Why do the left believe the govt on immigration but nothing else?

[durruti02]

As far as I can see, there are two possible options.

1. Lobby for stronger border controls, more restrictions on the activities and movements of non-UK citizens, a crackdown on immigrants working illegally, etc. or;
2. Campaign for immigrants to be given the right to work properly, with equal pay and full rights, thereby cutting off the supply of cheap, near-slave labour and removing any incentive for businesses to hire immigrants in preference to UK citizens.

IMO, the former is untenable, as it attacks only the symptoms of the problem, rather than the cause.

or the w/c option which i have outlined in my last post ..

 

[durruti02]

Durutti is a rather odd name for such a right wing reactionary, don't you think?

oh so cutting

durruti got stuck in and listenned to people .. it is what i do .. maybe actually try to deal with what is going on in this country mate instead of play ground taunts ..

e.g. explain to me how my w/c solution/campaigns .. see above .. are right wing

 

[durruti02]

fuck me you're obsessed aintcha?? Stop trying to pretend your not.

i am obsessd with politics and above all the need for w/c people ( of all hues and origins) to have decent lives .. at the moment i/they are being shat on royally .. i am looking for solutions

and yes as someone who sold his first SW in 1977 i am still shocked at those people who told me that revolution was the act of the w/c alone turned out to be such control freaks , who do not look around them, do not talk or listen to people and do not think dialectically

there is a major socio economic event happenning .. maybe a million immigants in just 2 or 3 years and NO articles in SW or SR , NO meetings at marxism .. no comment just we must support the lebanese resistance .. and meanwhile the SCUM bnp grow .. that is why i am obsessed .. i am angry at your betrayal of working class people to neo liberalism ..

 

[nino_savatte]

oh so cutting

durruti got stuck in and listenned to people .. it is what i do .. maybe actually try to deal with what is going on in this country mate instead of play ground taunts ..

e.g. explain to me how my w/c solution/campaigns .. see above .. are right wing

You're not even a good troll - are you? You have said nothing that doesn't sound like the same right wing crap that's been spouted by others more articulate than you.

 

[durruti02]

it's an attempt to prove to the left on this site that immigration is bad and wrong just the same as every other liberal-capitalist policy. A

except that it's bollocks, because the problems with immigration are created by the liberal-capitalists, not by the act of immigration. B

C personally i wouldn't believe the labour party if they told me the sun was going to rise in the morning, but that doesn't mean i'm going to become a rabid racist just because they change their mind on immigration. it has it's good and bad points, just like most other parts of modern life.

A yes

B ??? this is nonsense .. immigration is part of the process

c you do not have to be a rabid racist to see the damage to workers and families caused by immigration

and the point of the poll is why do you belive your state on immigration being good BUT you disbelive it on everything else???

 

[durruti02]

You're not even a good troll - are you? You have said nothing that doesn't sound like the same right wing crap that's been spouted by others more articulate than you.

please explain why post 148 is right wing trolling?

 

[belboid]

you are on a losing battle mate .. not only in the w/c which thinks your position ludicrous but on urban as well .. the numbers of people who seem to think you are wrong increases constantly ..

keep on laughing, I note you havent been able to point out who has been agreeing with the government on immigration - probably because you are tyalking crap. same as on your claims about unemployment levels - you just make something up and then repeat ad infinitum with only balders agreeing with you, and you think it proves your point.

 

[belboid]

c you do not have to be a rabid racist to see the damage to workers and families caused by immigration

and finally you come out and say it - the damage caused by immigration

The damage isnt caused by immigration, its caused by bosses divide and rule - a policy you are now going along with.

 

[nino_savatte]

please explain why post 148 is right wing trolling?

Please explain why you have taken the name "durutti" (spelled incorrectly in your case) when you're such a transparent r/w troll?

 

[tbaldwin]

Please explain why you have taken the name "durutti" (spelled incorrectly in your case) when you're such a transparent r/w troll?

