What is so wrong with looking after 'ones own'??
- Thread starter durruti02
- Start date
Durrutti, on the issue of "looking after your own", I can see where you're coming from, but a lot of the stuff you argue for, like sons and daughters policies and closed shops would, IMO, be harmful to working class people in this country on a lot of levels.
Your whole argument rests on this idea that there's only so much of everything to go around and we have to make sure that "indigenous" workers get it before anybody else, which leaves us scrapping with immigrant workers in some zero sum game when we should be taking the fight to the bosses, not demanding our share of what is already there, but demanding more..
Your whole argument rests on this idea that there's only so much of everything to go around and we have to make sure that "indigenous" workers get it before anybody else, which leaves us scrapping with immigrant workers in some zero sum game when we should be taking the fight to the bosses, not demanding our share of what is already there, but demanding more..
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
so i've been thinking about this and i'm going to answer the question in some way. flame me if you will but this is how i see it.
i grew up on the essex-london borders, and odd hinterland of old-school working class prejudice and second and third gen immigration. if you define background as 'your own', then the people of gants hill and ilford that i grew up with are my people. a mix of aspiring white working classes, apsiring jewish wannabe middle-classes, and assorted 2nd and 3rd gen sub-continent middle-classes. this is, of course, a mass generalisation for the process of a shorter post. if i'm looking after my own by these standards, i'm looking out for the needs of people not just of long-term naturalised englishness, but whose parents or grandparents moved here for a better life, escaping prejudice or violence or just plain trying to do better economically. and who am i to complain about that? i'd do the same. i grew up around kids whose parents or grandparents fled the holocaust or earlier anti-semetic pogroms, whose parents fled slavery, the caste system, the empire, or just said "fuck this, we can do better in the uk". and i don't blame them. most of them did better than those who would probably be classified as ethnically british. good for them, they made their lives better according to their own standards. who wouldn;t want that for themselves.
what other ways can i define "one's own"? here in brixton i live with people born outside the uk. my downstairs neighbours are Mediterranean. my next door neighbours are jamaican rastas. across the road are albanians.
last week i started a new job. alongside myself there was a black british bloke, a guy born in india and raised in the uk who has a thicker london accent than me, a west african immigrant and an east african immigrant. my first training mentor was polish, my second born and bred walthamstow.
my point? if i owe anything to my "own" then i support immigration. centuries of immigration has helped make my city and communities what they are. it's given me friends, co-workers, housemates, neighbours. it's helped people i care about and love grow up safe and affluent. it's helped keep london, my beloved home city, alive and functioning.
what's wrong with immigration? it's used to drive down wages and damage working class unification. it has many valid criticisms, all of which can be fought (IMO) by working class activism and unification; by putting aside notions of ethnic solidarity and "one's own" based on shared backgrounds we can, hopefully, overcome the bosses and their attempts to turn us against each other. this may be hard, it may not work. but the british working classes, whether individuals like it or not, have more in common with polish migrants than they do with the bosses class, and it is the exploiters and the dividers who are MY enemy.
that is all i have to say on the matter. let the flaming commence x
i grew up on the essex-london borders, and odd hinterland of old-school working class prejudice and second and third gen immigration. if you define background as 'your own', then the people of gants hill and ilford that i grew up with are my people. a mix of aspiring white working classes, apsiring jewish wannabe middle-classes, and assorted 2nd and 3rd gen sub-continent middle-classes. this is, of course, a mass generalisation for the process of a shorter post. if i'm looking after my own by these standards, i'm looking out for the needs of people not just of long-term naturalised englishness, but whose parents or grandparents moved here for a better life, escaping prejudice or violence or just plain trying to do better economically. and who am i to complain about that? i'd do the same. i grew up around kids whose parents or grandparents fled the holocaust or earlier anti-semetic pogroms, whose parents fled slavery, the caste system, the empire, or just said "fuck this, we can do better in the uk". and i don't blame them. most of them did better than those who would probably be classified as ethnically british. good for them, they made their lives better according to their own standards. who wouldn;t want that for themselves.
