Migrants are our fellow workers
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Hi IkeI disagree there are discrete and distinct “racial” groups. People look different across the world, yes – but consider how the “looks” blend into one another. In the inner Mediterranean countries/Middle East/Saudi Arabia you get people with a range of looks, from “pale” European to African, and all shades and features in between. Also, consider people from Nepal, Afghanistan and the steppes of Southern Russia, how they blend together European, Indian and Chinese “looks”. There’s no “discrete and distinct” about it.People vary in their physiology, of course they do. I am sure you have heard that cystic fibrosis, for example, is limited to people of European descent and sickle cell anaemia is limited to people of West African descent. There is some interesting research into the various blood groups and how – depending on the area where the blood groups were prevalent, and what diseases were rampaging in these same area – certain blood group have evolved to give more protection against some diseases.“For example, most native Americans belong to group O. It is believed that this is due to a syphilis epidemics and that the O type were better are fighting off the disease. Group A and B make people more resistant to cholera, while AB confers the most resistance. O offers virtually no immunity against cholera.” (http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/25371-ABO-blood-group-and-disease-resistance)In the US, doctors have also started to target slightly different medicines to the “white” and “black” populations in some cases: “Race-based medicine" is the term for medicines that are targeted at specific ethnic clusters which are shown to have a propensity for a certain disorder. The first example of this in the U.S. was when BiDil, a medication for congestive heart failure, was licensed specifically for use in American patients that self-identify as black. Previous studies had shown that African American patients with congestive heart failure generally respond less effectively to traditional treatments than white patients with similar conditions.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health)It’s fair to say that this “race” based medicine, which is in its infancy, has created some discussion.This is related to new research going into the different ways men and women react medicines, and what ailments they are most likely to suffer from:“These discrepancies [genetic difference] influence what is likely to ail you. For instance, three times as many women suffer from autoimmune diseases as men, and the statistics are reversed for autism. Sex also impacts how a person responds to medication: Women taking antidepressants and antipsychotics tend to have higher drug concentrations in their blood than men do; they also require half as much influenza vaccine for the same level of protection, though they are always given the same amount.” (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/07/drug_problem.html)Also, there are other variations which have evolved due to specific environments:“High-altitude adaptation in humans is an instance of evolutionary modification in human populations in Tibet, the Andes and Ethiopia, who have acquired the ability to survive at extremely high altitudes. The phrase is used to signify irreversible, long-term physiological responses to high-altitude environments, associated with heritable behavioural and genetic changes. While the rest of human population would suffer serious health consequences, these native inhabitants thrive well in the highest parts of the world. These people have undergone extensive physiological and genetic changes, particularly in the regulatory systems of respiration and circulation, when compared to the general lowland population. This special adaptation is now recognised as a clear example of natural selection in action. In fact, the adaptation account of the Tibetans has become the fastest case of human evolution in the scientific record, as it is estimated to have occurred in less than 3,000 years.” (my emphasis). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_humans)So, to say that there are no differences between humans living in different places would be wrong.Where I disagree with you is in your fear of “alien cultures” swamping Europe. Humans have always migrated throughout their history. We are all a very mixed bunch. Take London, where I have spent a lot of my time over the years – it’s a vibrant melting pot of different cultures, and all the better for it.I would like to recommend a book to you, which if read carefully and thoughtfully, will dispel any notions you have that Europeans are somehow “superior” in their intellectual abilities to other “races”. It is “guns, germs and steel” by Jared Diamond. He makes a compelling case for the vagaries of geography, flora and fauna – the general environment – explaining why Europeans ended up with all the “cargo”.(One of his New Guinean friends asked him this question at the beginning of the book: “Why did you Europeans end up with all the cargo” (while many New Guinean tribes had only stone tools into the 20th century). “Cargo” was the local term for all the good native New Guineans came across on European ships.)Basically, all inventors, scientists, engineers and philosophers stand on the shoulders of giants. In the case of Europeans, these previous “giants” were the scientists, inventors and mathematicians of the Middle East, India and China. Diamond shows how inventions, from the agricultural revolution till today, travelled across the Eurasian continent and back again, constantly encouraging and inspiring inventions and new thinking far away, which were then brought back again to wherever the spark came from.Meel
Nice post Meel, very informative and interesting.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I don’t know where to begin. There is so much wrong with the case that you make which can only be judged as a pretence of being socialist. Even this reply won’t be able to do justice to disproving your arguments. But here goes.I think possibly we each take a fundamentally different approach to debate, and that comes out immediately in your response here. I don't assume that I am 'right' and that my opponent is 'wrong', and I know I cannot 'prove' anything. You seem to be different, in that you have taken on the mantle of assumed moral and intellectual superiority, or so it appears. It's arrogance, but I'm used to it now. The internet is full of people like you, who have all the answers and argue from fixed, uncritical positions.My response would be that the Socialist Party doesn't 'own' socialism. Socialism itself is just a collection of ideas that can be applied and interpreted in different ways, and solutions should change depending on circumstances. Of course, you know this, so I'm not going to tell grandma how to suck eggs, so to speak, but one point I would make is that the mass immigration being inflicted on the white working class is unprecedented. I appreciate that the socialist case of the Socialist Party has not changed for perfectly good reasons, but in my view, any solution posited has to be assessed against changing realities.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Shall we begin with your claim that you “don't believe in women's rights” and that they should be encourage to take up employment because it is encouraging them to wage-slaves. How noble and gallant you are to remove the choice from them? An almost identical argument was made by the slave-owning plantation-owners of the American South to defend their instution…better to be a chattel slave than a wage slave.Well, we could argue back-and-forth about Southern slavery. I certainly wouldn't want to resurrect that institution, but I suspect you have a very jaundiced perspective on it and have not given much thought to the matter. There were outrageous aspects to slavery, true, but there were also progressive aspects to it as well. Are blacks in the United States better off now? I would suggest to you that slavery was in fact a liberal institution, and it has been replaced with new forms of 'liberal slavery': mass incarceration of blacks and a massive welfare system, again used extensively by African-Americans.Regarding women, this is a point of view, isn't it. There isn't really a 'right' or 'wrong' here. It's about what your values are and what kind of society you want. I can easily imagine that in a resource-based society, everybody will have to work (there will be no leisure class, as such), and people aren't going to have time for discussion of 'rights', being more focused on building communities and families and focusing on constructive activity. Where there is any superfluous emphasis, it will probably be in upholding the kind of traditionalistic ideas that are common across different cultures, as these will be what keeps society going.Women are not equal in certain important respects. Of course, women bear children, whereas men can't. So, to my mind, the terms 'equality' and 'rights' are not really applicable in a conversation about relative gender roles. The sexes are just too different, but importantly, women are largely dependent on men. Whatever individual women might say, this is tacitly acknowledged, even by feminists, who are quick to go running to men when they want to accuse another man of "rape". That's why I don't believe in women's rights in general. I just don't think it is sensible that women should have a discrete political identity. I think that people who do probably either don't have much of an insight into women and their nature, or haven't really thought much about the issues and are just going along with received wisdom on the matter.
alanjjohnstone wrote:But what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so why then do you condemn the threat of unemployment to European and UK workers, when you declare that immigrants taking their jobs as you seem intent upon insisting, is saving indigenous workers from being wage slaves.No, that was about the right of workers to fight for improved conditions, and also, the position of men is different, in my view. Even the Socialist Party, though Impossibilist (and correctly so, in my view), has always acknowledged that workers have the right to react to capitalism and improve their working conditions. In the context of immigrants, clearly there are complexities, but I would expect a trade union to fight for the position of its members. I suppose that's why trade unions can be 'right-wing'. Anyway, I think we're getting too bogged-down in policy issues. This is about the big picture of what kind of society we want. In the society I want, the basic economic organisation would be socialist or co-operative and national and cultural identities would be preserved and respected. Women and men would fulfil traditional roles.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Staying on the topic of womens’ rights, all the experts, and I do mean all the experts, project a declining population for Europe as a whole, the demographic prediction is that there will be a drastic drop of people of working age and a rise in the population of old folk which means less productive workers supporting more and more who are dependent upon them.I wonder if the decline in the birthrate has anything to do with feminism or women's rights? What do you think? But of course, you support 'women's rights', don't you, Alan? The problem with people like you is that you support things that sound nice, without giving any thought to the consequences. You don't actually have any real views about anything. You're really a sort of teenager who believes in stuff that he likes the sound of.
alanjjjohnstone wrote:I take it you are not in favour of euthanasia for the old and feeble so there are two options. One is the rational choice, invite the young from those parts of the world that has rising youth numbers …or two…turn European women into baby machines to reverse the trend, perhaps following the Hitlerite and Stalinist models of presenting medals for those who breed the most. Somehow, with your attitude towards women not permitted to make their own decisions, I think you’ll pick the secon and penalise females for not having kids.Again, it's fascinating to see a so-called 'socialist' adopt Western capitalist assumptions and arguments when it suits his leftist leanings and prejudices. In this case, I'm sure I will not be the only one to raise an eyebrow or two at your over-eagerness as you busily shill for capitalism and support mass immigration. Your comments here are completely hysterical. Euthanasia? Stalin..?? Hitler…???? I can almost picture you frothing at the mouth. First, even if we do accept that there is a problem with Western demographics (and that is an assumption, it is not proven), there are a number of policy options that do not involve mass immigration. I hardly need labour the point, it's so obvious a 5-year old could grasp it. The reason we have mass immigration is because our governments have adopted a certain model of capitalism. There are other ways of managing the system. We managed with smaller populations in the past and can do so again.
