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

[nino_savatte]

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?

Careful who you call a twat, balders. Even in this post you talk shite. You're a liar and you're a very bad liar at that.

If you're 'left', then I'm General Pilsudski. You're about as 'left' as Horthy Nagybanya.

You don't even know what social housing is....pillock.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

well fuck me, the day we start looking to Polly Toynbee for our analysis is the day i get myself a nice brown shirt.

Of course, Toynbee is no radical - but it's when the likes of Toynbee start raising the alarm bells that you know there is an issue there - remote in her Nu Labour ivory tower, what the hell would she know about the effects of migrant labour? She uses examples of a chicken factory and builders in Southampton - an experience she has never been anywhere near.

The evidence though she cites is pretty damning -

Denham says the arrival of 14,000 Poles in Southampton has cut rates for building workers by half

Jack Dromey, TGWU organiser of some of the most exploited, finds food factories such as chicken farms where within the last five years as many as half the staff have been substituted with migrant agency workers paid less, without sick pay or pensions.

Revol's right - the solution is building solidarity. Unfortunately, there isn't a left anymore to do that.

I haven't followed all these threads about immigration, but at one point a number of posters on here were even denying that it was an issue to worry about - they refused to accept that it was a part of neo-liberalism. Have we moved on from that now?

There seem to be a number of Labour MPs now - not left-wing by any sense, that are putting out well-written and researched criticisms of the current neo-liberal immigration agenda.
As usual the left sits on the sidelines in a state of utter confusion - umable to come up with any effective anaylsis, let alone any practical and coherent solutions.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

yes but trying to force people to stay in those countries is just reactionary shit, plays straight into the hands of those who exploit migrants, as the ones who get here will be even more precarious, it dovetails with the nationalist idea that people have to stay in one country (why should they?) and also reinforces the notion that immigration is something negative.

Yeah, but here's the problem with your argument.

Internationalism is fine, but the working class, as a whole, do not have an internationalist consciousness.

That comes at a much more advanced stage in struggle.

The problem comes in both presenting the right argument - centred on action - without coming across, at the very best, dreamers a'la Lennon's Imagine.

 

[treelover]

actually she wrote a book about living on the minimum wage, particulalry migrants, and actually did an Orwell taking on low waged work for a short period.

Still the poor relations

Polly Toynbee's account of life among the low-paid, Hard Work, demolishes the Blairite myth

Peter Kilfoyle
Sunday January 26, 2003
The Observer

Hard Work by Polly Toynbee
Buy Hard Work at Amazon.co.uk

Hard Work
by Polly Toynbee
Bloomsbury £6.99, pp256

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,882172,00.html

 

[poster342002]

As usual the left sits on the sidelines in a state of utter confusion - umable to come up with any effective anaylsis, let alone any practical and coherent solutions.

But of course they do! "Immigrants Welcome Here!" placards, anyone?

 

[revol68]

Yeah, but here's the problem with your argument.

Internationalism is fine, but the working class, as a whole, do not have an internationalist consciousness.

That comes at a much more advanced stage in struggle.

The problem comes in both presenting the right argument - centred on action - without coming across, at the very best, dreamers a'la Lennon's Imagine.

it's not a matter of "internationalist consciousness", it's a matter of pratically confronting reality. Internationalism is the only means by which the working class can mount an effective fight back, all other measures only further weaken our hand. Any struggle that falls back into parochial "protectionist" positions will never advance.

The answer comes from organising all workers, in putting forward solutions based on common interest rather than pandering to the most backward. the Irish ferries was an example of how you can organise against such wage cutting measures without falling into a reactionary trap.

BTW everyone seems to be overlooking the benefits of immigration for the working class, unless of course we just see the working class as some charicature that can't left it's beady little eyes from it's pay slip. Many immigrant workers have been involved in work place organising, and in doing so are actually building the basis for internationalism and breaking down chauvinist ideas.

of course there will always be some negative reaction to immigration, but the point is not to try and step back, but rather to step through it.

 

[In Bloom]

Revol's right - the solution is building solidarity. Unfortunately, there isn't a left anymore to do that.

