Migrant watch (merged topic)

[UndercoverElephant]

Make no mistake. This is now the single most divisive and contentious problem facing Europe and the UK, and it is only going to get worse.

Unless people like Biff Vernon wise up, and FAST, then they are going to tear the political left apart and tear the green movement apart.

I am absolutely sick of the supposedly morally superior lecturing, which is, in reality, gutless and pathetic. And it is going to have serious negative consequences, because if those people don't admit they are wrong about this then more and more decent, ordinary people will find themselves with little choice but to start marching in line with Jonny and his mates.

We CANNOT and MUST NOT let these people into Europe or the UK. It has to stop NOW. That is being recognised across Europe, which is why the fences are going up, the border posts re-instated and migrants being barred from boarding trains. Now it is time for you, Biff Vernon, to face up to reality.

[kenneal - lagger]

Biff, we were guilty of helping people fight against a brutal dictator in Libya. We intervened when the Arab Spring, that spontaneous flowering of democracy in North Africa, spread into Libya and was brutally put down by the murderous Gadaffi. Unfortunately, we were not to know that it took a murderous dictator to hold together the warring tribes of Libya.

In Iraq it took another murderous dictator to hold together a country with three potentially warring religious factions. We were wrong to seek to help people to replace murderous dictators with democratic governments. In Islamic countries democracy just doesn't seem to work. Egypt is the same! It's gone from murderous dictatorship to brief democracy to military dictatorship via Islamic dictatorship.

Sub Saharan Africa is the same: murderous dictatorships all over the place and civil wars when another potentially murderous dictator seeks to unseat the incumbent murderous dictator. Even places like Uganda which were democratic have been usurped by democratic "rulers for life". Should we go in and colonialise the place again to stop them fighting each other.

If we leave them to get on with it on their own we get flooded with refugees from the fighting which bleeding heart liberals like, Biff, say we should take in. If we suggest that we might go in and stop them fighting each other, albeit in the knowledge that they will start fighting us so that they can then start fighting each other again when we have gone, the bleeding heart liberals don't want that either.

The potential for Europe to be the world's dumping ground for the detritus of war is massive: there are billions of potential refugees in Africa and the Middle East alone. What about the millions of Chinese who might want to flee the oppressive government there?

The law states that refugees should claim that status in the first safe country that they get to to so shouldn't we just pay those countries to look after the refugees until their own country is safe again? At this rate we will be depopulating most of the ME and Africa and overpopulating Europe at a time when Europe is trying to reduce its energy use in order to stop global warming. Bringing millions of people from a nice warm environment into an often very cold one is not sustainable for the planet and not sustainable for Europe.

[Little John]

While I agree we cannot let then in, there are a few things here I must take issue with:

Biff, we were guilty of helping people fight against a brutal dictator in Libya. We intervened when the Arab Spring, that spontaneous flowering of democracy in North Africa, spread into Libya and was brutally put down by the murderous Gadaffi. Unfortunately, we were not to know that it took a murderous dictator to hold together the warring tribes of Libya.

Of course we knew how murderous Gaddaffi was. Plenty of people were shouting from the rooftops that it was that very murderous nature was all that was holding that country together prior to the Western backed revolution. Though, ashamedly, I remember even me being swept up in in it all at the time and feeling there must be something we should be doing to help the people of Libya overthrow him. I was wrong.

In Iraq it took another murderous dictator to hold together a country with three potentially warring religious factions. We were wrong to seek to help people to replace murderous dictators with democratic governments. In Islamic countries democracy just doesn't seem to work. Egypt is the same! It's gone from murderous dictatorship to brief democracy to military dictatorship via Islamic dictatorship.

Same story again. Only this time, our elites did not need anybody telling them how ruthless Hussein was. They already knew full-well since it was they who had helped engineer the very coup that brought him to power in the first place. Consequently, Hussein was our "friend" until relatively recent times. It only all went a bit tits up for him when he tried to sign an oil for rubles deal with Russia, thus putting the petrodollar hegemony in jeopardy.

Sub Saharan Africa is the same: murderous dictatorships all over the place and civil wars when another potentially murderous dictator seeks to unseat the incumbent murderous dictator. Even places like Uganda which were democratic have been usurped by democratic "rulers for life". Should we go in and colonialise the place again to stop them fighting each other.