alanjjohnstone wrote:You simply can’t see that your case consists of protecting vested interests.I could say the same about you, and I have done above. We are all arguing cases that protect vested interests, are we not? Society is choc-a-bloc with vested interests. A Marxist, of all people, should know this. That's the socialist case, isn't it? Change in society doesn't happen by divorcing yourself from society completely and sitting in some kind of sterile, quarantined environment where you and a small bunch of other intellectuals from the Socialist Party argue your purely rational case free of all vested interests. That's just not realistic. It's not how the world really is. We all live in the society we are trying to change, so you'll forgive me if Donald Trump and his capitalist friends agree with me about some things. I expect they do, and I expect their interests are served by a lot of my views, but my agenda is not the same as theirs.
alanjjohnstone wrote:“ workers, even socialist ones, have the right to fight for better conditions and oppose things that might result in worse conditions.”And that is exactly what some workers said about the black workers or unskilled workers and female workers entering the work-force and now about immigrants and exactly what I accused you of doing. You want to keep your “privileged” position at the price of excluding and keeping down other people and refusing to turn your wrath and ire at the very folk that take advantage of your myopia. Yes, the quote I gave in the previous post is very apt…stop being a bully and instead when look down on people make sure it is only because you are bending down to give them a helping hand up.Now you're calling me a bully. This is the language of the playground. If I am a 'bully', that would imply that I hold some position of power or authority over others. I hold no such position, I'm just an ordinary man like you, so I cannot be a bully. You frame the issue in terms of 'privilege', but you overlook that the desire of, let's say, white men, to protect their position in society is not because they consider themselves to be privileged, it is, rather, simply what it claims to be: a desire to protect living standards and working conditions, and also to protect the idea of families and strong communities. The forces ranged against them are capitalist, not socialist, and it's the most regressive and vicious among the capitalists at that. Again, interesting that you take the side of capitalism in the matter, and not just any capitalists, but the worst of them. We can't be racist, can we? You show again that you are a leftist more than a socialist.
alanjjohnstone wrote:“eventually replaced by that group.” You have accused me of emotional rhetoric but are blind to your own. Care to tell me the % of the Europe’s population that the current arrival of refugees present? I shall offer you this. The TOTAL foreign-born population residing in the EU in 2014 amounts to 33 million people, or 7% of the total population of the 28 EU countries (above 500 million people). The number of followers of Islam in Europe was in 2010 13 million. By 2030, Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe’s population…Are we to be replaced by less than 10% of the population. And you say I am wrong when I call you scare-monger.I think Kennedy's aphorism about statistics might be of relevance here. You are using these numbers selectively, in order to make a selective argument. You refer to foreign-born populations, but the issue is also those living here who are not white Europeans. Whether they were born here or not, they are not racially similar and they, and white people like yorself, represent a Fifth Column that will in time overturn the norms and assumptions that govern our daily lives – and not for the better. Culture matters. it's not just a vague sociological word. And if Moslems ever make up 8% of Europe's population, I fail to see how any of us – least of all people who claim to be socialists – should be reassured by that. 8% is a lot! And that's just the start. 8% represents a solid demographic beachhead. They are going to have some serious clout. Tell me something, what will happen to your Socialist Party and indeed, socialism, when Europe turns majority non-white? It's going to get very interesting, isn't it. Perhaps it's just as well that you'll probably not be around by them – or you'd have some serious questions to answer from your own members.
alanjjohnstone wrote:There is no denying that the arrival of so many people so quickly is a logistical and infrastructural nightmare, but it is not a situation which cannot be overcome. When Algeria got its independence from France one million pied-noirs departed and arrived in France. France coped. When Germany re-unified 2 or 3 million Ossies in a relatively brief period headed to what was West Germany. Germany coped. What we are discussing in not just one country being part of the solution but the whole of Europe. Where there is the will, there is the way.Again, here we see you shilling for the forces of capital. You almost sound like a government propagandist. Are you quite sure the Socialist Party is still socialist? You seem not to understand that different types of populations will assimilate with differing degrees of success. The assimilation of racially similar populations can be achieved without too much difficulty. So, for instance, while I do not like the presence of large numbers of Eastern Europeans here (which is not to say I dislike them, quite the contrary), they are assimiliable and will largely fade into the background. The same cannot be said for populations that are culturally dissimilar. I consider this, more or less, a common-sensical observation, but I suspect you will take issue with it, not on any sound basis, but purely because your views require you to essentially deny observable reality. Races don't exist, according to you (or people like you).
alanjjohnstone wrote:Has mass immigration made America stronger or weaker, you ask? Can I state the very obvious. Immigration made America, as it did Canada, Australia and Argentine. All countries made up of immigrants. How can you say it has weakened these countries? The American continent’s First Peoples and the Aboriginal people and the Maori of New Zealand, would perhaps rightly challenge me on this. Your “indigenous” people aren’t native, are they, but interlopers. Nor are the blacks in the America’s immigrants…they were forced to go live there, in chains and still they are being made to pay the priceAmerica wasn't founded by immigrants. The people who arrived there and established Colonial America were pioneers and settlers into a new, virgin territory. Yes, America had waves of working class migrants in the 19th. century for economic reasons, I can accept that, but if you look closely at U.S. history, what you'll find is that there was a focus on only allowing immigrants who it was thought could be assimilated, and this meant that, at the very least, they had to be white ethno-Europeans, and in most cases, had to be northern Europeans. The exception was southern Europeans, especially I think Italians, and also Jewish immigration, thought the latter were Ashkenazis (i.e. German and Polish Jews) who were culturally European and looked 'white'.What I meant by the question is whether you can acknowledge that mass immigration of racially alien workers has caused serious social dislocation in the United States? I did not make this clear because when I think of 'immigration', I don't normally associate it with racially-assimiliable populations. To me, an Irish person or a Pole or an Italian, is not an immigrant, as such, in the context of a white society. Transatlantic slavery complicates the picture somewhat. Admittedly, we can't really say the slaves were immigrants in the accepted sense either, as it was not intended that they would be republican citizens, but we still come back to my question and the point that importing populations that are radically dissimilar in the racial and cultural sense only sows division between people. I don't see how you can deny this? Bear in mind that (as I'm sure you are aware), even in the case of the black slaves, there was a serious movement in the United States to deport them to western Africa, and this was supported by Abraham Lincoln.
alanjjohnstone wrote:“Are you saying that British workers should not be allowed to defend their living standards?” Are you saying the English are not entitled to defend their standards from in-coming Welsh and Scots? That those in the Home Counties should not defend themselves from those Northerners new-comers. Should east-enders in London should now stop those from south London from re-locating.If we're talking about what happens in reality, then we're talking about 'British workers'. You hypothesise a labour conflict between various sub-nationalities, but that is not a current issue, and I also made it clear why the issue of imported labour might be raised by trade unions when we discussed the Lithuanian workers, your example. It's not a dislike of other nationalities, or any sort of racial bigotry, it is rather a reflection of the right of workers to defend their livelihood, living standards, families and way of life. It seems to me that you sneer at all this from a metropolitan standpoint, and that would explain the irrelevancy of your Party, notwithstanding that you are theoretically correct about capitalism. If my job or livelihood is threatened by an influx of imported workers, I am not going to be comforted by the Socialist Party, whose response would be to suggest that if I oppose this, then I am a racist. Thanks a lot! It's one thing to be in solidarity with workers – that's fine – but as I have said, it's quite another to trample on other workers for your own selfish ends. Should I let a foreign worker take my job and my livelihood and my chance of starting a family, and so on, just so that I can look good on an internet message board and say 'Well, at least I'm not a racist'. Yes, both groups of workers are subject to capitalism. Yes, we need solidarity, but solidarity doesn't mean abuse. Workers have a responsibility to fight for conditions in their own countries, do they not? Please answer this, as so far you've carefully avoided the point.