Since when did we need a left to build class solidarity?

This sort of argument comes dangerously close to the worst kinds of vanguardism and substitutionism.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Since when did we need a left to build class solidarity?

This sort of argument comes dangerously close to the worst kinds of vanguardism and substitutionism.

So no organisation at all then - just rely on spontaneity?

Within the this vacuum that BNP are just gonna grow and grow

 

[In Bloom]

So no organisation at all then - just rely on spontaneity?

Not what I said.

We need to organise along class lines, not ideological lines. And we certainly don't need any help from the shower that passes for The Left.

 

[revol68]

The BNP can grow and grow, but the records show that once they are in any sort of power they fial to deliver and lose support, that is unless of course they can sucessfully keep issues to those of race.

The IWCA and their cheerleaders seem to think that the "left" can do the same and beat them at it.

I suggest that it's the left's legacy of engaging in electoral politics, of offering "false hopes" that come and bite them in the arse that has left the BNP in the position it is.

perhaps it's time for a new approach?

 

[Pigeon]

so is calling french "frogs" racist now?

Meh, whatever. You're being disingenuous here:

50 odd years ago, landlords stuck up signs reading "no blacks, no irish". According to you, that means the blacks were suffering racism, the irish something else.

 

[Pigeon]

Because the Nazis made them into a separate race.

Because race is socially constructed.

 

[Pigeon]

.Even Polly Toynbee is now admitting that the Left has got it badly wrong on Migration.......

Polly Toynbee's a liberal who thinks the left has got it wrong on pretty much everything. Not unlike someone else I could name...

 

[tbaldwin]

Polly Toynbee's a liberal who thinks the left has got it wrong on pretty much everything. Not unlike someone else I could name...

The vast majority of people think the LEFT has got it wrong on issues like Crime and Migration.....And you can think of 2 people.........You should get out more.............If they let you?

 

[tbaldwin]

Careful who you call a twat, balders. Even in this post you talk shite. You're a liar and you're a very bad liar at that.

If you're 'left', then I'm General Pilsudski. You're about as 'left' as Horthy Nagybanya.

You don't even know what social housing is....pillock.

Nino .........Your so intelligent..........Not a twat at all.......I guess Social Housing is something to do with spaceships.....Is that right?

 

[revol68]

The vast majority of people think the LEFT has got it wrong on issues like Crime and Migration.....And you can think of 2 people.........You should get out more.............If they let you?

Well if you thin being on the "left" is about seeking manage the contradictions at the heart of capital then yes your right the left is shit. Afterall, if you really wanted to deal with these issues and iron out the contradictions, the fash have a much better record.

 

[tbaldwin]

and once again you have absolutely no answers.

Fuck off back to playing with your train set baldwin.

Remind us all again of where your going to find these extra 20 million social housing homes.......belboid.....go on and impress us all with your vast intellect and vision...............

 

[Pigeon]

The vast majority of people think the LEFT has got it wrong on issues like Crime and Migration.....And you can think of 2 people.........You should get out more.............If they let you?

Yes, dear.

<pats baldwin on the head in avuncular fashion>

 

[nino_savatte]

Nino .........Your so intelligent..........Not a twat at all.......I guess Social Housing is something to do with spaceships.....Is that right?

More shite.

Oh, and it's "you're", not "your"; one is the contraction of "you" and "are", the other indicates possession.

Aye, I am intelligent.

 

[belboid]

balders falils pathetically as normal.

come on durutti - he needs you!

 

[Pigeon]

balders falils pathetically as normal.

Little without Large.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

The BNP can grow and grow, but the records show that once they are in any sort of power they fial to deliver and lose support, that is unless of course they can sucessfully keep issues to those of race.

The IWCA and their cheerleaders seem to think that the "left" can do the same and beat them at it.

I suggest that it's the left's legacy of engaging in electoral politics, of offering "false hopes" that come and bite them in the arse that has left the BNP in the position it is.

perhaps it's time for a new approach?

It's always time for a new approach. This is the lesson that much of the left - whether Marxist or anarchist - has historically failed to realise.

