Lampedusa boat disaster: Divers recover more bodies

[agricola]

European wealth was originally based on looting the Americas. The smash and grab raids on Africa came a little later.

It wasnt, though. European wealth was based on trade, all that the (admittedly spectacular) looting of the various native empires in America managed to achieve was to wreck the economic development of Spain and Portugal for the following three or four hundred years.

 

[alfajobrob]

It wasnt, though. European wealth was based on trade, all that the (admittedly spectacular) looting of the various native empires in America managed to achieve was to wreck the economic development of Spain and Portugal for the following three or four hundred years.

What date's are we talking about?

I think a decent thread could be started by one of you as it is a fascinating subject and part of history but probably doesn't belong on this one iykwim?

I would start it, but either of you would do it better.

 

[rekil]

Wtf are you talking about?

Who else out there on the loon fringe bangs on about an imminent all out RACE WAR.

 

[Casually Red]

Well you clearly have otherwise you wouldn't be banging on about birds and insects.



Right. Now you're making CR's point for him. If that happens already what do you think would happen if completely open immigration was allowed?

What he's suggesting would also finish off every last vestige of African economic protectionism , do a worse job on the African economy than the entire neo liberal agenda combined . Today's capitalists are multi national . They generally hate the notion of borders too . A lot of Africa's malaise is due to the fact they have to open up their local economy to foreign competition under IMF rules . They can't compete, meaning people lose jobs and the west dominates their market and extracts the wealth . Do away with borders and the multinationals just grab everything they haven't grabbed already .

Just one example, even Irish companies are in on this game . African waters are being heavily harvested by European factory ships . Monstrous brutes of things . African fishing communities are being devastated . Do away with borders and its total open season . Absolutely no restrictions on who can and who can't grab whatever they want wherever they want .

This is why I don't trust libertarians of any stripe .


Eta

And given the fact there's quite a few Africans in refugee camps hiding over the border from all manner of assholes who want to kill them removing borders isn't going to do them any favours either

 

[DownwardDog]

perhaps a preferable stratagem would have been to improve matters in libya and other countries in africa (and the middle east) so these unfortunate people were not left with little alternative than to gamble their lives on the mediterranean.

So all the EU has to do to fix it is bring peace, stability and prosperity to Africa and the Middle East? Ok.

 

[coley]

So all the EU has to do to fix it is bring peace, stability and prosperity to Africa and the Middle East? Ok.

Whey they could do a bit more than they are doing at the present?

 

[Pickman's model]

So all the EU has to do to fix it is bring peace, stability and prosperity to Africa and the Middle East? Ok.

tbh atm i'd settle for the eu not making matters worse

 

[kebabking]

Whey they could do a bit more than they are doing at the present?

can you think of a mechanism for that that doesn't end up looking like the EU taking over the running of most of Africa north of the equator?

 

[Dogsauce]

The 'smash their ships in' calls are simple minded bollocks and unworkable.

There isn't a port spewing out easily identifiable 'migrant ships' with big Jolly Roger flags, these are working vessels often near the end of their lives that are bought up by smugglers as and when they need them or merely hired with crew for a high price. Until they're full of hundreds of people they'll be indistinguishable from any other working vessel operating along hundreds of miles of coastline. It isn't any kind of solution unless you're prepared to smash all the boats on the southern coast of the med and destroy legitimate fishing industries and so on.

 

[kebabking]

..It isn't any kind of solution unless you're prepared to smash all the boats on the southern coast of the med and destroy legitimate fishing industries and so on.

no one - apart from the Italians and Maltese are looking for a solution - they are looking for a plausible response to media attention.

the acceptable (not nice, but acceptable) solution is currently in place as far as most of Europe is concerned - they aren't having to do anying particularly politically contentious, they aren't having to spend proper money, and these unfortunates aren't coming to them.

there'll be some initial fanfare, heavy media presence, expeditions to blow up some rickety boats - and no, no one will care whether they are fishing boats - and then it will cam down to rescuing people from sinking boats and then sinking those sinking boats 2 minutes before they would have sunk of their own accord.

this will be presented as a great blow to the smugglers, and the electorates of Europe will happily live with the obvious absurdity while their governments ensure that none of the people who are either rescued or get to Italy on their own appear on their own borders needing housing, healthcare, employment etc..

 

[coley]

can you think of a mechanism for that that doesn't end up looking like the EU taking over the running of most of Africa north of the equator?

I was thinking more of the EU lifting the trade restrictions they impose on African exports.

 

[frogwoman]

this thread is a disgrace.

