Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign
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ALB wrote:Now Labour is jumping on the anti-immgrant bandvan, reviving Gordon Brown's slogan of "British Jobs for British Workers" and targetting "legal" immigrants: Politics in Britain is definitely becoming nastier. It's about appealing for the votes of bigots and xenophobes without appearing to be one yourself.
Seems fair enought to me – why should I lose my livelihood because there are not enough jobs in other countries, that are not socialist anyway? would you be keen to lose your job to neo-cons coming over from the US? Nothing to do with bigotry and xenophobia, just trying to protect one's own nation – what is so wrong with that?
wiscalatus wrote:Nothing to do with bigotry and xenophobia, just trying to protect one's own nation – what is so wrong with that?Quite a lot. See jondwhite's reply on another thread:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/should-socia?page=4#comment-7695
BBC Scotland reports that the charity Positive Action in Housing has described the poster campaign as racist. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-23897533 The Glasgow-based charity's director Robina Qureshi said: "As we all should know, 'go home' is a well-known racist taunt that has been used for decades in this country by fascists and racists against those of us from immigrant communities. That a government agency should decide to take up the same racist and xenophobic refrain while processing would-be refugees to this country, is shameful and deeply offensive." SNP MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, James Dornan, said he had written to Home Secretary Theresa May demanding that the poster campaign be stopped immediately."There is no room for this type of abhorrent xenophobic campaign which will only serve to make already vulnerable people feel unwelcome and fans the flames of racial bigotry," he said. "The Home Office has absolutely no idea about how modern Scotland treats vulnerable people – regardless of where they are from. Their campaign in Brand Street must stop immediately."Immigration policy was currently reserved to the UK government.
wiscalatus wrote:Nothing to do with bigotry and xenophobia, just trying to protect one's own nation – what is so wrong with that?Workers have no nation.Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation states not only literally but ideologically. Today it is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to one extent or another—align themselves with their domestic ruling class. After all, the ideology of nationalism ultimately means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest.As with most myths there is an element of truth in this. Normally, a common language is shared and on a superficial level at least, a common "culture" can be defined, e.g. "the British way of life". However, if one probes slightly deeper such an analysis fails to stand up. Socialists argue that world society can he broken into two great classes of capitalists and workers. Despite many workers finding it difficult to communicate with and understand each other because of language or cultural barriers this does not alter the fact that they are all part of one globalised exploited mass with more in common with each other than with their indigenous bosses.
Meeting for you here, wiscalatus:http://antinational.org/en/why-others-stay-others
What if people just want to live among others with whom they have a genetic affinity? Racism and nationalism seem natural to me.
Hrothgar wrote:What if people just want to live among others with whom they have a genetic affinity? Racism and nationalism seem natural to me.What on earth do you mean by "genetic affinity"?Popular conceptualizations of race are derived from 19th and early 20th century scientific formulations. These old racial categories were based on externally visible traits, primarily skin colour, features of the face, and the shape and size of the head and body, and the underlying skeleton. They were often imbued with non-biological attributes, based on social constructions of race. These categories of race are rooted in the scientific traditions of the 19th century, and in even earlier philosophical traditions which presumed that immutable visible traits can predict the measure of all other traits in an individual or a population. Such notions have often been used to support racist doctrines.All humans living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent. Although there are differences of opinion regarding how and where different human groups diverged or fused to form new ones from a common ancestral group, all living populations in each of the earth's geographic areas have evolved from that ancestral group over the same amount of time. Much of the biological variation among populations involves modest degrees of variation in the frequency of shared traits. Human populations have at times been isolated, but have never genetically diverged enough to produce any biological barriers to mating between members of different populations.We are all related, therefore, it’s just a matter of degree. Not only is our common ancestor estimated to have lived 3,500 years ago, but reasonable estimates show that every individual alive around 5,000 years ago was either a common ancestor of everyone alive today, or of no one alive today. * It can be seen, then, that here is no scientific foundation for racism, which is a prejudice diverting the working class from the real cause of modern society’s problems.Socialists argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The 'nation' is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history – which is why modern states across the world send the police and army in to break strikes and otherwise seek to protect the interests of the capitalists and 'business' at every turn.The goal of the socialist movement is to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the 'imagined communities' that are nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.* Rohde DLT, Olson S & Chang JT. 2004. Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans. Nature 431, 562-566
alanjjohnstone wrote:A banana share 50% of the DNA of a person so feel free live amongst other bananasBut that's just facile. It's also incorrect – we don't 'share' DNA with other things. Besides, in a way you're assisting my argument because you're demonstrating how relatively small differences in DNA can account for significant speciation. Racial differences can be accounted for on a similar basis.The point is: We tend to associate, live and work with those who are like us, do we not? Human beings are tribal, and in that sense, nationalism (including racism) is natural.