what other ways can i define "one's own"? here in brixton i live with people born outside the uk. my downstairs neighbours are Mediterranean. my next door neighbours are jamaican rastas. across the road are albanians.
last week i started a new job. alongside myself there was a black british bloke, a guy born in india and raised in the uk who has a thicker london accent than me, a west african immigrant and an east african immigrant. my first training mentor was polish, my second born and bred walthamstow.
my point? if i owe anything to my "own" then i support immigration. centuries of immigration has helped make my city and communities what they are. it's given me friends, co-workers, housemates, neighbours. it's helped people i care about and love grow up safe and affluent. it's helped keep london, my beloved home city, alive and functioning.
what's wrong with immigration? it's used to drive down wages and damage working class unification. it has many valid criticisms, all of which can be fought (IMO) by working class activism and unification; by putting aside notions of ethnic solidarity and "one's own" based on shared backgrounds we can, hopefully, overcome the bosses and their attempts to turn us against each other. this may be hard, it may not work. but the british working classes, whether individuals like it or not, have more in common with polish migrants than they do with the bosses class, and it is the exploiters and the dividers who are MY enemy.
that is all i have to say on the matter. let the flaming commence x
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Fruitloop said:
I could make an educated guess.
In Bloom said:Fruitloop, yesterday:
Ha ha
Actually I reckon Thatch had a clear idea of who 'her people' were, as does Blair - the super-rich, in an immediate sense, and the aspirational lower and mid middle classes in an ideological sense. The 'no such thing as society' was just an excuse to arsefuck those who didn't fall within the hallowed bounds.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
belboid said:
Aye, perhaps the word "educated" was inappropriate in the case of balders.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
What I find interesting is how balders and durruti02 try to put some distance between "immigrants" and "immigration" as if the two are mutually exclusive. It reminds me of the BNP's line on Jews a few years ago. I remember Griffin (or some other bonehead) saying that they would expel any "ethnic Jews" but would allow "religious Jews" to stay.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I dont actually think that is entirely fair either. It's more of a 'hate the sin, love the sinner' kinda thing. Some christians probably manage to do that quite genuinely, but for most it's a bullshit cover-up. Even if they individually don't hate any immigrant, it is fairly obvious that should there (or rather balders', durutti doesnt actually agree with his solution, just with his obsession) immigration plan come into force, many people would still extend the 'principle' quite logically to actual immigrants - 'you're the cunt who's stolen my job and house, take that' kinda bullshit. How they fail to see that, I really don't know.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
belboid said:
But one cannot have immigrants without immigration. Besides, I sometimes feel that the word "immigrant" is actually a codeword for something else....particularly when it is employed by our two friends here.
nino_savatte said:
You really are one of my favourite posters on urban...If i had to point to anyone who neatly summed up where the Liberal Left had got things so wrong it would have to be you nino....
Arrogance,Bigotry,Jumping to lazy nonsensical assumptions, its all there and more.....
You made such a twat of yourself on Education.....Now you want to try and dig deeper in the shit with slurs linking me and durruti to the BNP....
Good stuff....Keep going........
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
tbaldwin said:
Spoken like a true national socialist - eh, balders?
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
tbaldwin said:
Keep it up, balders, you're doing a great job here. I've never linked you and your sidekick to the BNP. There are many national socialists who aren't members of the BNP btw.
nino_savatte said:
I won't bother, but I hope somebody reports this.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
tbaldwin said:
Only someone as drably idiotic as you would sully Simon Weisenthal's name by mentioning him to try and lend your post credibility.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
so if you haven't even the balls to do so yourself how can you expect anyone else to?Lock&Light said:I won't bother, but I hope somebody reports this.
dismal. and snide.
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
nino_savatte said:
Any chance that you have a linky or a reference for that. Could be quite useful.
Bearing in mind that BNP supporters in Dagenham are saying off the record that 'we should do to the muslims what Hitler did to the Jews' its a very pertinent point to those who think 'well I'm mixed race / jewish / not muslim I'll be OK' well you won't cos who do you think the boneheads will go for after they've expelled the muslims?
