgar could for all i care prove that neanderthal genes predominate in some communities (In 52 Clapham High St has raised that possibility !!). What my issue is the political implications of his supposed solutions.  Forever claiming his accuracy we have him insisting that we in the UK (and Europe) practice apartheid….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa Yes I have looked outside…I see no white only – black only signs for buses or train carriages. I see no pass laws regulating where someone lives or travel.  I do see however government attempts to eliminate discrimination, not formalise it into law.  I also see an economic system that is more concerned witht the colour of someone's money than the colour of his skin.  No, there are no apartheid laws, no Jim Crow laws….this is exactly what Brian accuses you of wishing to create and what I have also accused you of advocating.  You are on a trajectory of a self-fulfilling prophecy. While socialists recognise and highlight the dangers of racism and bigotry affecting workers solidarity and hindering the struggle for socialism, you wish to inflame racism and turn worker against worker. And then in all your glory point the finger and declare…"see, I told you so… race war not class war…"   You continually claim some sort of libertarian credential but to achieve your chosen future means authoritarian and oppressive acts of coercion. You deny any political affiliation with Nazis and Klansmen but these are your bedfellows. To them,  you are what is commonly referred to as a useful idiot. 

[alanjjohnstone]

 Take a look outside in post apartheid South Africa. "Only 4.1 percent of people describe themselves by their language or tribe, while a mere 8.8 percent use race as a self-descriptor. Contrast this with the 52 percent who identify themselves as South Africans, first, and the 88 percent who are proud to be South African citizens.There is no doubt that, increasingly, South Africans do not see race, language and tribe as an important criterion for self-identity. They are well on their way towards a non-racial society." http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/let-s-dump-obsession-with-race-1.1588948#.UlS3H9Knokg And of course the next stage is to dump the obsession with nationality, too!!

[Hrothgar]

LBird wrote:

In my experience of self-employed professionals, they have a strong social tendency to develop cloth-ears.As Hrothgar displays with his genetic purity, here we have an example of concrete determinism.Perhaps Socialist Punk can tell us if 'Hrothgar' is a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon for 'Hessian-horns'.

We have already been treated to your prejudices about people with special needs, plus your colleague's rather ugly prejudices about people with mental illness, so it's gratifying to note that you have prejudices about "self-employed professionals" too.  Truly, I am among the enlightened.Is there any category of people we have missed, or have all the easy targets been covered now?  For instance, and just for completeness, you might want to share with us your views on soldiers, let's say, or students.  Don't hold back.

[Hrothgar]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Just to quote from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Quote:

Although most people continue to think of races as physically distinct populations, scientific advances in the 20th century demonstrated that human physical variations do not fit a “racial” model. Instead, human physical variations tend to overlap. There are no genes that can identify distinct groups that accord with the conventional race categories. In fact, DNA analyses have proved that all humans have much more in common, genetically, than they have differences. The genetic difference between any two humans is less than 1 percent. Moreover, geographically widely separated populations vary from one another in only about 6 to 8 percent of their genes. Because of the overlapping of traits that bear no relationship to one another (such as skin colour and hair texture) and the inability of scientists to cluster peoples into discrete racial packages, modern researchers have concluded that the concept of race has no biological validity.

This statement is incorrect.  I have already explained why in this thread, but see also the below study as a referenced example.http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/68It's important to bear in mind that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a general reference work rather than an authoritative text for any particular specialism.  

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

For instance, and just for completeness, you might want to share with us your views on soldiers, let's say, or students. Don't hold back.

Since I've been both, I'd rather share my views about you, something that I've never been: you're a racist.And it's not meant as a compliment, you tool. I'm downright prejudiced about your 'special needs', dimwit.I've had you sussed from the start, when you refused to engage with our reasonable questions and listen to our explanations of why your statements are nonsensical drivel, and why you idiotically hold to them. You've just kept reiterating your unthinking racial bullshit.Why don't you just go and talk to someone who's likely to listen to your fairy stories, uncritically? Someone who has no experience of the world, neither as a soldier nor as a student.