 

[likesfish]

Apart from insane and or violent fantasies nobody has a solution thats actually doable.
We've fortuantly given up march in declare law and order over a massive pile of corpses which was the traditional european approach to africa their own fault what do they expect if they dont have a flag?

Most of the countrys where the people are coming from if not active warzones at the moment are such corrupt shitholes that development aid might as well just be sent to the swiss and the nearest mercedes dealership cutting out the middleman

 

[kebabking]

this thread is a disgrace.

you have a solution that would not atract the violent disaproval of 99% of the European electorate?

 

[Idris2002]

you have a solution that would not atract the violent disaproval of 99% of the European electorate?

There isn't one, not that I can see. She's still right that the thread is a disgrace.

And there is worse to come. My prediction: our glorious leaders will come up with a face-saving formula (i.e., one that saves their faces) which will allow them to repatriate anyone who doesn't actually drown. This formula will depend on a collective pretense that everything in the refugees' countries of origin is now rosy, in spite of the fact that it very much is not.

There were already signs of this last year, when the Danish government claimed that the human rights situation was rapidly improving in Eritrea (it isn't) and that people could be sent back there. Their report required deliberate misquoting and misrepresentation of people who have been studying Eritrea for years. It was a pack of lies, in other words.

It now looks like the EU as a whole is going to suddenly discover that Eritrea has become a human rights paradise, one to which people can be safely returned without fear of them being interned without trial, tortured, or otherwise punished for their disloyalty:

http://aigaforum.com/article1/EU-Eritea-Article.htm

 

[extra dry]

It is no surprise that European leaders will lie to wash their hands of and get away with murder of thousands of people. The situation will only get worse.

 

[Flavour]

Thus continues the slow process of global wealth distribution whereby immigrants from poor countries working shit jobs in rich countries repatriate what money they can to sustain their distant families, in lieu of any support whatsoever from their corrupt western-backed governments who, by choice or by force, will not take any serious action to alleviate poverty, and so the cycle of emigration goes on.

 

[likesfish]

Without either state prepared to work with the EU to sort itself out.
Say if the leadership of eretria took a shed load of drugs and decided to stop being massive dicks to everybody else.
or a state at all somalias goverment when its busy being dead controls a small yacht off the coast
Syria and libya civil war.
The EU is rather blocked in an attempt to improve things at home for migrants.
Doesnt need vast numbers of migrants to do stuff or at least pay at a level which is usefull

Pictures of a billion quid destroyer that can target a thousand supersonic cricket balls pulling migrants out of the sea and or targeting rusty pieces of junk with a machine gun

 

[Idris2002]

"Say if the leadership of eretria took a shed load of drugs and decided to stop being massive dicks to everybody else."

The so-called world community could have just enforced the UN ruling that gave some of the disputed border territory to Eritrea. Instead, nothing was done to stop Ethiopia occupying, and Eritrea's leaders decided to say "bollocks to the lot of you".

 

[WoodElf]

There seems to be this implicit assumption that the Europeans could sort Africa out if only the will was there. Or if they aren't prepared to do that, at least provide good lives for the people in Europe who flee the chaos.

I'd argue that it's more can't than won't.

 

[frogwoman]

Pages and pages of mealy mouthed semi disguised anti immigration bullshit.

 

[treelover]

nuts and bolts, and roadblocks....

the UK is offering the Assault/Landing ship HMS Bulwark (20,000 tons, maaaahoosive flight deck, accommodation for 700 non-crew, well deck for launching small boats - RIB's and landing craft) two 'patrol' ships, the identities of which have not been released but could be anything from the 24 ton inshore boats of the Scimitar class in Gibraltar to a 5,000 ton Type 23 Frigate, and three helicopters - probably big Merlins...

however, at least two stumbling blocks have hoved into view: firstly that Italy is 'demanding' operational control of the EU effort (you provide the assets, you pay for them, we'll decide what to do with them), which is going down well, and secondly - and perhaps not unreasonably - Italy and Malta want any increace in the SAR effort to be matched by committments to take in the refugees/migrants on an EU basis, rather than a great armada of EU ships hoovering these people out of the sea and then dumping them on Italy and Malta and then legging it before you can say 'anti-immigration party'.

everyone else in the EU is giving it the big FO, arguing that being next to Africa is Italys problem, and the flip-side of having a nice climate.

Could that be HMS Lancaster?

 

[treelover]

What he's suggesting would also finish off every last vestige of African economic protectionism , do a worse job on the African economy than the entire neo liberal agenda combined . Today's capitalists are multi national . They generally hate the notion of borders too . A lot of Africa's malaise is due to the fact they have to open up their local economy to foreign competition under IMF rules . They can't compete, meaning people lose jobs and the west dominates their market and extracts the wealth . Do away with borders and the multinationals just grab everything they haven't grabbed already .

