Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
It's the principal Reeves is trying to save, whole her principles go out the window
Immigration to the UK - do you have concerns?
- Thread starter mojo pixy
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nino_savatte
No pasaran!
That's a really cool story.
How is it "fucking patronising" to highlight the benefits that immigrant communities bring to us? Or to highlight the insular attitudes in a lot of towns who turn their noses up at the foreign?
I'm sorry, but with all due respect, I have had more than my fill of being patronised by racism and xenophobia in this country, so bad it has been over the last 14 years that if the situation isn't resolved soon then our futures are not even in this country (and tbh, our plans are to leave anyway) and we have spent a good portion of the last years away from the UK and Europe entirely.
I didn't misrepresent you - if the people that respond to the racial call to action are racist to begin with, then it follows that the places that had greater responses are simply a priori more racist.
I don't buy this.
kabbes I’m not convinced your definition of class is meaningful. Maybe I’m misunderstanding. But surely your definition puts a finance bro working for a multinational as working class and a window cleaner who employs two other guys as ‘owning the means of production’. How does that help us understand power in society?
It sounds academic to me. And lengualo speaks to how most people see it. It feels like most people don’t have a clue about how the far left see class and power because what they say simply doesn’t make sense today or have relevance.
When danny la rouge says he feels he has more in common with a working class immigrant he doesn’t mean a guy on six figures who has moved from the Boston branch of his multinational to work in Edinburgh for a few years?
I’ve got time for arguments about the damage that wealth and health inequality has on society. Which includes influencing how people see immigration (like mentalchik describes really well).
And maybe that’s a good argument for the role of the state limiting inequality and redistributing wealth (altho that also has risks in limiting entrepreneurship, risk taking, ambition and prosperity). But I don’t see how your framing of it helps.
It sounds academic to me. And lengualo speaks to how most people see it. It feels like most people don’t have a clue about how the far left see class and power because what they say simply doesn’t make sense today or have relevance.
When danny la rouge says he feels he has more in common with a working class immigrant he doesn’t mean a guy on six figures who has moved from the Boston branch of his multinational to work in Edinburgh for a few years?
I’ve got time for arguments about the damage that wealth and health inequality has on society. Which includes influencing how people see immigration (like mentalchik describes really well).
And maybe that’s a good argument for the role of the state limiting inequality and redistributing wealth (altho that also has risks in limiting entrepreneurship, risk taking, ambition and prosperity). But I don’t see how your framing of it helps.
No it doesn't. I said that the right used an effective call to action that targeted those communities, they targeted communities that were easier to get a reaction out of. This doesn't mean that better off communities are inherently less racist. They're just less likely to heed the call to arms because they aren't as desperate. The racist views exist across our society.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Good to see the washing got done.
Did you have any further thoughts on your 'useless mouths' philosophy?
I don’t understand this
Absolutely.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
You've a really peculiar notion of the benefits immigrant communities bring as all you mention in your patronising post are foodstuffs. Perhaps you've not as much to offer on this thread as you think you have
Oh. I don’t know what else to say about it? If you are able bodied and minded you have a duty to contribute to society and not just take from it. No one is too good to take a job flipping burgers or stacking shelves. That’s what I’ve taught my kids too. I don’t think this is controversial.
lengualo has an awful lot to offer. They speak very clearly and make good points. Why do you think you can keep closing them down?
Aye, don't daft. They're just very easy to express examples, they're easier for people to visualise, and they're practical, which is why food is so often used as one of the first examples of benefits of immigration.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
Probably just as well, as you have such a low opinion of working class brits.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
OK, so you've clarified that "no-one" does not included those unable to work through disability. It is the case that in your capitalist utopia, those with conditions that precluded paid employment, those of retirement age and children/students would be compelled to enter the labour market?
Where do you work that out? Because I dared to point out that racism and anti-racism extend beyond working class/middle class boundaries? Because I recognise the underlying racism behind the racial unrest and don't singularly blame it on a lack of investment?
Heck, I think its already pretty obvious from my exchanges with people on this thread that I don't have the same boundary definitions of class as some people here.
BristolEcho
Well-Known Member
You say that, but then when I have conversations with people that I come into contact with who definitely aren't far left we do seem to have some good conversations around power structures and class. It's potentially because of my jobs (mental health, and substance use) so these topics and ones related to them are nearly daily conversations really with both staff, other agencies, and people who use the services. It's not always explicit, but it's nearly always there.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
If the only way people contribute to society is through paid employment you can't think much of those lazy old people
kabbes posted this at the start of the thread and I think it’s still the main issue that is ignored or isn’t addressed. And we’ve seen people tell variations of it from their own experiences only to be told, no doubt by well-meaning people that… actually you’re racist and/or have fallen for right-wing lies.
Also think the number of “other” people is something of a red herring. If you live in a small town that is 95% white British and suddenly there is a hotel full of asylum seekers who look different and for whom their culture means male-only groups hanging around outside all day, then whether you like it or not - and no matter how well-meaning people are - that can feel like quite a change for Doris and Bert, and with change can come anxiety, apprehension etc. It’s arguably more of a pronounced change if it is a predominantly white British area - ie many of the riot places.
What if the jobs aren't there? No capitalist economy runs on actual full employment and it's the last thing capitalists want.
Everything in this post is still about individuals. Individual blame, how individuals should be categorised, individual responsibility, individual responses. This is what I mean when I say that neoliberalism has constructed the prism through which you are making sense of the situation. You are problematising it through neoliberal filters and that is leading you to neoliberal answers. Let go of it being about individuals and look at how the power relations in society construct particular types of social outcomes. Stop thinking of class as a classification system and start thinking of it as a way that those power relations are manifested.
Or just ask yourself whether tenants have the same interests as landlords and work from there.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
I was just off round to my next-door but one neighbours to tell the lazy, feckless work-shy scum that all this full time caring for her disabled husband has to end; time for her to start flipping burgers.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Why should I answer your questions when you can't be arsed to answer mine?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
And after 1700 posts you think those are the best examples to offer. Maybe after 17 posts or even 170. But we're past that simplistic stage now.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yeah, this is a good place to start. 'Who owns what?' is an important question about any society, and that goes way beyond the means of production, which I think is a phrase that often confuses.
OK, I understand. However, like I said before, if we refer to Marx whose philosophy was created a very long time ago and take it literally then the capitalist and worker class definitions aren't properly compatible with the world today. According to Marx if you have a small shop that employs 10 people then you are an owner and thus capitalist class because you have power. If you're a plumber then you are also part of the capitalist class (or partly) because you have self determination in your career. If you're a middle manager then you're in a position of power.
Back in the day this was more relevant than it is now, today those power structures have altered and a large part of the middle class are not part of the capitalist class in the sense that Marx intended. Most of the middle class professionals, small business owners, and self employed answer TO the same power structure as the traditional working class.
You understand where I am coming from and why?
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