You really are a bit of a twat with the right wing troll comments......Durruttis politics are pro working class left wing.

To call him a troll.......Is that just your way of talking about anyone who doesnt fit into your very narrow minded view of what Left wingers should think and say?

 

[nino_savatte]

You really are a bit of a twat with the right wing troll comments......Durruttis politics are pro working class left wing.

To call him a troll.......Is that just your way of talking about anyone who doesnt fit into your very narrow minded view of what Left wingers should think and say?

No, friend, it is you who is the twat. You post things that you know will attract the desired response and then you claim that you're actually more "left wing" than anyone else on the thread, when what you've posted is actually r/w tosh that Norman Tebbit would be proud to associate himself with.

You've been rumbled, baldo. Have the honesty and the decency to come clean or face further scrutiny.

 

[mk12]

durruti isn't talking about reinforcing controls using the state, because they are "coming here" to "take jobs" and it's ruining "our national identity."

He is arguing for workers' control over immigration in the workplace and in communities, because immigration can cause a fall in wages, and immigration is favoured by capital.

One viewpoint is right-wing, the other is "pro-working class left wing" as tbaldwin says. Durruti is clearly on the left.

I hate it how some on the left think you define if you're "left" or "right" by your position on immigration controls. If this was the case, Marx was not on the left.

 

[revol68]

durruti your a leftist clown, a nostaglic twit who yearns for some imaginary social democratic consensus. Why would i want a society in which work is distributed "locally" or where we have sustainable communities under capitalism?

there can be no fucking community under capital,especially the one you are alluding to ie a local shop for local people. Capitalism has wiped out such pathetic parochialism and left it for the dreams of petty lil Alf Garnetts.

if the working class was ever in a position to dictate such demands as local work and local housing based on being local, it wouldn't be making such pathetic demands. It would be demanding more money, less hours and resisting various disciplinary regimes and hence there would be no worry over "immigrant labour".

why the fuck you are using such a name as Durruti is beyond me, when he said we had a new world in our hearts he wsn't thinking of some Heartbeatesque well integrated capitalism of small shops.

 

[revol68]

durruti isn't talking about reinforcing controls using the state, because they are "coming here" to "take jobs" and it's ruining "our national identity."

He is arguing for workers' control over immigration in the workplace and in communities, because immigration can cause a fall in wages, and immigration is favoured by capital.

One viewpoint is right-wing, the other is "pro-working class left wing" as tbaldwin says. Durruti is clearly on the left.

I hate it how some on the left think you define if you're "left" or "right" by your position on immigration controls. If this was the case, Marx was not on the left.

ah so the working class manages it's own subjugation and division.

tosser

 

[belboid]

durruti may be generally on the leftm, but here he is just an old man who has given in and is accepting a load of right-wing shit - or accepting that it cant be beaten so trying to find a 'clever' way around it. So he tries to swing an anti-immigration argument to a leftist perspective as if that would undercut the rights use of it. Sadly, its a cowards way out - dont actually confront the issue just try and wriggle your way around it.

And baldwin is just a blairite moron.

 

[mk12]

ah so the working class manages it's own subjugation and division.

tosser

cant wait till libcom comes back so you can fuck off from here.

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

I agree with a fair bit of durrutti's point in response to my earlier question. The important objective for any real left wing alternative is to try to empower working class communities to such an extent that they can begin to control their own destiny. To make an analogy with the USA at the moment where there is growing pro and anti immigration debates that seem to falling into the same trap as the one here. The issue of Southern and Central American migration is an interesting one as it has split the republicans between their big business wing the and chauvanist "keep the spics out" wing. Bush has been playing a double game with this issue by announcing amnesties at one point then backing the right wing chauvanist policies coming out of his party in congress at another point. The reason for this split is simple. The big business republicans (and incidentally the democrats for there is no real difference here) like immigration as it stands with thousands of illegal migrants coming to the USA as it creates a vast pool of labour that is open for hyper exploitation and thus helps to keep wages down and enables them to lay off existing workers if they make trouble. The chauvanists (or at least those playing at being such) know that many existing communities feel threatened by this and are exploiting this division. This is how the US ruling class has used the waves of migration that have gone to the US over the last century, by exploiting fear and insecurity of established communities and turning one group of workers against another. The way that the world has gone recently means that the British ruling class are pulling all the same stunts now. Knowing that they need a stream of immigrants to employ at low wages and at the same time banging the drum for "tighter laws" etc.
The only way to counter this is to try and create solidarity between new and older communities by embarking on a unionisation drive to enable the building of working class solidarity. Something which has been all but destroyed in many places at the moment. If we don't fight the ruling class and their divide and rule tactics then the left has no point to its existence.