alanjjohstone wrote:Shall we now stop those from the bottom of the street applying for jobs that those at the top of the street also seek. Imagine if in the United States of America moving from the Eastern sea-board to the West Coast in search of employment was banned? But of corse they tried, didn't they. "Grapes of Wrath" and all that, didn't matter if the okies from the dust bowl came over in the Mayflower, western states tried to turn them back…for the same reason you wish to apply to foreigners…you are a competitor, a rival.Now, you're being silly and trying to divert from the point. As explained above, I'm talking actually existing conditions, not hypotheses and alternate histories.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Before the chickens came home to roost from a refugee rise caused directly by European and American war policy, UKIPs concern was the number of Eastern Europeans. Farage railed against the Poles and Romanians stealing jobs and cutting wages and causing crime. The fact is the law gives EU workers the right to go live and work anywhere in the EU they choose. I well remember the TV series ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’. Of course, you don’t like our SPGB case because it is backed up by official research. Eastern European are not stealing jobs, many were creating them, nor apart from some localized effect did they contribute to British workers suffering pay cuts. Facts I am sure since you claim to be knowledgeable will be aware of, but you choose to dismiss to suit your own agenda. The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs show that most east European immigrants take jobs that no Dutch worker would accept, such as picking vegetables in greenhouses. They pay more in taxes than they claim in benefits but you prefer to blinker yourself to this information since you don’t want to accept it. The only effective way to reduce immigration is to lower living standards, reduce real pay and increase poverty to make coming here unappealing. This has now been shown to be the Cameron’s immigration policy and do not be fooled that it will only apply to incoming migrant workers. Simply look at the vast numbers of benefit claimants sanctioned for declining low-paying or even no-pay zero-contract employment.Again, I notice (and this is something you do a lot) that you focus your examples mostly on white immigration. While we're here, maybe you or another Socialist Party member could tell us about what happened in Rotherham? Or Oxford, or Telford, or Newcastle, or Cambridge, or Wigan, or Bolton, or Blackpool, or dozens of other towns and cities around Britain where your precious immigrants, sorry, workers, have been raping and sexually assaulting women and young girls. That's what happens in a society that puts ideology before real people. But hey, it's not their fault is it? They're workers. Workers are just victims of capitalism. It's the system man!You may like to publish up some links to your claims too, as whenever people make claims such as these, I always like to see the sources. Anyway, here we see you shilling for liberal capitalism, something you seem to have a talent for. Is this the official position of the Socialist Party, now? And when will you be taking that job in the Home Office media department? Your country needs you. It sounds to me that you don't like British people very much. You've got the typical mentality of a leftist, in that you will coldly and callously justify punishing working class people when it suits your agenda. I think, in general, this is the psychopathology of people who put ideology before reality. The Socialist Party is sterile and exists to 'win' arguments, thus socialism in the hands of the Socialist Party has degenerated into an ideological case, to be argued for and against, rather than something that can arise out of the material conditions experienced by workers. The aim to bring about socialism is strictly secondary now. The suffering of working class people can be ignored, if they're white. If they're non-white, or maybe if they're Polish and coming to the UK, then they are victims, you hear? Victims in the class struggle. It's all about solidairity.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Anti-immigrant rhetoric is employed only as a means of preparing the way for attacks against the entire working class.Yes, but is my argument anti-immigrant, or anti-immigration? There is an important difference. I am not against immigrants. I criticise their behaviour because it is the result of a process of immigration and highlights some of the problems that immigration causes. You seem to want to do the opposite, in that you neither oppose immigrants nor immigration, and seem to just expect workers who live here to sit and take it up the arse. This means you support the processes that let capitalists off the hook. What you should be doing is suggesting that workers in other countries fight for better conditions in their own countries, not come here and help destroy the white working class. You wouldn't support strike-breakers, would you? Yet you support influxes of workers that undermine the position of labour. Why? How does this help socialism? How does providing capitalists with more surplus value from abroad assist us? Do explain. I'm really going to enjoy watching you make a non-leftist, amoral, socialist case for this. Do you have this romantic notion in your head that all the aggrieved, low-paid workers from abroad will rise up and overthrow the British capitalist class, heralding a new socialist dawn? Do humour us.And quite apart from all that, I have the right as a human being to like or dislike whom the hell I choose, whether for good or bad reasons, or something in-between. I am not some sort of moral paragon, as you clearly are, so I will defer to you on matters of morality. I am sure you have our best interests at heart.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Ike, you may well bemoan the loss of traditions and blame foreigners for eroding them.It's not a matter of 'blaming' foreigners for this or that. I think your analysis of this needs a bit more mental suppleness. It's more a case of identifying the cause of something and then seeking to remediate the problem based on that understanding. 'Blame', 'liking' 'dislking', 'love', 'hate', doesn't come into it. You seem a bit naive, in that you imagine that these foreigners are all victims of capitalist oppression who want to help us workers here in Britain, and will join in solidarity with us, joining hands and singing the Red Flag. In reality, they will seek to implant their culture and colonise this country. That is what has been happening for many decades now, and it is completely new in our national history. Romans, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, were racially the same, and not all involved mass immigration anyway (the extent of it is exaggerated). Mass immigration in the 20th. century is changing the make-up of the country, and that will result in a new culture.
alanjjohnstone wrote:But you overlook the penetration of the city centres by real estate speculators and rural beauty spots exploited by tourist industry over-development. Nor have you expressed outrage by the Americanisation of culture that contains more consumer decadence with its McDonalds or Starbucks than anybody coming from the Middle East. There is far greater damage caused to tradition and culture by financial speculation and capitalist globalisation than by migrant groups insulating themselves in their own little communities. History shows that language and religion are not insurmountable obstacles to social integration. The conflicts fought between protestants and catholics were, in most of Britain, long and bloody (Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland are still dealing with this) but for most part, whether a person is a Church of England, Welsh chapel or Church of Rome is now an irrelevance. Anti-gay bigots are increasingly finding themselves isolated is another example of how social attitudes change for the better.I am not overlooking the things you mention here, they're just not germane to my critique and I can't possibly mention everything. Not mentioning something doesn't mean I have overlooked it or that I am not aware of it.
alanjjohnstone wrote:To garner votes, politicians are willing to create an atmosphere of fear than one of mutual respect and solidarity and despite all your proclamations of expressing international solidarity, I fail to see any proof of it.Proof of what, exactly? Several points can be made here. First, I am not the one running a Socialist Party. You are. Where is the proof of your international solidairity? The truth is there is none, at all. Nowhere. Just websites, blogs and front groups. The only international solidarity that exists is among capitalists, and you are busily playing their game by supporting mass immigration, aren't you.Second, I have not claimed that I am in solidarity with workers. That would be rather pretentious. What I have said is that I support the idea or principle of international solidarity, but only if it means just that. Mass immigration is not solidarity. It's just abuse of working class people.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Have you in your replies supported an increase in foreign aid spending, the end of expansionist wars, of compensation for passed Empire crimes, of curtailing tax havens which are mostly in British protectorates? Have you advocated cross-border strikes and boycotts? No, you play lip-service to internationalism but you are effectively supporting our class enemy…the ruling class.I can't get up what you're saying here? Are you saying that whenever I come on this forum, I need to make sure I mention absolutely every issue and point do to with the topic, like some kind of encyclopaedia, otherwise I don't know what I'm talking about or don't care?
alanjjohnstone wrote:The scapegoating of immigrants is especially grotesque.(i). Define 'scapegoating' and (ii). tell me, using quotes, where I have scapegoated immigrants; and (iii). explain how the quoted remark constitutes scpaegoating in the context of what I am saying and in relation to your definition of scapegoating.
alanjjohnstone wrote:The reason why Britain (and much of the rest of the world) has been economically devastated has more to do with the City of London and Wall St than foreigners sweating in back-breaking work backs in the fields and food factories of East Anglia. But Big Business have much better PR departments. And, in the end, politicians don’t argue with their pay-masters for long. The poor, the vulnerable and the defenceless – especially those who do not share the same language or customs or religion – have always been a convenient scapegoat for a society’s various ills. It’s the oldest trick in the book and regardless of your self-image as someone who thinks – you have been gullible enough to have fallen for it.Yes, but you're conflating the arguments made by capitalists with the arguments made by myself. I am not a capitalist. I have explained why we are all part of society and its vested interests, and we all – including, even a pristine, white, middle-class member of the Socialist Party like yourself, sitting in your quarantined bubble of rationality – must construct arguments based on the way that people are and what is happening in the Real World. Or, we should if we are to make any sense. Workers are not scapegoats in my arguments. The word 'scapegoat' has a specific meaning, which I look forward to you explaining for us. It does not relate to anything I have said here.
alanjjohnstone wrote:People don’t normally interpret the world through a series of facts and logic. We often understand the world through what we are told, picked up from the media. Where people are forever being told that immigration is responsible for all of the ills of the world, the effect of highlighting immigration is mostly to confirm to people the stories in their head which tell them to blame those of other races than themselves, those less rich than themselves. When life gets tough, people turn on those they define as the other, the outsider. Maligning migrants becomes fair game, especially for vote-seeking populist politicians. Austerity effects all workers but the clamp down usually begins with the vulnerable and weak. We see this with ATOS and attacks on the disabled and sick. A few years ago, it was all single mothers fault getting deliberately pregnant to jump the housing waiting list that we had homeless and now the blame of the refugee. Is it not immigrants but rather the capitalist class which are constantly out-sourcing work abroad and opening factories in other countries who is the enemy.This is all true, but it's not the end of the matter. As is characteristic of you, the picture is one-sided. There is something else to be said, which is that people have the right to be concerned about the effect that mass immigration has on society, and people also have the right to preserve their way of life.I find it really interesting how you keep telling me that I 'scapegoat' immigrants, which is sly emotional blackmail and guilt-tripping. Yes, I'm the big bad bully picking on these poor, innocent immigrants. Yet you actually want to scapegoat workers who wish to defend their conditions and who oppose mass immigration. You want to label them as racists and Nazis, the better to discourage the greater mass of workers from protesting against a repressive aspect of capitalism. Whose side are you on exactly?You don't urge foreign workers to stay in their own countries, where possible, and fight for better conditions so that all workers around the world can be raised up and so that we can bring a peaceful transition to socialism closer. You don't offer foreign workers solidarity, assisting them in the fight in their own countries, so that they don't have to come to Europe and make conditions for workers here even worse. You talk about how workers must bring about socialism – the centrepiece of your case for socialism (and I agree with it) – but you don't want to hold workers responsible for any of the problems in capitalism.That would be racist, wouldn't it. And we mustn't be racist.