It's not about seeking power in the town hall which anybody with a degree of historical knowledge and political common sense realises will be a very disillusional experience. It's about opening up means of two-way dialogue and communication with the working class itself. Facing this, arguments change, although not necessarily the politics behind those arguments.

Indeed, you can take an absolutist position on immigration - that international issues require international solutions. You would be theoretically correct, but this will fail to translate into action and will leave you sitting on the side as a spectator. Once again, it's pie in the sky politics - wait for the international revolution and all will be okay. Yes - as an international socialist, I know where you are coming from. But not many bar me will.

Politics needs to be relevant to everyday life. The further away the object in play, the less real it becomes... until that point becomes so far away then it is perceived that reaching it becomes the obsession of madmen and utopians. That includes aims as well as the issues.

But here of course is the crunch - a union movement that nobody here has time for or wants to build. And a left which is, well...

So where does this intended solidarity find its focus?... Which is the just the sort of question - if not articulated in such a manner, but certainly expressed - by the working class on the doorstep. Where is the alternative? Because until an alternative is build - as a body of ideas and as an organisation(s) - then simple rhetoric such as 'send 'em all back' will truimph every single time of the rhetoric of internationalism.

 

[revol68]

my point is that we organise around issues as a "class", issues that have the potential, nay the necessity, to break out of parochial parameters. For me that means seeing the centrality of economic struggle and it means resisting all attempts at co option.

Standing in local elections is giving up the terrain of class struggle, it no longer becomes about the working class self management of struggle but rather working class self management of capitals contradictions. This has been seen happening already with the IWCA, it dreams of making the police "accountable", as if it ever can be in a capitalist society, it argues against funding for various projects and instead for them to be fed into "working class" spheres of concern. As if there are no working class muslims who wish to enjoy a silly lil festival, or as if there are no working class kids who are into classical music. This is reducing the working class to an "identity", and further more, the class this identity is then reduced further depending on "community".

The working class is not defined by it's distaste for "posh music" or on the basis of a geographical community, it is defined in relation to the means of production and it only has meaning for communists as a universal negation, as a potentiality for the destruction of capital.

yes, self management is a fundamental, but self management of struggle, self management with a socialist content.

Northern ireland has seen plenty of "self management" in it's working class communities, but it is the self management of bigotry, with each community scrapping for crumbs.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

For me that means seeing the centrality of economic struggle and it means resisting all attempts at co option.

The centrality of the economic struggle may have well been valid decades ago - but this is 2006. I think the last time the economic struggle was central was during the miners' strike. I see no chance of that changing in the foreseeable future.

If you engage in elections you are fighting on their terrain - there's no doubt about that. Consequently, it does have it's pitfuls.

But so does every strategy. With Marxist-Leninism it's the prospect having some mad despot lording over everybody. But there's none worse than which leaves you on the sidelines for all eternity.

There's also the trick of raising a demand that flips the impossible inside out to appear reasonable.

The police are institutionally ingrained in everyday life. To break through that - to self-management and self-policing - requires not propaganda but activity - that is the locomotive of class consciouness.

So in the absense of that - how do you relate to people's perception of their own position in society and agencies around them? Perhaps to point the signposts in the right direction, not to alienate people through your own foresight and vision, but to coax people along the right path.

Sometimes merely to bring into play some of the basic tenants of a discourse - one which is essentially about ultra-democracy and accountability, and which is utterly alien to working class people - is the best that there can be hoped for.

 

[revol68]

oh great another chump proclaiming the death of "economic struggle". Except wasn' the Poll tax an economic struggle? Water Tax campaigns? Fire Fighters strike? Civil servants on strike? Campaigns over privitisation and public services? Postal workers on wildcat? French youth and the CPE?

You think economic struggle is a dead end because your understanding of the "economic" couldn't show you how to piss in the dark.

Of course there is always the danger of co option, but some sphere's are always co opted, some sphere's can't extend beyond themselves, whilst others can. Standing in local council elections and trying to make budgetary ends meet is to be totally co opted.

There's also the trick of raising a demand that flips the impossible inside out to appear reasonable.