Just one example, even Irish companies are in on this game . African waters are being heavily harvested by European factory ships . Monstrous brutes of things . African fishing communities are being devastated . Do away with borders and its total open season . Absolutely no restrictions on who can and who can't grab whatever they want wherever they want .

This is why I don't trust libertarians of any stripe .


Eta

And given the fact there's quite a few Africans in refugee camps hiding over the border from all manner of assholes who want to kill them removing borders isn't going to do them any favours either

Really? didn't know about this, how are they allowed to do this?

what do aid agencies think of this?

 

[krtek a houby]

Pages and pages of mealy mouthed semi disguised anti immigration bullshit.

urban's very own ukip style cabal

 

[Spymaster]

So now anyone who doesn't favour open borders is a kipper.

 

[kebabking]

Pages and pages of mealy mouthed semi disguised anti immigration bullshit.

and you're showing you've the courage of your convictions by putting down £500 and standing for Parliament on a 'let everyone who lives in some frightening hellhole come and live here' ticket are you?

smug, self-satisfied pronouncements - with absolutely no policy proposals that might contain challenging political ambitions - are cheap. rather like the pronouncements of a man so irrelevent he can't remember that he voted for a course of action he now decries, and can't remember he has made no reference to a growing consequence in the past 5 years but that suddenly now becomes a great issue of state.

you're usually rather better than that, you're certainly a lot smarter than that. #noborders isn't a viable European political policy and you know it, so any chance of a decent policy that both achieves something and fits in with whats politically possible?

 

[kebabking]

Could that be HMS Lancaster?

she's in the Caribbean, she's the Atlantic patrol ship for the next 8 months - she'll probably visit the Falklands at some point as well as South and West Africa.

MOD has announced that the two 'patrol' ships operating with HMS Bulwark will be civilian border patrol vessels - presumably the UK Border Forces' 250 ton cutters. its an, umm... interesting choice of asset.

 

[likesfish]

"Say if the leadership of eretria took a shed load of drugs and decided to stop being massive dicks to everybody else."

The so-called world community could have just enforced the UN ruling that gave some of the disputed border territory to Eritrea. Instead, nothing was done to stop Ethiopia occupying, and Eritrea's leaders decided to say "bollocks to the lot of you".

was actually talking about eritreas "intresting" take on conscription i.e. For life
Rather than the UNs inability to get involved in shooting wars where on of the countrys has no resources or is strageticly unimportant.

 

[campanula]

Yes, well, we in the UK have an extra layer of difficulty for refugees to negotiate - the channel- which effectively means that it is not seen as our problem yet. I wonder how sanguine and willing to make sacrifices you might be if you are a struggling Italian... because as always, the decisions are made by ruling elites but it is invariably those who are already struggling who will be asked to sacrifice the most...or are you effectively deaf to the hateful poverty-denial, filthy scroungers rhetoric already filling our media outlets. Or perhaps we should all feel ashamed on behalf of our masters and offer up a spare room, a tithe of our income, a school place, a needful health procedure... I suggest you very clearly look into your own heart and ask yourself exactly what sacrifices you, personally, are prepared to put up with before weighing in with the anti-immigration accusations as this sort of shit just further accentuates the divisions between those who have and those who do not.

 

[kebabking]

Yes, well, we in the UK have an extra layer of difficulty for refugees to negotiate - the channel- which effectively means that it is not seen as our problem yet. I wonder how sanguine and willing to make sacrifices you might be if you are a struggling Italian... because as always, the decisions are made by ruling elites but it is invariably those who are already struggling who will be asked to sacrifice the most...or are you effectively deaf to the hateful poverty-denial, filthy scroungers rhetoric already filling our media outlets. Or perhaps we should all feel ashamed on behalf of our masters and offer up a spare room, a tithe of our income, a school place, a needful health procedure... I suggest you very clearly look into your own heart and ask yourself exactly what sacrifices you, personally, are prepared to put up with before weighing in with the anti-immigration accusations as this sort of shit just further accentuates the divisions between those who have and those who do not.

the silly thing is that actually Europe, with an ageing population, could really rather do with 50m mainly young, probably fit and healthy, motivated, educated people for whom the trip across the Med was probably the easiest and safest bit - however given the botched way that immigration has been handled for decades and the political climate that has arisen across Europe over the issue, such a policy is, in the near term, only marginally more likely to be politically acceptable than giving schoolkids dogshit for lunch.

where we are is not where we ought to be, but we will not be where we ought to be anytime in the near future, so any solution put forward has to deal with this years 'sailing season' rather than yelling at the moon about there not being enough Unicorns.