Vin wrote:Ike Pettigrew wrote:Vin wrote:I am not surprised you would feel ucomfortable discussing such issues with us. I certainly feel uncomfortable discussing your neo-nazi views on 'race'. I find them offensive, based on ignorance and you would definitely not be able to join this party with such viewsI am not uncomfortable discussing these issues with you or anybody else, however I would be uncomfortable as a member. That's not because I think my views are incompatible with socialism. Quite the contrary: I think my position is more socialist than yours. But it's clear from browsing this Forum that the Socialist Party is in the grip of metropolitan leftists like yourself. That's not a criticism really, as you're entitled to your views.
I can see how my statement could be misleadingWe are a democratic organisation without leaders. The executive committee is not appointed but elected annually by the entire membership and its function is to administer the wishes of the membership as expressed via party polls, party rules and conference decisions. You will not find a more democratic political party.
You have formal democratic structures, but lots of organisations have much the same. So what? I don't want to go too far into this, as it's not strictly germane (though I think it has some relevancy), but I would contest your assertion that the Socialist Party is democratic to the extent you think it is. I think this goes to the root of a lot of the problem, in that you don't appear to understand that all organisations develop a leadership, even if it is informal. It's clear that the Socialist Party has leaders, even if this is not formally acknowledged.
Vin wrote:Anyone may join the party regardless of gender, race, colour or 'culture' as long as you convince the party that you understand our case.Yes, that sounds very nice, but that isn't my point really. I have no problem with anybody being allowed to join the World Socialist Movement and become a socialist. You could be a Little Green Man, for all I could care, but my issue is with the fact that the people who created socialism as an idea are facing a slow death as a distinct race and culture because the space within which they created these ideas is being taken-over by rival racial groups. Or to put it another way: my issue is with problems in the Real World, that dimension of space and time that exists outside the nice, pristine, white, leafy, middle-class, suburban bubble of the Socialist Party. What's going to happen to your 'socialism' when whites are a minority in Europe? Do tell. What's the plan?
Vin wrote:I was expressing my opinion as a member. Your views conflict sharply with ours, you even think we are 'leftist'. Can you not understand how a dark skinned migrant would be offended by your views? And would that have any thing to do with morality or 'leftism'Thanks, you've just proved my point. You are a leftist. Everything you say here demonstrates it. I simply don't care whether anybody is offended by my views, but it's not my intention to cause offence, and I might even apologise if I did offend somebody. But causing offence or not is hardly a valid criterion when assessing the validity of what somebody says.
Vin wrote:While I am on the subject of 'left' the Party has opposed all leftwing groups since its formation in 1904, this is a matter of recordMany on the 'left' would prevent you from expressing your opinion, one reason why we oppose them.This is true and I must acknowledge that you do respect freedom of speech.
Vin wrote:Our case is not based on morality but on the interests of the working class, black, white, yellow red etcYes, I don't doubt that really, but what those 'interests' should be is up for debate. I personally don't think it is in the interests of white working class people to destroy their communities, which is what is happening. I accept this is the result of capitalism, but that's why I oppose mass immigration. The onus here should be on you to explain why I should give support to something that harms workers.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Ike Pettigrew wrote:On the point about culture, I don't understand the analogy with children, but I think culture is an important part of what keeps people together as a 'community', and therefore it might play an important part both in the transition to socialism (which I would argue is already well under way) and in the socialist society itself.Well, that's obvious. But it's widely dem,onstrated that language difference exist between generations (and even within people across a lifetime) language isn't stable.Culture isn't stable, as the maroon communities demonstrate, people make new cultures as they come to live together.Race doesn't exist, at most there are historic accidental demographies.We are about replacing the accidental associations of language with the conscious association of producers. I have more in common with a Syrian worker than Iever will with a British capitalist, and their struggle against the authorities that would drive them into the sea rather than help them flee the war is my struggle too.
I don't find your comments logical. I don't accept that just because something is accidental, that this means it doesn't exist or isn't significant.
Meel wrote:Hi IkeI disagree there are discrete and distinct “racial” groups. People look different across the world, yes – but consider how the “looks” blend into one another. In the inner Mediterranean countries/Middle East/Saudi Arabia you get people with a range of looks, from “pale” European to African, and all shades and features in between. Also, consider people from Nepal, Afghanistan and the steppes of Southern Russia, how they blend together European, Indian and Chinese “looks”. There’s no “discrete and distinct” about it.Meel wrote:So to say there are no differences between humans living in different places would be wrong.You are being a bit mealy-mouthed in the above, but you appear to admit in so many words that races and racial groups exist, even if you can't bring yourself to state this plainly. Your real issue is with how these racial groups are constituted and the nature of the distinctions. It would be appreciated if we didn't go over this ground, as it's not germane and I don't think we need to. I'd really prefer not to have to go through this tiresome rigmarole of "Does race exist?", "It's just a social construct, like, yer know", "We all blend together", "We're all human", and my personal favourite: "We all bleed red!" We're not children, so let's acknowledge obsevable reality. Race and racial groups exist. Yes, we can argue over what in precise terms constitutes 'race' and whether the racial distinctions are based on a racial/genetic gradient, as you believe, or are large meta-groups with some merging at the edges, which is what I believe is the case. But the major point appears to be conceded by you, and if so, that is good and to your credit, as it's honest.For my part, I will concede that, obviously, there is an element of social construction in the matter of race, in two respects – first, in how we choose to classify different groups (which is a socio-cultural and political decision), and second, in that the groups themselves represent an interaction between genes and the environment. Race is both biological and social. We could choose to impose evolutionary pressures – which is what mass immigration and multi-culturalism actually are – to socially engineer the removal of racial distinctions, but that would just be the beginning of new racial distinctions, since it is natural for people to form into racial groups, as race is a selective pressure on populations, albeit maybe influenced by cultural and economic factors or whatever.
Meel wrote:Where I disagree with you is in your fear of “alien cultures” swamping Europe. Humans have always migrated throughout their history. We are all a very mixed bunch. Take London, where I have spent a lot of my time over the years – it’s a vibrant melting pot of different cultures, and all the better for it.'Whiteness' and the White Race is not just an invention of 18th./19th. century race science. These existed as concepts and biological realities before that. I know that populations have always mixed, but this has mostly tended to be confined to other groups of the same race, and the genetic evidence suggests that most white people are not the result of significant racial mixing outside the ethno-European population groups, with less than 1% non-white genes in most cases. Obviously, modern DNA tests that measure origins [Q. How do these work, I wonder, if there are no discrete and distinct racial groups?] are based on the assumption that the Out of Africa theory is true. For the purposes of this discussion, I will adopt that assumption too. I have no reason to doubt it anyway, and it seems to me to make sense that we evolved that way. So, if we accept the Out of Africa theory (which I do), then we all have a hybrid origin, but even if we don't accept this, it's likely that some kind of ancient or primeval migration has left its genetic mark on us somewhere along the line. None of that justifies race-mixing now, but nor does amount to an argument against it. As we both agree, populations have always mixed to some extent, but when populations mix, aren't they pursuing an evolutionary strategy of some kind, even if unconsciously? In what way would mixing with lower-IQ populations that are culturally completely alien assist or improve our gene pool? Granted, evolution is about survival of the fittest, not the best, but wouldn't it be more natural for white women, and indeed black women and women of any race, to want to reproduce with men who look like them, so that they can produce children who are physically similar and who share the same culture and heritage? It seems to me that mass immigration is a cataclysmic measure of epochal significance that could only be justified if European humanity faced some kind of great existential crisis that this might solve. But that is not the case. There was no existential crisis for Europe that was not imposed on it by mass immigration and the consequences that flowed from it. As for alien cultures 'swamping' Europe, my language might be a little alarmist, but the population figures quoted by Alan Johnstone above, which are likely to be an underestimate (though I do not know his sources) speak for themselves. White people are set to become a plurality in their homelands, something that will have vast social, cultural and economic consequences and will also affect the prospects for socialism, in my view.
Meel wrote:I would like to recommend a book to you, which if read carefully and thoughtfully, will dispel any notions you have that Europeans are somehow “superior” in their intellectual abilities to other “races”. It is “guns, germs and steel” by Jared Diamond. He makes a compelling case for the vagaries of geography, flora and fauna – the general environment – explaining why Europeans ended up with all the “cargo”.(One of his New Guinean friends asked him this question at the beginning of the book: “Why did you Europeans end up with all the cargo” (while many New Guinean tribes had only stone tools into the 20th century). “Cargo” was the local term for all the good native New Guineans came across on European ships.)You're right. White aren't intellectually superior. It's just that the other races are being kept down by 'the Man', yer know. I have read Diamond's book and I regard his extreme environmental determinism as crude and silly. If you would like, I can write a poinjt-by-point analysis of both his environmentalist works (he wrote a follow-up), in which you will see me categorically destroy his arguments, but the essential point is that a people's environment affects their gene pool. Social and biological factors interact. As I said above, the word for this is evolution. Diamond's ideas are pseudo-scientific and not in accord with evolutionary theory.