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

Hrothgar wrote:

I assume you are referring to Marine Colliery

Why this assumption? I think that despite his self-proclaimed superior intelligence he is confusing Cwm and Cwm Beddau.

I know you can't resist the temptation to personally abuse people that you are in disagreement with.  It's a quality that shames you but I am happy for it to continue.  Please do make sure you take the opportunity to reply to each of my posts with your best attempt at some insult or snide remark.  It shows you in your true light.Now, it may be that I have mixed-up one colliery with another.  Or it may not be.  But that's hardly the point, is it.  I am waiting for your colleague to back-up his remarks, which he has not yet done.Also, I have never claimed superior intelligence to anybody on here, so you'll have to tell me what you mean by "self-proclaimed superior intelligence".

[Hrothgar]

LBird wrote:

Since I've been both, I'd rather share my views about you, something that I've never been: you're a racist.And it's not meant as a compliment, you tool. I'm downright prejudiced about your 'special needs', dimwit.I've had you sussed from the start, when you refused to engage with our reasonable questions and listen to our explanations of why your statements are nonsensical drivel, and why you idiotically hold to them. You've just kept reiterating your unthinking racial bullshit.Why don't you just go and talk to someone who's likely to listen to your fairy stories, uncritically? Someone who has no experience of the world, neither as a soldier nor as a student.

I think you need to calm down.  You're losing control of yourself, and frankly, you're making yourself look a bigot and a fool.As far as I can tell, I have answered each and every point put to me, as reasonably and as articulately as I can manage.  I have also 'listened' to all the replies and I have taken on board certain comments where appropriate.  Where I disagree, I have explained why I disagree.  You may not like my reasons for disagreeing, but that's no reason to insult me like a spoilt child, is it.So, when you say I have "refused to engage with [your] reasonable questions and listen to [your] explanations", you are not being entirely truthful, are you.If I have missed anyone's questions or points, then you should feel free to highlight this with specificity.  I will then go back and deal with the points.  However, no-one has informed me of any such omission.

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"APARTHEID""We already have this.  Have you been outside recently?" I have already made it clear that i couldn't care a toss if there exists a race or not. Hrothgar could for all i care prove that neanderthal genes predominate in some communities (In 52 Clapham High St has raised that possibility !!). What my issue is the political implications of his supposed solutions.  Forever claiming his accuracy we have him insisting that we in the UK (and Europe) practice apartheid….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa Yes I have looked outside…I see no white only – black only signs for buses or train carriages. I see no pass laws regulating where someone lives or travel.  I do see however government attempts to eliminate discrimination, not formalise it into law.  I also see an economic system that is more concerned witht the colour of someone's money than the colour of his skin.

You clearly don't know what apartheid is, so allow me to provide some clarification on the subject.  First, apartheid is not the same as racial separatism.  Apartheid is more about racial subjugation within the same society, and so there is a class element, whereas racial separatism, when considered properly, is the sovereignty of a racial group within its own discrete territory.In South Africa – the genetic origin of the term 'apartheid' – the blacks (in basic terms) were the servants and workers for the whites.  This did take place alongside a kind of racial separation proper (i.e. the puppet ethno-enclaves that were established for blacks), but those micro-states were principally retreats for a black workforce that continued to serve mainstream South African society, and so the main feature and principle of apartheid remained.Now, I hope, you can see why I ascribe the term 'apartheid' to British society.  I am using the term generically, yes, but also technically to convey the nature of a society that is, in effect, a failed racial experiment along impliedly similar lines to the failed racial experiment of apartheid South Africa.  The apartheid regime in South Africa deserved to fall, and so does the 'soft apartheid' regime in Britain and other Western countries.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

No, there are no apartheid laws, no Jim Crow laws….this is exactly what Brian accuses you of wishing to create and what I have also accused you of advocating.