Broadly a similar story has pertained across much of Africa where successive Western regimes have sought to lever into power a strong-man who would do their bidding via a vis the primary resources those countries possessed. The payback for the dictator concerned was that they could do what the hell they liked in their own country and the West would continue to back them,

Having said all of the above, I should qualify it with the following two things:

Firstly, notwithstanding the endless meddling in those parts of the word by the West, not least the re-drawing of ancient and hard fought for borders that organically formed along tribal lines, it must be conceded that these parts of the world are ungovernable in modern secular terms. All the more reason, then, that we should have never meddled in them in the first place.

If we leave them to get on with it on their own we get flooded with refugees from the fighting which bleeding heart liberals like, Biff, say we should take in. If we suggest that we might go in and stop them fighting each other, albeit in the knowledge that they will start fighting us so that they can then start fighting each other again when we have gone, the bleeding heart liberals don't want that either.

It's not just the bleeding hard liberals who don't think we should intervene in those countries. It;'s also the hard nosed realists who know full well what a complete waste of time it is. Trouble is, as ever, the primary resources are in those countries and so have provided the engine of the much of the industrial activity in the West for the last century.

The potential for Europe to be the world's dumping ground for the detritus of war is massive: there are billions of potential refugees in Africa and the Middle East alone. What about the millions of Chinese who might want to flee the oppressive government there?

Agree with all of this.

The law states that refugees should claim that status in the first safe country that they get to to so shouldn't we just pay those countries to look after the refugees until their own country is safe again? At this rate we will be depopulating most of the ME and Africa and overpopulating Europe at a time when Europe is trying to reduce its energy use in order to stop global warming. Bringing millions of people from a nice warm environment into an often very cold one is not sustainable for the planet and not sustainable for Europe.

It matters little if they are refugees or migrants or any other label one cares to use. The moral deservedness of "migrant" versus "refugee" is a dilemma born of the luxury of better times. They are gone now and with them are such moral dilemmas. The choices facing us now are much starker. We simply can't take them.

[jonny2mad]

I'm not a bleeding hearted liberal and I went to a number of anti iraq war marches, if we want to run africa we should have done it like the 19th century, personally I dont want to run africa or help africa or have much to do with africa ,

[UndercoverElephant]

Superb article by Owen Jones,

No it isn't. Jones is a socialist, and shows a deep understanding of British politics. He's not an ecologist and does not demonstrate that he understands the migrant crisis. YOU, on the other hand, should know better.

Yes, the solution to global human misery is not to extricate a tiny lucky number and parachute them into richer countries.

Correct.

We need the west to take responsibility for disaster zones it helped create, like Libya and Iraq.

We should "take responsibility" for Libya and Iraq? HOW THE F*** are we gonna do that then? A bit of military intervention, perhaps? Or an attempt to manipulate their political system and impose a democracy, maybe? Or maybe we just send some advisors to help them organise their stuff a bit better.

This truly is "Alice in Wonderland" politics, Biff. We cannot solve the world's problems. The only time we seriously tried to do that was at the height of the colonial era, when we "solved" the problems by invading and ruling these places ourselves, which sort of worked, until the natives decided they wanted their countries back. The best we can do is stop making things worse, but Owen Jones, yourself and everybody else with delusional tendencies in this respect need to stop fooling yourselves that there is any way the world's problems can be fixed. You know damned well that we are way past the point where that was possible, if it was ever possible.

We should pressure our governments to do more to solve situations that compel human beings to flee.

Oh right. We should pressure President Assad to "solve" the situation in Syria? Like we pressured Gaddafi, maybe? Like we pressured the f*****g Taliban?

This is 100% dreamworld. Nothing to do with reality. Well...of course we should do whatever we can to minimise the situations that are compelling people to flee, but we should not starting fooling ourselves that anything we can do is going to make all that much of a difference.

But as long as there is misery, people will flee it...

Ah, so the solution is the elimination of global misery at a time of overpopulation, peak oil, climate change and the rest of the sh*t that is going on in the 21st century.

If we fail, then more and more women, men and children will spend their last few hours drowning in seas or suffocating in lorries. It is as bleak as that.