Meel wrote:Basically, all inventors, scientists, engineers and philosophers stand on the shoulders of giants. In the case of Europeans, these previous “giants” were the scientists, inventors and mathematicians of the Middle East, India and China. Diamond shows how inventions, from the agricultural revolution till today, travelled across the Eurasian continent and back again, constantly encouraging and inspiring inventions and new thinking far away, which were then brought back again to wherever the spark came from.MeelI find it sadly funny that in order to cling to th wreckage of your delusional leftist prejudices, you are forced to denigrate and run-down the achievements of the culture that created socialism and the computer you typed this derivative crap on. It's bizarre how leftists tie themselves up in knots, negating their own culture just so that they can 'empower' the 'oppressed'. The truth is that Jared Diamond is like you and everybody else on here: he hates white people.Europe probably benefited from cross-pollination of innovations and ideas. So what? It doesn't negate the achievement of Europeans. Can you name me any significant black civilisation? What about a technical innovation that is Chinese, Japanese or Korean? I am sure there will be some beyond the 'Four Great Inventions' of the Chinese we hear so much about. Maybe you could link us to an extensive list? Maybe Europeans shouldn't have bothered and should have just let these Arab geniuses you speak of create the space programme, the atom bomb, the aeroplane, all modern physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, the piano, the telescope, the automobile, the television, the computer, the radio, the theory of evolution (ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the theory of natural selection (also ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the diesel engine, the jet engine, the internal combustion engine, DNA, cells, the microscope, parliamentary democracy [How will you achieve socialism without that?], modern medicine, scientific methodology, tires, telephones, rockets, trains, electricity, atomic energy…..I could go on.Of course, all this was pure accident. It was the environment, you see. It all fell from the sky, and some of it was stolen too, from the blacks and the Arabs – and the Chinese.Maybe we should let Africans take over now? How many black members has the Socialist Party got, again? Come to think of it, how many black members do you have in the whole of Africa? What about India? The rest of Asia?
Meel wrote:Hi IkeI disagree there are discrete and distinct “racial” groups. People look different across the world, yes – but consider how the “looks” blend into one another. In the inner Mediterranean countries/Middle East/Saudi Arabia you get people with a range of looks, from “pale” European to African, and all shades and features in between. Also, consider people from Nepal, Afghanistan and the steppes of Southern Russia, how they blend together European, Indian and Chinese “looks”. There’s no “discrete and distinct” about it.Meel wrote:So to say there are no differences between humans living in different places would be wrong.You are being a bit mealy-mouthed in the above, but you appear to admit in so many words that races and racial groups exist, even if you can't bring yourself to state this plainly. Your real issue is with how these racial groups are constituted and the nature of the distinctions. It would be appreciated if we didn't have to go over this ground, as it's not germane and I don't think we need to. I'd really prefer not to have to go through this tiresome rigmarole of "Does race exist?", "It's just a social construct, like, yer know", "We all blend together", "We're all human", and my personal favourite: "We all bleed red!" We're not children, so let's acknowledge obsevable reality. Race and racial groups exist. Yes, we can argue over what in precise terms constitutes 'race' and whether there's blending in some places, as you believe, or the racial distinctions are based on more of a racial/genetic gradient, as others believe, or are large meta-groups with some merging at the edges, which is what I believe is the case. But the major point appears to be conceded by you, and if so, that is good and to your credit, as it's honest.For my part, I will concede that, obviously, there is an element of social construction in the matter of race, in two respects – first, in how we choose to classify different groups (which is a socio-cultural and political decision), and second, in that the groups themselves represent an interaction between genes and the environment. Race is both biological and social. We could choose to impose evolutionary pressures – which is what mass immigration and multi-culturalism actually are – to socially engineer the removal of racial distinctions, but that would just be the beginning of new racial distinctions, since it is natural for people to form into racial groups, as race is a selective pressure on populations, albeit maybe influenced by cultural and economic factors or whatever.
Meel wrote:Where I disagree with you is in your fear of “alien cultures” swamping Europe. Humans have always migrated throughout their history. We are all a very mixed bunch. Take London, where I have spent a lot of my time over the years – it’s a vibrant melting pot of different cultures, and all the better for it.'Whiteness' and the White Race is not just an invention of 18th./19th. century race science. These existed as concepts and biological realities before that. I know that populations have always mixed, but this has mostly tended to be confined to other groups of the same race, and the genetic evidence suggests that most white people are not the result of significant racial mixing outside the ethno-European population groups, with less than 1% non-white genes in most cases. Obviously, modern DNA tests that measure origins [Q. How do these work, I wonder, if there are no discrete and distinct racial groups?] are based on the assumption that the Out of Africa theory is true. For the purposes of this discussion, I will adopt that assumption too. I have no reason to doubt it anyway, and it seems to me to make sense that we evolved that way. So, if we accept the Out of Africa theory (which I do), then we all have a hybrid origin, but even if we don't accept this, it's likely that some kind of ancient or primeval migration has left its genetic mark on us somewhere along the line. None of that justifies race-mixing now, but nor does it amount to an argument against it. As we both agree, populations have always mixed to some extent, but when populations mix, aren't they pursuing an evolutionary strategy of some kind, even if unconsciously? In what way would mixing with lower-IQ populations that are culturally completely alien assist or improve our gene pool? Granted, evolution is about survival of the fittest, not the best, but wouldn't it be more natural for white women, and indeed black women and women of any race, to want to reproduce with men who look like them, so that they can produce children who are physically similar and who share the same culture and heritage? It seems to me that mass immigration is a cataclysmic measure of epochal significance that could only be justified if European humanity faced some kind of great existential crisis that this might solve. But that is not the case. There was no existential crisis for Europe that was not imposed on it by mass immigration and the consequences that flowed from it. As for alien cultures 'swamping' Europe, my language might be a little alarmist, but the population figures quoted by Alan Johnstone above, which are likely to be an underestimate (though I do not know his sources) speak for themselves. White people are set to become a plurality in their homelands, something that will have vast social, cultural and economic consequences and will also affect the prospects for socialism, in my view.
Meel wrote:I would like to recommend a book to you, which if read carefully and thoughtfully, will dispel any notions you have that Europeans are somehow “superior” in their intellectual abilities to other “races”. It is “guns, germs and steel” by Jared Diamond. He makes a compelling case for the vagaries of geography, flora and fauna – the general environment – explaining why Europeans ended up with all the “cargo”.(One of his New Guinean friends asked him this question at the beginning of the book: “Why did you Europeans end up with all the cargo” (while many New Guinean tribes had only stone tools into the 20th century). “Cargo” was the local term for all the good native New Guineans came across on European ships.)You're right. Whites aren't intellectually superior. It's just that the other races are being kept down by 'the Man', yer know. So don't be a racist Nazi.I have read Diamond's book and I regard his extreme environmental determinism as crude and silly. If you would like, I can write a point-by-point analysis of both his environmentalist works (he wrote a follow-up), in which you will see me categorically destroy his arguments. Admittedly, this is not a difficult task, since his ideas are lightweight in the first place. But the essential point is that a people's environment affects their gene pool. Social and biological factors interact. As I said above, the word for this is evolution. Diamond's ideas are pseudo-scientific and not in accord with evolutionary theory.
Meel wrote:Basically, all inventors, scientists, engineers and philosophers stand on the shoulders of giants. In the case of Europeans, these previous “giants” were the scientists, inventors and mathematicians of the Middle East, India and China. Diamond shows how inventions, from the agricultural revolution till today, travelled across the Eurasian continent and back again, constantly encouraging and inspiring inventions and new thinking far away, which were then brought back again to wherever the spark came from.MeelI find it sadly funny that in order to cling to the wreckage of your delusional leftist prejudices, you are forced to denigrate and run-down the achievements of the culture that created socialism and the computer you typed this derivative crap on. It's bizarre how leftists tie themselves up in knots, negating their own culture just so that they can 'empower' the 'oppressed'. The truth is that Jared Diamond is like you and everybody else on here: he hates white people.Europe probably benefited from cross-pollination of innovations and ideas. So what? It doesn't negate the achievement of Europeans. Can you name me any significant black civilisation? What about a technical innovation that is Chinese, Japanese or Korean? I am sure there will be some beyond the 'Four Great Inventions' of the Chinese we hear so much about. Maybe you could link us to an extensive list? Maybe Europeans shouldn't have bothered and should have just let these Arab geniuses you speak of create the space programme, the atom bomb, the aeroplane, all modern physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, the piano, the telescope, the automobile, the television, the computer, the radio, the theory of evolution (ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the theory of natural selection (also ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the diesel engine, the jet engine, the internal combustion engine, DNA, cells, the microscope, parliamentary democracy [How will you achieve socialism without that?], modern medicine, scientific methodology, tires, telephones, rockets, trains, electricity, atomic energy…..I could go on.Of course, all this was pure accident. It was the environment, you see. It all fell from the sky, and some of it was stolen too, from the blacks and the Arabs – and the Chinese.Maybe we should let Africans take over now? How many black members has the Socialist Party got, again? Come to think of it, how many black members do you have in the whole of Africa? What about India? The rest of Asia?