I wish to create no such thing.  

alanjjohnstone wrote:

You are on a trajectory of a self-fulfilling prophecy. While socialists recognise and highlight the dangers of racism and bigotry affecting workers solidarity and hindering the struggle for socialism, you wish to inflame racism and turn worker against worker. And then in all your glory point the finger and declare…"see, I told you so… race war not class war…"  

So workers cannot decide for themselves now?  I may or may not be a bigot or prejudiced personally, but actually, it is not my intention to fire up hatred or bigotry in anyone else.  My genuine motive is to see a society that people want to live in and in which people have self-direction in their lives.  I also think you need to stop to consider what harm the enforcement of a mixed-racial society might do to racial relations.  Is 'racism' caused by people who are racist, as you suggest?  Or is racism caused by things that happen in society, including (among other things) the way that people are in a society?  The first proposition seems a little circular to me.  It's the second proposition that makes sense.  That being the case, can racial consciousness and reactionary racism just be put down to false consciousness, or are these views – whether or not benefiting capitalism – a reflection of the way people are and the way human societies work?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

You continually claim some sort of libertarian credential but to achieve your chosen future means authoritarian and oppressive acts of coercion. You deny any political affiliation with Nazis and Klansmen but these are your bedfellows. To them,  you are what is commonly referred to as a useful idiot. 

Well, I don't claim any "libertarian credential", though to be honest, I am not altogether sure what you mean by that.  There is no credential in an intellectual position.  You either think it or you don't.  We have no choice here but to take each other at face value.  For my part, I have no problem with accepting you as a sincere and genuine socialist and a man of good intentions.  I don't need to inspect your credentials or prove anything to me.For the record, I am not a libertarian.  I regard libertarianism, in both its genuine 'Left' form and its fake 'Right' form, as juvenile, though I do have considerable respect for the liberatarian socialism espoused by Chomsky.  However, notwithstanding my regard for Chomsky's political position, I don't consider it possible to have a society without some kind of natural hierarchy, and I think it is both dangerous and inquitous to work to eradicate natural differences among human beings.  I think this point is being demonstrated right now, for real, in our society, as I type this.  However, I do believe in what might be loosely termed 'social autonomy' and I think a society based on autonomous principles is possible.  I realise that's pretty vague and generalised, but it's as far as I am willing to discuss my own distinct ideas for now.  What I will say is that any future I can project now is always going to be speculative.  I know that a coherent and workable society must have degrees of reasoned authority and coercion, but the existence of those attributes does not and need not imply or necessitate oppression.You say that "Nazis" [sic] and "Klansmen" are my "bedfellows" and that I am a "useful idiot".  That may well be the case, but it says nothing as to the validity or accuracy of my own views.  In a sense, we are all "bedfellows" and "useful idiots" for somebody somewhere.  To point out as much is a little like telling me that the sky is normally a shade of blue, or the point made by your colleague about "divisional politics", somehow something different from other politics.  I don't like the association with neo-Nazis and other apologists for German National Socialism.  The Hitler regime was brutal and committed atrocities.  (So were and did, the Allies, but I realise that's not the point).  Nor do I like the association with stato-Nationalists, most of whom have very reactionary views across a range of social issues, views that I do not share, but if I have to wear that stain, then I will.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

…frankly, you're making yourself look a bigot and a fool.

Don't like what you see in the mirror, eh, Hrothy?

Hrothgar wrote:

As far as I can tell, I have answered each and every point put to me, as reasonably and as articulately as I can manage.

That's what we keep pointing out to you – you can't see that you're unreasonable and inarticulate, and you're managing very badly. Why don't you read what we're writing?

Hrothgar wrote:

I have also 'listened' to all the replies and I have taken on board certain comments where appropriate. Where I disagree, I have explained why I disagree. You may not like my reasons for disagreeing, but that's no reason to insult me like a spoilt child, is it.

But if you keep acting like 'a spoilt child', we've got no choice have we? You don't listen, disagree unreasonably, with frankly ludicrous 'explanations' – it's nothing to do with 'not liking', it's to do with careful adult reflection upon child-like claims.

Hrothgar wrote:

So, when you say I have "refused to engage with [your] reasonable questions and listen to [your] explanations", you are not being entirely truthful, are you.

'Truth'? Racists don't know what that is! That's why you can't recognise that you're refusing to engage or listen – you live in a racist dreamworld, son.