 

[revol68]

cant wait till libcom comes back so you can fuck off from here.

just cos your on the rebound from the SWP doesn't mean to say you have to buy everyother hair brained "alternative" position.

I mean as hard as it is to beleive, there are alternatives to the "Refugee's are welcome here" and the "Immigration is anti working class".

Dear god, between this sort of shit and the IWCA it seems the left thinks it can steal the forms of "parochial community" politics and inject a radical content. it can't, the working class does not exist as a "community", the working class is the antithesis of community.

 

[mk12]

just cos your on the rebound from the SWP doesn't mean to say you have to buy everyother hair brained "alternative" position.

I don't think I have given my position - i've tried to defend Durruti's position from being called "right-wing".

EDIT: (insert word of abuse here)

 

[revol68]

I don't think I have given my position - i've tried to defend Durruti's position from being called "right-wing".

EDIT: (insert word of abuse here)

it's not right wing but it is reactionary.

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

the working class does not exist as a "community", the working class is the antithesis of community.

How is the working class the antithesis of community?

 

[tbaldwin]

Why? Come on, try and come up with an actual defense of that position - a reason why I would suddenly be part of a different race if I got a tan. QUOTE]

bellboid....do you do stand up at all. I think you show a lot of promise as a kind of surreal demented left winger....

 

[revol68]

How is the working class the antithesis of community?

cos community is a cross class concept centred primarily on locality whilst the working class cuts across this and extends across the world.

 

[tbaldwin]

No, friend, it is you who is the twat. You post things that you know will attract the desired response and then you claim that you're actually more "left wing" than anyone else on the thread, when what you've posted is actually r/w tosh that Norman Tebbit would be proud to associate himself with.

You've been rumbled, baldo. Have the honesty and the decency to come clean or face further scrutiny.

Further scrutiny????????? You complete and utter twat.....Fancy yourself as the new Inspector Clouseau?

Would Norman Tebbit be in favour of repartions to third world countries a massive redistribution of wealth and power,reversing all those stupid privatisations??
Or do you just get very confused by anyone who strays from a very narrow Liberal led agenda?

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

Yeah sure the working class does extend accross the world and is not defined purely in the old classical marxist sense of the term but meaning everyone from factory workers to land workers to office workers in my book.
But there are working class communities in this country and all around the world and perhaps the greatest potential for challenging the status quo comes from within communities that have been truly shafted by the status quo. I'm not talking about Daniel Bell style so called "communitarianism" here by the way which has as its basis ethnicity and nationalism but an activism based on class conciousness and solidarity.

 

[revol68]

Further scrutiny????????? You complete and utter twat.....Fancy yourself as the new Inspector Clouseau?

Would Norman Tebbit be in favour of repartions to third world countries a massive redistribution of wealth and power,reversing all those stupid privatisations??
Or do you just get very confused by anyone who strays from a very narrow Liberal led agenda?

your not right wing your just a pathetic apologist for capitalism, except you don;t even have the balls to stand by it's reality, instead you imagine that with some tinkering it can all be okay.

And you supported the invasion of Iraq if I remember correctly.

 

[tbaldwin]

your not right wing your just a pathetic apologist for capitalism, except you don;t even have the balls to stand by it's reality, instead you imagine that with some tinkering it can all be okay.