gnome wrote:Hrothgar wrote:What if people just want to live among others with whom they have a genetic affinity? Racism and nationalism seem natural to me.What on earth do you mean by "genetic affinity"?Popular conceptualizations of race are derived from 19th and early 20th century scientific formulations. These old racial categories were based on externally visible traits, primarily skin colour, features of the face, and the shape and size of the head and body, and the underlying skeleton. They were often imbued with non-biological attributes, based on social constructions of race. These categories of race are rooted in the scientific traditions of the 19th century, and in even earlier philosophical traditions which presumed that immutable visible traits can predict the measure of all other traits in an individual or a population. Such notions have often been used to support racist doctrines.All humans living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent. Although there are differences of opinion regarding how and where different human groups diverged or fused to form new ones from a common ancestral group, all living populations in each of the earth's geographic areas have evolved from that ancestral group over the same amount of time. Much of the biological variation among populations involves modest degrees of variation in the frequency of shared traits. Human populations have at times been isolated, but have never genetically diverged enough to produce any biological barriers to mating between members of different populations.We are all related, therefore, it’s just a matter of degree. Not only is our common ancestor estimated to have lived 3,500 years ago, but reasonable estimates show that every individual alive around 5,000 years ago was either a common ancestor of everyone alive today, or of no one alive today. * It can be seen, then, that here is no scientific foundation for racism, which is a prejudice diverting the working class from the real cause of modern society’s problems.Socialists argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The 'nation' is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history – which is why modern states across the world send the police and army in to break strikes and otherwise seek to protect the interests of the capitalists and 'business' at every turn.The goal of the socialist movement is to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the 'imagined communities' that are nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.* Rohde DLT, Olson S & Chang JT. 2004. Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans. Nature 431, 562-566
Thank you for this reply, but it doesn't get to the root of things. It may be that human beings share a common genetic ancestry (and I am inclined to accept we do, as this does seem logical), but even if true, that says nothing of whether nationalism (racism) is a natural force, impulse or tendency among human beings. To the contrary, it may tend to support the premise I adopt here, but in any event, to simply assert that we have common ancestry and therefore nationalism (racism) is incorrect or wrong is a non sequitur and leaves the opposite assertion unexplored.
Sorry i was wrong – its actually about 60% DNA shared with a banana http://www.genome.gov/DNADay/q.cfm?aid=785&year=2010Noi tend to prefer to associate with women and strangely enough they aren't like me at all.In fact their DNA lack the Y chromosone so i have more in common genetically with a male Maori than with a woman. I have previously discussed race and affinity with what are known as national-anarchists and i have a strange inkling you probably have knowledge of that particular ideology. They too place a special emphasis on the identity of culture and ethnicity and race over class. We aren't fooled by those who called themselves national-socialists.Or the Strasserites left-wing of themNor are we fooled by those on the right who call themselves libertarians.i dare say your nom de plume betrays you as some sort of Aryan racial myth-peddlar rather than a genuine student of the Beowolf legend.
Have you read Daniel Defoe's poem The True Born Englishman?http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173337That about sums it up. And that's only up to 1701 but it didn't stop then.
Hrothgar wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:A banana share 50% of the DNA of a person so feel free live amongst other bananasBut that's just facile. It's also incorrect – we don't 'share' DNA with other things.
DNA is a molecule that contains an organism’s genetic information, which is passed on from one generation to the next. When a cell reproduces, it copies its DNA almost exactly.In human reproduction, half of the DNA comes from the father and half from the mother. This is why you share many characteristics with your parents.DNA has the famous double helix structure. Each molecule is made up of 4 chemicals called bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, which are sometimes abbreviated to A, C, G and T.DNA is found in all known living organisms, from complex animals like chimpanzees and humans, to single-celled organisms like plankton in the oceans.The same 4 bases occur in the DNA molecules of all these types of organisms. Also, the A, T, G and C bases always occur in a similar sequence from one end of the DNA molecule to the other. This is evidence that humans are related to every other species on Earth.The genes of organisms that look very different are surprisingly similar. For example, human DNA sequences are over 95% identical to chimpanzee sequences and around 50% identical to banana sequences.You have to go back in time a long way to find a common ancestor between humans and bananas, but ultimately they have both emerged from the same family tree, the tree of life, and that is why they share common characteristics.
Quote:The point is: We tend to associate, live and work with those who are like us, do we not? Human beings are tribal, and in that sense, nationalism (including racism) is natural.As a general rule we have very little choice who we live and work with. As far as human beings being tribal the only 'evidence' there is for that is when rival groups of football supporters, quite often from the same 'part of the world', battle it out on the streets or terrraces or when workers are convinced by nationalist politicians in times of war to go and kill other workers who usually look remarkably similar to themselves.
alanjjohnstone wrote:i dare say your nom de plume betrays you as some sort of Aryan racial myth-peddlar rather than a genuine student of the Beowolf legend.An Anglo-Saxon, eh? But they were immigrants in their time. Hordes of them came and pushed to the West the previously established population who spoke a language akin to Welsh. Here is what some of these think of Saxons:Where will this nonsense about sending people back from whence they came end?
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