The police are institutionally ingrained in everyday life. To break through that - to self-management and self-policing - requires not propaganda but activity - that is the locomotive of class consciouness.

aye, it's got a name you know, transititional demand, a typical trot tactic, one that is fundamentally dishonest and produces the kind of disillusionment that has made the "left" a laughing stock.

yes it's about people developing their own struggles, but fundamental to this is the nature of the struggles. Something like a wild cat strike engneders a form of self empowerment, and also through the inherent interconnectiveness of the struggle necessitates move beyond the "local".

 

[durruti02]

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.

what all you internet student leftists forget is that socialism will be built by real people not internet cyber peple using cyber ideas

revol .. you have to start somewhere .. we can not build internationalism with a defeated w/c as we currently have .. from the base mate from the base ..

durruti did what was needed .. he didn't try to create something from nothing .. the ultimate in practical politics not your cyber theories ..

 

[revol68]

what all you internet student leftists forget is that socialism will be built by real people not internet cyber peple using cyber ideas

revol .. you have to start somewhere .. we can not build internationalism with a defeated w/c as we currently have .. from the base mate from the base ..

durruti did what was needed .. he didn't try to create something from nothing .. the ultimate in practical politics not your cyber theories ..

well that's a good response to my pratical criticisms.

so tell me how can a defeated working class empower itself enough to impose such immigration and housing demands? Surely a working class that united would need a level of confidence and militancy that would have long ago superceded "immigration" problems.

You seem to be suggesting that we need immigration policy in order for a militant and combative working class but alas in order for the working class to impose such an immigration policy the working class would have to be miliatant and combatitive already.

 

[durruti02]

A .. so tell me how can a defeated working class empower itself enough to impose such immigration and housing demands? Surely a working class that united would need a level of confidence and militancy that would have long ago superceded "immigration" problems. ..

B .. You seem to be suggesting that we need immigration policy in order for a militant and combative working class but alas in order for the working class to impose such an immigration policy the working class would have to be miliatant and combatitive already.

A ..because for many years both the left and the unions have actually disempowered the w/c by failing to support basic demands taht are seen as sectional etc by agreeing the closed shop and sons and daughters etc are reactionary , by falling for bullshit right wing arguements ( which you have fallen for too) that w/c control of anything is somehow corrupt .. as if what we have now is better!!!!

the consequence of this process has been that w/c has lost faith in the left/unions fighting for/with them .. we are at a year zero .. we need to do the absolute basics to rebuild ..

B .. i know you have been elsewhere so i forgive you BUT i have never argued for immigration policy anywhere .. i support workers actions to restrict the bosses and to start to rebuild power see post 148

 

[kropotkin]

I agree- it is a tautology that misses the point that any of those groups advocating w/c demands on immigration (and concommitant rises in social housing etc for communities experiencing immigration) require a militant and organised w/c to implement them or even force the state to implement them. Any time that level of militancy is achieved- as revol says- the demans would be much more grandiose. As it is you seem to have demands that are
a/ 'transitional' if they understand the above fact, and so dishonest, and
b/ possibly pandering to reactionary ideas that aren't internationalist and see immigrants as immigrants, not other working class people.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

yes it's about people developing their own struggles, but fundamental to this is the nature of the struggles. Something like a wild cat strike engneders a form of self empowerment, and also through the inherent interconnectiveness of the struggle necessitates move beyond the "local".

wildcat strikes? again, workplace struggle were permantly derailed after the miners' strike. The shock effects of this are still reverberating today.

And don't feign obtuseness about the definition of economic struggle - I, and you, know full well that you are talking about workplace stuggle. The definition of economic struggle above covers everything - community or workplace.

Capitalism is constantly changing - we have had 200 years of continuous change: social, economic, political and cultural. All that is solid melts into air - if something isn't growing, it's dying. Nothing stays still. Theory and action has to match this - it has to be cutting edge.

I don't say that workplace stuggles are irrelevant - just it's far, far less important than it was.

This is basic Marxism - that the the factories of thousands did breed a certain consciousness. But when the the factories go, as they have done - where does the most hopeful point of people's concerns lie then?