Hrothgar wrote:

If I have missed anyone's questions or points, then you should feel free to highlight this with specificity. I will then go back and deal with the points. However, no-one has informed me of any such omission.

Big letters for the 'hard of thinking': GO BACK TO THE START, AND READ WHAT WE'VE ALREADY TOLD YOU.Right, get back to us when you've rejected your racist ideology, and then we can have a reasonable conversation.

[ALB]

He does not seem to realise how insulting it is to tell someone they are a member of intellectually inferior "race".  But it's clearly time to stop feeding him.

[alanjjohnstone]

In South Africa – the genetic origin of the term 'apartheid' When did words start having genetic origins?  Why did you decline to comment on my subsequent post on South Africans self-descriptions becoming increasingly less racial and tribal? Or is it you who deem  "workers cannot decide for themselves now?" – to throw your statement back at you.I have made my position quite clear, i do not care if you views are accurate and valid on race. My relationships how i treat another is not based on race.Once again to throw your own words back at you "I think it is both dangerous and inquitous to work to eradicate natural differences among human beings." Therefore i cannot support a policy of selective breeding to seek to eliminate the existing and growing mix of DNA/culture within various human beings that contribute to our individual uniqueness and produces that natural difference.     

[Young Master Smeet]

Hrothgar wrote:

This statement is incorrect.  I have already explained why in this thread, but see also the below study as a referenced example.http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/68It's important to bear in mind that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a general reference work rather than an authoritative text for any particular specialism.  

Erm,

Quote:

Some have argued that the differences between continentally defined groups are relatively small and that it is difficult to distinguish groups without using large amounts of genetic data or specifically chosen markers. Our results show that continentally defined groups can be easily distinguished using only a small number of randomly selected SNPs. SNPs that are informative about ancestry are common and widely distributed throughout the genome and across SNP types. These findings illustrate the extent of genetic variation between continentally defined groups.

That doesn't refute the Britannica article, unless you squint your eyes and tilt your head slightly to the left on second Tuesday of the Fourth month.  No one disputes that contingent geographic/historic genetic differences exist, but the question is whether they are essential, never mind socially consequential. I also note from the article:

Quote:

It could easily be extended to make predictions about smaller units of geography or individuals with a mixed background. This would require more extensive genotype data and well-characterized information about ancestral geographic origin from such individuals.

That difficulty will increase as previously geographically distinct populations mix.  That suggests to me that such differences are contingent.

[Young Master Smeet]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24475342

Quote:

Spencer Wells explained: "When you look at today's populations, what you are seeing is a hazy palimpsest of what actually went on to create present-day patterns."Dr Haak concurs: "None of the dynamic changes we observed could have been inferred from modern-day genetic data alone, highlighting the potential power of combining ancient DNA studies with archaeology to reconstruct human evolutionary history."

So: 1) The genetic evidence alone isn't enough, we can only read it as part of a geographic/historic story in which we know otehr facts. 2) The Europeans only came up here 7,500 years ago.  JBS Haldane measured the Darwin of humans to be about 70,000 years, so that's one tenth, which is almost an irrelevence in evolutionary terms. 

[alanjjohnstone]

ALB message 149I wonder if he's a redhead:http://www.eupedia.com/genetics/origins_of_red_hair.shtmlIf so, maybe he should join this group so he can associate with people sharing some of the same genes as him (easier to tell at first glance than blood group):http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/redheads-rally-for-ginger-pride-in-edin…Oh, I forgot, on his theory, he would already have naturally gravitated towards them. Just came across this story of red-head racism

---

A number of red-headed schoolchildren have been injured in attacks by fellow pupils at a school in Rotherham. South Park cartoon tv series episode "Kick A Ginger" day  has been cited as the reason for a number of assaults across the world in recent years. Eastenders actress Patsy Palmer has compared the attacks to racism and said she was bullied at school because of her appearance. She said the abuse had got so bad she cut all of her hair off and went to therapy.http://uk.news.yahoo.com/south-park-inspired-ginger-attacks-school-184113285.html#MMqm4os

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