And you supported the invasion of Iraq if I remember correctly.

What utter shit...... I want to see a Socialist world not a Capitalist one.....
I thought the invasion of Iraq was an expensive mistake......but that didnt stop me criticising some of the shite coming out of the so called anti war movement.....

 

[revol68]

Yeah sure the working class does extend accross the world and is not defined purely in the old classical marxist sense of the term but meaning everyone from factory workers to land workers to office workers in my book.
But there are working class communities in this country and all around the world and perhaps the greatest potential for challenging the status quo comes from within communities that have been truly shafted by the status quo. I'm not talking about Daniel Bell style so called "communitarianism" here by the way which has as its basis ethnicity and nationalism but an activism based on class conciousness and solidarity.

well yes and no.

There are communities that are predonimantly working class and the working class in these communities can offer great resistance to the status quo, but they have to do this as a "class" not as a collection of "singular" working class communities.

In northern ireland we never hear the end of "community", but all it really means is a nice pre fabricated entity for some bunch of professional do gooders to manage. Northern Ireland is awash with "community spokespeople" and community leaders, all fighting for their cut of the cake, for "their" community.

Anyone who seeks to reduce the working class to a particular "community" is short circuiting the revolutionary potential of the class.

This is obvious with the IWCA and how by seeking to manage working class communitie, it finds itself balancing the books for the state and entering a zero sum politic ie their opposition to funding for some Muslim festival or their opposition to funding for some classical music programme. In this way the working class is reduced to various communities and various "special interests", the negative universality of the working class is aborted and in it's place a revamped identity politic.

 

[Spion]

first that the trade unions/Left come out and actually say what is going on

fair enough

second a mass TU/Left campaign inside and outside of work/industry against casualisation/privaisation and specifically against recruitment abroad / and or for lower wages than the going rate

i think there has to be an honest assessment of the levels and effects of immigration which has to have as it's campaigning aim a huge increase in union membership of ALL workers, including the migrants and the defence of wage levels and jobs. Campaigning *specifically* against recruitment abroad is chauvinist and will soon turn into something that the enemies of the working class can easily exploit

third a campaign in the left/TU's for revival of the closed shop

yep

fourth a campaign against firms using cheap imported labour to cut costs ( as was done with the seaworkers Irish Ferries campaigns)

again, campaigning against foreign labour will play into the hands of chauvinists. Strong unionised workforces defending jobs and pay will cover this one

fifth to campaign that both work and housing should be allocated locally to sons and daughters ( regardless of race .. whatever that may be ) to create sustainable communities

Absolute crap. A recipe for racism and parochialism. Sustainable communities my arse. London boroughs like Southwark used to have sons and daughters policies which led to racial segregation

and finally, but only as part of the above, a campaign for legitimisation of illegal workers so they can be recruited into unions and thus AGAINST immigration controls ...

covered by my response to point 1

and i can guarantee there is not a single thing in these solutions that the neo libs can agree with ..

you give the impression you'd like that. Quit the posturing

There's a few people here ought to at least take on Durutti's points instead of resorting to name-calling. At least he's had the bottle to set out some policies. If you don't like em take em on

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

Any approach has to be based on solidarity, mututal aid and internationalism. This isn't a question of reviving the broken reed of identity politics but one of working class communities running their own affairs in conjunction with other communities around them. There is no question of parochialism as the world today is so interlinked that any attempt to seal any area off from it would not only be reactionary but would inevtiably fail.
I believe that true democracy works best in small areas but could ony thrive if large numbers of people moved towards the same ideas. This would obviously take a radical change in conciousness but thats what a revolution actually takes before it can really succeed. The point i'm making here is that community based action needn't take the old form of self appointed community leaders having tea with Tony but real radical politics such as the superceding of the police by community patrols or the democratic running of local services by the people that work in them. This would present the central government with a severe problem if many working class areas simply withdrew their acquiesence with the state.