I’m no longer going to treat you with kid-gloves. You are a despite all your well-rehearsed counter-claims a white supremacist and when someone uses the word racialist, it means racist. We have encountered the likes of you before on the forum…people advancing ideas of scientific racism. Anarchists have the same sort, the national anarchists, all wanting to set up their ethno-communities. If you are a socialist –then you are a national socialist of the Strasserite persuasion or a national Bolshevik. No point in trying to apply reason to you. You have all the answers because you decide what the questions that count are. You talk about European culture. Do you go to the opera, have you gone to the ballet, do you attended the theatre? When was your last visit to an art gallery, or a museum? What was the last classical music concert? What was the last modern novel you read by a British writer, or an European writer? Have you picked up a book of poetry in your life? You talk of European culture, what other languages are you fluent in? I challenged you on your supposed solidarity for fellow workers in other countries. Silence. No advocacy of any such acts of solidarity unless if I’m not mistaken voicing support for Pegida. You are not with the socialists, but your sympathies are with the EDL. I called you a bully and I stand by that…and go further…I think I can safely psycho-analyse you as a Me person…the world revolves around Ike Pettigrew…ME…ME …ME…If something doesn’t benefit or give Ike a personal advantage then he has no interest. Even women should serve your needs, their lord and protector. Facts are conveniently forgotten, history ignored. Your homogenous British society was built by force and blood. The Scottish Border clans were deported to Ireland, the Highland clans deported to the colonies. And even in England regional diversity was destroyed by the sword and the State. I’m no supporter of the validity of IQ tests but how do you treat this information.The average white male youth is two points below the UK average in Cognitive Assessment Tests (CAT) Nigerians were 21 points above, Ghanaians 5.5 above and the Chinese 38, Indians almost 30 points. The worst performing was Portuguese at 45 below the UK mean. When it comes to GSCE exam results Luganda- and Krio-speaking Nigerians did better than the Chinese students in 2011. Whites all lagged behind. The Igbo-speakers were even more impressive given their much bigger numbers and their consistently high performance over the years, gaining a 100 percent pass rate in 2009. In 2010, the best student in the whole country was a Nigerian girl who scored 15 As, which was higher than any Chinese, Indian or white student, and higher than any student from prestigious elite schools like Eton. Trevor Phillips, former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, suggests that the internationally recognized quality of London’s education are not due to any government policy but simply a result of three high achieving groups moving to London in recent years: Chinese, Indians, and Black Africans. The racist hereditarians like you have to explain how West Africans kids possess better IQ than average black American child who have more “white” mixed in their genes. I leave the others to try and reason with you, but I no longer will. We won’t change your views in a debate or discussion and the only way you will change or even doubt your over-valued opinion of yourself is if you have a Damascene conversion, an epiphany.
Out of interest could you clarify what “race” are you assigning the Middle Easterners who are currently migrating to Europe to? White? Black? Any other? Ike said: “Granted, evolution is about survival of the fittest, not the best, but wouldn't it be more natural for white women, and indeed black women and women of any race, to want to reproduce with men who look like them, so that they can produce children who are physically similar and who share the same culture and heritage?”No, not necessarily. “Outbreeding” is quite often more beneficial than “inbreeding”. Go back to my example of cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia. A blend of African and European genes would virtually do away with these diseases in the offspring, in generation 1 anyway. This would be a general trend – the more far flung the parents, the healthier the offspring – from the point of view of the lessoned likelihood of two “bad genes” meeting up.Ashkenazi Jews (Tay Sachs disease) and Icelanders have a problem if they want to marry within their “kind” and have children, as they are so close genetically. I have heard that young Icelanders on a night out in Reykjavik carry apps that let them check on a potential mate to see if he or she is a relative!I am writing the above tongue-in-cheek – I am not really advocating that there should be a planned breeding program in one direction or the other. Let people go on as they always have, in their more or less half muddled ways of getting a mate.Ike said: “The truth is that Jared Diamond is like you and everybody else on here: he hates white people.”I don’t hate any group of people. What a strange outburst.Ike said: “What about a technical innovation that is Chinese, Japanese or Korean?”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventionsIke said; “Maybe Europeans shouldn't have bothered and should have just let these Arab geniuses you speak of create the space programme, the atom bomb, the aeroplane, all modern physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, the piano, the telescope, the automobile, the television, the computer, the radio, the theory of evolution (ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the theory of natural selection (also ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the diesel engine, the jet engine, the internal combustion engine, DNA, cells, the microscope, parliamentary democracy [How will you achieve socialism without that?], modern medicine, scientific methodology, tires, telephones, rockets, trains, electricity, atomic energy…..I could go on.”Are you absolutely certain that the people involved with these inventions were all “white” (however you define “whiteness”)? I seem to remember that many of the scientists who worked on the American space programme were from Jewish backgrounds – so their forefathers would have come from the Middle East. Steve Jobs, the brilliant inventor of the Mac, was of Arab parentage.Once inventions and technology started to gain momentum in Europe, it would tend to accelerate and drag other inventions along with them.The fact that it could gain momentum was in no small measure due to the introduction of the “Arabic numerals” which displaced the cumbersome Roman numerals in Europe from the Renaissance onwards. The Arabs got these numerals, including the sign for zero, from India:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numeralsAnother reason was of course the influx to Europe of the plundered wealth of places like India and South America. This may sound “leftist” to you, but is nonetheless an historical fact.Ike said: “How many black members has the Socialist Party got, again? Come to think of it, how many black members do you have in the whole of Africa? What about India? The rest of Asia? “I have no idea. You had better ask a member of the Socialist Party.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I’m no longer going to treat you with kid-gloves.So you've lost control of yourself?
alanjjohnstone wrote:You are a despite all your well-rehearsed counter-claims a white supremacist and when someone uses the word racialist, it means racist. We have encountered the likes of you before on the forum…people advancing ideas of scientific racism. Anarchists have the same sort, the national anarchists, all wanting to set up their ethno-communities. If you are a socialist –then you are a national socialist of the Strasserite persuasion or a national Bolshevik. No point in trying to apply reason to you. You have all the answers because you decide what the questions that count are.You've got some cheek making that accusation! That really is the pot calling the kettle black. My word! Dog's biscuit?
alanjjohnstone wrote:You talk about European culture. Do you go to the opera, have you gone to the ballet, do you attended the theatre? When was your last visit to an art gallery, or a museum? What was the last classical music concert? What was the last modern novel you read by a British writer, or an European writer? Have you picked up a book of poetry in your life? You talk of European culture, what other languages are you fluent in? I challenged you on your supposed solidarity for fellow workers in other countries. Silence. No advocacy of any such acts of solidarity unless if I’m not mistaken voicing support for Pegida. You are not with the socialists, but your sympathies are with the EDL. I called you a bully and I stand by that…and go further…I think I can safely psycho-analyse you as a Me person…the world revolves around Ike Pettigrew…ME…ME …ME…If something doesn’t benefit or give Ike a personal advantage then he has no interest. Even women should serve your needs, their lord and protector.Again, the usual leftist tactics on display here. Among other things:(i). Use of disguised ad hominen and projection of your own moral and intellectual superiority by insinuating that I am stupid, uncouth or uncultured just because I have different and unorthodox views. By the way, I am fluent in three languages, have lived on the Continent and married a foreigner and had children with her. I have written books, including on technical subjects, and I plan on writing more. I have written and had published poetry and short fiction, have certainty read plenty of poetry, have also read and reviewed literally hundreds of fiction books by authors across lots of different cultures, both European and non-European, and hundreds of non-fiction books too, on all subjects. I have worked in museums, have visited art galleries, both in Britain and abroad, and have travelled extensively. I am also a fan of classical music. I have been a member of the Socialist Party and have read the Socialist Standard for many years. I have nothing to prove to you.(ii). Misrepresenting and misconstruing my position, which is about a different view of society, not about 'ME'.(iii). Appeals to emotion, guilt-tripping and moral blackmail, accusing me of being a bully.Also, there are lies here. I do not support PEGIDA or the EDL. I have never said that I am in solidarity with foreign workers. I repeat, I stated that I support international solidarity. I don't need to 'do anything'. I am not in a position to, but I hope initiatives can be realised. As I have explained repeatedly, solidarity does not mean self-destruction. That is something you refuse to acknowledge. To you, solidarity means the white working class committing racial suicide. Yeah, right on, man! But what about these workers you are trampling on?
alanjjohnstone wrote:Facts are conveniently forgotten, history ignored. Your homogenous British society was built by force and blood. The Scottish Border clans were deported to Ireland, the Highland clans deported to the colonies. And even in England regional diversity was destroyed by the sword and the State.Homogeneous in the racial sense. I am not pretending that British history has been anything but bloody. I know my history. In fact, you might say it's a specialist subject of mine, and I also understand Marxist theory on the subject. But the British have a long, shared history and share common origins that pre-date capitalism and even propertied societies. This creates bonds in society that transcend economic and other material considerations, or ought to in a healthy society. I think that is a good basis for socialism, as it should be in any society. I hope the same is true of non-white societies. The problem with your perspective on things is that you see things too mechanistically.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I’m no supporter of the validity of IQ tests but how do you treat this information.Well that's another thing we've got in common, then. I don't support them either. IQ tests are bunk.
alanjjjohnstone wrote:The average white male youth is two points below the UK average in Cognitive Assessment Tests (CAT) Nigerians were 21 points above, Ghanaians 5.5 above and the Chinese 38, Indians almost 30 points. The worst performing was Portuguese at 45 below the UK mean. When it comes to GSCE exam results Luganda- and Krio-speaking Nigerians did better than the Chinese students in 2011. Whites all lagged behind. The Igbo-speakers were even more impressive given their much bigger numbers and their consistently high performance over the years, gaining a 100 percent pass rate in 2009. In 2010, the best student in the whole country was a Nigerian girl who scored 15 As, which was higher than any Chinese, Indian or white student, and higher than any student from prestigious elite schools like Eton. Trevor Phillips, former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, suggests that the internationally recognized quality of London’s education are not due to any government policy but simply a result of three high achieving groups moving to London in recent years: Chinese, Indians, and Black Africans. The racist hereditarians like you have to explain how West Africans kids possess better IQ than average black American child who have more “white” mixed in their genes.So what? I could produce out of my hat in ten seconds flat dozens of studies and research papers showing quite different findings. The mistake you are making here is to place emphasis on one study in a contested area. IQ, in so far as it can ever be valid, is a game of averages. If you want to come to your own conclusions about it, you need to engage with multiple studies such as this. If you do so, I think you'll find that your conclusions will be fairly conventional, and possibly contrary to the study above. I qualify that remark because – and I stress this is purely speculative on my part – it wouldn't necessarily surprise me to find studies that show African-born black immigrants performing slightly better on average than white British children. This is because these types of immigrants often tend to be from the affluent of their home countries. I have known many of these blacks myself, mainly from Nigeria. They tend to be from the better-off families and are culturally Western. It's probably also the case that the study you refer to formed a small sample group, which will have distorted the findings. Anyway, as stated above, IQ tests are bunk and I hold that any conclusions based on them – including group intelligence differences – have to be treated with caution, even when they support my side of it. One more thing on this subject: If it was found that indigenous-born non-whites do have comparable IQs to white British people, I would have no problem with this whatever. To the contrary, I would regard it as aiding my case, because it would be one further reason to question why these Third World workers need to come to Europe and become our wards and be facilitated by our culture. Perhaps, if your view is that there are no significant group intelligence differences, you could explain to us why we need to "help" these workers? Why are their societies so dysfunctional?Let us have your answer, Alan, so we can marvel at your verbal gymnastics as you try and square yet another liberal circle that can't be made rectangular. Well, it's free entertainment.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I leave the others to try and reason with you, but I no longer will. We won’t change your views in a debate or discussion and the only way you will change or even doubt your over-valued opinion of yourself is if you have a Damascene conversion, an epiphany.Again, the air of superiority is palpable. You're a nice guy, yes? Whereas I'm a nasty, racist, Nazi. Boo, hiss…"He's behind you!" "Oh no he isn't!" "Oh, yes he is!"
Meel wrote:Out of interest could you clarify what “race” are you assigning the Middle Easterners who are currently migrating to Europe to? White? Black? Any other?I consider them mixed.
Mel wrote:Ike said: “Granted, evolution is about survival of the fittest, not the best, but wouldn't it be more natural for white women, and indeed black women and women of any race, to want to reproduce with men who look like them, so that they can produce children who are physically similar and who share the same culture and heritage?”No, not necessarily. “Outbreeding” is quite often more beneficial than “inbreeding”.Sources? References? I don't doubt that it might be beneficial under some circumstances, but would be interested to see you support this.
Meel wrote:Go back to my example of cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia. A blend of African and European genes would virtually do away with these diseases in the offspring, in generation 1 anyway. This would be a general trend – the more far flung the parents, the healthier the offspring – from the point of view of the lessoned likelihood of two “bad genes” meeting up.Ashkenazi Jews (Tay Sachs disease) and Icelanders have a problem if they want to marry within their “kind” and have children, as they are so close genetically. I have heard that young Icelanders on a night out in Reykjavik carry apps that let them check on a potential mate to see if he or she is a relative!I am writing the above tongue-in-cheek – I am not really advocating that there should be a planned breeding program in one direction or the other. Let people go on as they always have, in their more or less half muddled ways of getting a mate.Are you serious or not? if you are, then you are lending support to eugenics. If you're not, then anyway I can appreciate the point that it is a bad idea to breed within families or closely-related groups, but that's not what I am advocating.
Meel wrote:Ike said; “Maybe Europeans shouldn't have bothered and should have just let these Arab geniuses you speak of create the space programme, the atom bomb, the aeroplane, all modern physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, the piano, the telescope, the automobile, the television, the computer, the radio, the theory of evolution (ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the theory of natural selection (also ignored by you and Jared Diamond), the diesel engine, the jet engine, the internal combustion engine, DNA, cells, the microscope, parliamentary democracy [How will you achieve socialism without that?], modern medicine, scientific methodology, tires, telephones, rockets, trains, electricity, atomic energy…..I could go on.”Are you absolutely certain that the people involved with these inventions were all “white” (however you define “whiteness”)? I seem to remember that many of the scientists who worked on the American space programme were from Jewish backgrounds – so their forefathers would have come from the Middle East. Steve Jobs, the brilliant inventor of the Mac, was of Arab parentage.Can you provide me with some evidence that Steve Jobs actually invented the Mac, or anything for that matter? My understanding is that he was a businessman, albeit technically-literate (sort of like Alan Sugar), but I might be wrong about that, and it doesn't matter much to me either way. However, I think you'll find a lot of this stuff can be contested. I fully acknowledge that Jewish scientists have played a high-profile role in several fields, but on closer examination, more often than not it is the case that they were simply the leaders of scientific teams, the real science and technical work having been undertaken by whites. This is something I have already examined in some detail, and I know that several Jewish scientists were outright frauds, and most others simply took the credit for the work of others. So I am prepared for a come-back from you. But maybe you can name some of these geniuses, just two or three will do, and we can then decide whether they really did make a significant contribution.
Meel wrote:Once inventions and technology started to gain momentum in Europe, it would tend to accelerate and drag other inventions along with them.The fact that it could gain momentum was in no small measure due to the introduction of the “Arabic numerals” which displaced the cumbersome Roman numerals in Europe from the Renaissance onwards. The Arabs got these numerals, including the sign for zero, from India:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numeralsAnother reason was of course the influx to Europe of the plundered wealth of places like India and South America. This may sound “leftist” to you, but is nonetheless an historical fact.It is 'leftist', not because of your 'facts' (which may or may not be true, right now I don't care), but because of the slant you put on it, that somehow history is this morality tale of injustice and oppression, and that I and other whites are to feel a deep sense of guilt and shame for our misappropriations and ill-gotten gains. It's stupid. History isn't like that. If, as you claim, whites plundered wealth, that means whites were stronger and prevailed. If whites capitalised and built on the innovations of others, while those other civilisations remained stagnant and regressed, that is not the fault of whites. I and other workers are not here to help you act out some kind of morality play, where we all get down on bended knee and beg for forgiveness for our ancestral sins. We have rights. We have the right not to see our women raped. We have the right to build our own distinctive societies and live according to our understanding of what is civilised. We have the right to preserve our language. We have the right to fight for our liberties and freedoms, albeit that we live under capitalism. You can sneer at these things, and call me a simple-minded provincial or reactionary, but without these Western characteristics, socialism would not exist as a body of thought.
Meel wrote:Ike said: “How many black members has the Socialist Party got, again? Come to think of it, how many black members do you have in the whole of Africa? What about India? The rest of Asia? “I have no idea. You had better ask a member of the Socialist Party.I don't need to. I already know the answer: members of the Socialist Party are almost-all white, middle-class, mostly men, and mostly live in white areas of the country, married to white spouses, with white children, who attend white schools, and work in comfortable jobs (mostly universities and trade unions, things like that) that won't be threatened by immigration. Yes? Am I right? I expect so, but stranger things have been known to cross the desk of James Randi, so give me the lowdown if I'm wrong. You might be more vibrant and diverse than I anticipated.
SocialistPunk wrote:Hi Ike,Good to see a new face willing to get involved with discussion.I'm curious as to the quote by you I highlight in bold below. Are you referring to "racial" groups as a whole, or pockets of "racial" groups within specific environmental, economic, cultural situations?Ike Pettigrew wrote:the cultural differences that exist between human societies are down to the fact that different people have evolved in different places and have become identifiable as discrete and distinct racial groups, with some groups more intellectually capable than others.I'm referring to both. My starting point is that intelligence is too complex, subjective and multi-faceted to measure with fine precision and is in any case largely the result of genes interacting with environment.I can't take IQ fully seriously. For me, the only serious measure of human group intelligence differences is what we see with our own eyes. It's apparent that many non-white societies are not technical cultures and are essentialy stuck in the Bronze Age. Others have bolted-on European systems and institutions (in effect, capitalism) to their societies, but are dysfunctional. Lots of other comparative observations can be made. So I do think it is possible to compare whole racial groups, yes.However, I think the most useful comparisons are smaller and I would suggest two models as a starting point:(i). Comparing different racial groups under the same environmental conditions. A good example of this is European Americans and African-Americans.(ii). Comparing sub-groups of the same racial group in different environments. A good example of this is African-Americans and black British. I hope I have answered your question. I was very tired when I typed this.
Ike Pettigrew wrote:I don't find your comments logical. I don't accept that just because something is accidental, that this means it doesn't exist or isn't significant.Without some essense, some core "Thing" that is "race" all we have are accidental clusters of certain genes. there is no 'instinct' towards creting those clusters, merely old geographies (the presence of absence of trade routes, migration vectors, etc.). So, if the movement of people changes, and the introduction of new communities togetehr leads to different clustrs of genetic information, that is neither a good nor a bad thing, there's no point protecting an accident.As for logic, I'd have thought it is clear: children are as much a threat to demography, culture and language as foriegners. In fact, I'm just as much a threat as I sprardle words with muxgo.
Ike Pettigrew wrote:I have been a member of the Socialist Party and have read the Socialist Standard for many years. I have nothing to prove to you.All sounds boringly familiar. Is your alto ego Tom Rogers by perchance?
Fourteen kings of England weren't even born here, and some didn't even speak English! Facts are the enemy of the anti-immigration brigade, because they usually prove them wrong. The simple fact is that everything which is blamed on immigration is actually the fault of the economic system. Low wages, increased job insecurity, out-sourcing etc. Not to forget the decline of the unions, the hire and fire attitude and zero hour contracts… “It’s all because of immigrants,I tell you…” Don't blame the poor who strive for a better life elsewhere. We're all human, after all, who would not want a better life for themselves and families? A large group of immigrants are Eastern European, and are a cultural threat say many because shockingly, they like beer, football, sausages, decent bread… Completely and utterly unlike the natives! Values are neither static nor pure. They are never the same for everyone in a society and they change. Modern nationalists talk of the threat to "cultural identity". Today the rise of modern communications technology, social networks and internet and so on makes communicating with people across national borders and cultural boundaries easier and more "natural" than ever.The SPGB are not in the business of patting our fellow workers on the back for their attitudes. After all we were pilloried for opposing capitalist wars and we are a miniscule minority opposing capitalism. Yes, the majority of fellow workers in the UK hold differing views from us, but our task is to change these mistaken opinions. 77 percent of Britons want reductions in the number of new arrivals to their country. Eight out of 10 Britons now believe that immigration rates should be limited, with almost six in 10 supporting significant reductions in the number of foreigners allowed in. One in three Britons now support the view that immigration stimulates Britain culturally, as opposed to 45 percent who believe it is outright dangerous. 56 percent favor reducing the number of new arrivals “a lot” – a record figure. In 1995, when the question was first posed to Britons, just 39 percent supported major reductions, while two years ago only 51 percent held the view. 54 percent of individuals who view immigration as a positive factor for the economy still want to see immigration reductions, including one full quarter who would favor “severe reductions.” Among those who believe immigration is culturally beneficial to the nation, 55 percent still support greater limitations. We even witness the phenomenon of older waves of immigrants attacking newer waves of immigrants for under-cutting their labour. It is easy to find first or second generation immigrants to say they support a government policy of lowering the number of immigrants who can come into the country and cracking down on illegal immigration.The argument that “They steal our jobs!” signifies a staunch nationalist attitude, and has nothing to do with the truth: Jobs do not belong to those who talk this way. And illegal immigrants can’t take away anything they don’t possess. The decision on what jobs exist is made by a completely different authority: a business which must be willing to make money off those who offer their ability to work for sale. Whether a person has a job or not is the result of one condition: they must find a businessman or woman who lets them work for him or her – which they only do if their work increases the private wealth of the owners of that business. Only profitable work matters; it is not a matter of just doing the work that is needed to provide for oneself and one’s family, but working for the wealth of others. If immigrants did not get these jobs because they were sent back to where they came from, these jobs would either be eliminated or offered under the same conditions as they were before, at wages close to or under the minimum wage – because only then are they profitable. This principle applies equally to the xenophobic indigenous worker as much as the immigrants they are so hostile towards. All workers, native or immigrant, are subordinated to profit making.The impact of immigration on Britain’s tax and welfare system is perhaps the most important economic issue in the debate over the country’s relationship with the EU and its principle of free movement. There are claims that immigrants from Europe take advantage of the UK’s benefit and health system. Research published by the Royal Economic Society based on the UK Labour Force Survey and a multitude of government sources, calculated the overall fiscal contribution of native Britons and immigrants. The findings showed that European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services. Immigrants to the UK who arrived since 2000, and for whom we observe their entire migration history, have made consistently positive fiscal contributions regardless of their area of origin. Between 2001 and 2011 recent immigrants from the Eastern Europe countries contributed to the fiscal system about 12% more than they took out, with a net fiscal contribution of about £5 billion. At the same time the overall fiscal contributions of recent European immigrants from the rest of the EU totaled £15 billion, with fiscal payments about 64% higher than the value of public services they used. Immigrants from outside the EU countries made a net fiscal contribution of about £5.2 billion, thus paying into the system about 3% more than they took out. The fiscal balance of overall immigration to the UK between 2001 and 2011 amounts therefore to a positive net contribution of about £25 billion.Immigrants to the UK since 2000 have made a "substantial" contribution to public finances, a study by University College London said. Recent immigrants were less likely to claim benefits and live in social housing than people born in Britain. The authors said rather than being a "drain", their contribution had been "remarkably strong". "Our study also suggests that over the last decade or so, the UK has benefited fiscally from immigrants from EEA countries, who have put in considerably more in taxes and contributions than they received in benefits and transfers. Given this evidence, claims about "benefit tourism" by EEA immigrants seem to be disconnected from reality." Immigrants who arrived after 1999 were 45% less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits than UK natives in the period 2000-2011, according to the report by Prof Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini from UCL's Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration.Research published in 2009 by the Institute for Public Policy Research.” found no evidence that migration from Eastern Europe since 2004 had had any substantial negative impact on either jobs or wage levels. Little has changed six years later. In its 2015 General Election briefing, the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) observed “There is still no evidence of an overall negative impact of immigration on jobs” and “wages” and that “any negative impacts on wages of less skilled groups are small.”Answering the question of whether immigration negatively effects jobs or wages, Jonathan Portes, the Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, notes “The short answer seems to be: not much.” Portes continues: “It’s fairly obvious that wages are generally higher and jobs easier to come by in areas of high immigration like London, while many low migration areas have relatively depressed labour markets.”How could this be? Portes explains: “People who say this… usually don’t actually know or understand basic economics. More immigrant workers do increase the supply of labour. But, because immigrants earn money, spend money, set up businesses and so on, they also increase the demand for labour. And it’s true that, if an immigrant takes a job, then a British worker can’t take that job – but it doesn’t meant he or she won’t find another one that may have been created, directly or indirectly, as a result of immigration.”A recent study by the Migration Policy Centre, using figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, shows that foreigners are net contributors (they add more to the state than they spend), across almost the whole of Europe. A 2011 study from the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn found no correlation between levels of unemployment benefit and immigration to different countries in the European Union, with the authors explicitly rejecting the concept of a "welfare magnet". Research in 2009 published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that more than 60% of migrants who had come to Britain in the past five years were living in privately rented accommodation, with most newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers actually banned from access to social housing. In 2015 the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE noted “There is still no evidence of an overall negative impact of immigration” on social housing.The overwhelming majority of migrants living in Britain do not need to learn English, they already speak it. As the most recent 2011 census showed only 138,000 (1.84%) of the 7.5 million non-UK born population in England and Wales cannot speak any English. It is true that the main language spoken by 4 million people living in Britain is not English or Welsh but Polish, Punjabi or Urdu in that order. But 1.7 million can speak English very well, a further 1.6 million can speak it well and 726,000 can get by in conversation but have difficulties with written English. It has long been recognised that the 138,000 who cannot speak English at all are likely to be among an older generation of Asian women who never learned English and so never worked outside the home or their community. “Despite the pressures of a growing population and a very large number of children for whom English is not the first language, London schools significantly outperform the rest of the country, especially for more disadvantaged children. And recent research suggests that the presence of children from Eastern Europe actually improved the educational attainment of kids here already.”In America the Immigration Policy Center drawing from federal data and various empirical studies reported "While lawmakers repeatedly justify their crackdown on immigrants as a means of fighting crime, the reality is that crime in the United States is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status." The report concludes. "This is hardly surprising since immigrants come to the United States to pursue economic and educational opportunities not available in their home countries and to build better lives for themselves and their families. As a result, they have little to gain and much to lose by breaking the law." The analysis found this has held up for decades. In 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010, native-born Americans ages 18 to 39 were two to five times more likely to be in jail or prison than immigrants of the same age.We are all descendants of migrants. We are all mixed.
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