There's no "if" about it. We will fail, because the thing he's talking about is impossible. We cannot solve the world's problems, and if you or Owen Jones or Jeremy Corbyn are trying to base real-world policies on fantasies of these proportions then I'm afraid you are a big part of the problem, and have nothing to do with any real solutions. Your ideas and beliefs simply do not matter because you've chosen to to believe in comforting fairytales instead of dealing with reality.

You are free to believe in fairytales if you want. But you're also trying to get away with posting them on this forum, and expect to be taken seriously.

The reality is far bleaker than Owen Jones realises (or is willing to admit). And the problem is that we - you and me and everybody else taking part in this discussion and all their friends and families - are going to have to live through that bleak reality. 95% of the people who regularly post here have accepted that, and want to discuss how we are going to deal with it. The other 5% - i.e. you - have not.

It's time for you to catch up, Biff. You've got to let the fantasies go now.

[UndercoverElephant]

if we want to run africa we should have done it like the 19th century

Precisely. There is no middle way. If we want to run the world - or at least those bits of the world that are "failing" - then the only effective way to do it is to invade and govern. All subsequent, "modern" attempts to "solve their problems" have not only been total failures, but in many cases actually made things worse.

We have to accept that on a global scale things are going to fall apart, and that on the scale of individual nations we have to leave people to try to sort out their own problems. If they fail then they fail.

We have enough problems of our own. Maybe we should get our own house in order before we start trying to sort out other people's houses.

[jonny2mad]

I think hoping for biff to get it, is a forlorn hope .

Have you ever met a real cat lady, I have, talking to them for years doesn't work because actually they are crazy.
They fill their houses with “rescued” pets but fail to look after them. They declare their love for animals even as they step over the bodies of dogs and cats that have died of malnutrition. They often neglect their own health, living in tumble-down houses filled with animal filth.

The Cat Lady doesn’t actually help of the creatures she claims she loves. She also destroys her own life. But because of the emotional satisfaction she receives from these “rescues” and the deep psychological needs that are fulfilled, she can’t stop herself.

Most cat ladys are female but you do have some males who exhibit the same muddled thinking

Not all gay people or women dont get it my cousin is gay and he gets it but hes not that camp or fluffy, and lots of women get it but the more logical unsilly kind . so its not being gay or a women

you could look up Pathological Altruism, jared taylor talks a good deal on the subject .
People on the right, one of their main interests is why white people are so dumb and suicidal, why care about strangers more than your own people, and I think we have figured it out. look up Pathological Altruism jared taylor on youtube


http://www.radixjournal.com/journal/201 ... dy-culture

if you understand your dealing with a cat lady maybe you will understand that convincing them via logic wont work

[jonny2mad]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34133210

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/ ... IJ20150902

[kenneal - lagger]

These people are refugees in Turkey, which is the first safe country that they reach and where they should claim asylum, but then become economic migrants when they try to reach Europe for a better life/education/whatever.

[biffvernon]

the detritus of war

[kenneal - lagger]

You don't have to tell me about the pain of losing a child, Biff.

These people were in a safe place in Turkey. They are choosing to leave that safe place in favour of a "better life" in Europe so they are economic migrants. If they risk their children's lives in order to better themselves that is their decision.

[UndercoverElephant]

the detritus of war

Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones have been accused of abdicating rationalism and instead indulging in a politics where emotion is king and "feeling good about it" is all that matters.

That is precisely what you have done. As if a picture of a dead child makes any difference to anything at all that has been posted in this thread.

Billions of people are going to die. Men, women and children. Get used to it.

[biffvernon]

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

[biffvernon]

The heart wrenching scenes we’re seeing– of children being washed up dead on beaches, of people being detained en masse on trains, of thousands upon thousands risking their lives to come to Europe – serve as a reminder of our duty to help those in peril however we can.

We have the capacity to take more refugees in Britain, but the Government lacks the will to do what’s right. Indeed David Cameron’s reluctance to give a home to those in need is a damning indictment of his administration’s pernicious attitude to those fleeing atrocities in other countries. When our Prime Minister’s only real action of note is to fund higher fences in Calais, it’s clear he’s lost all perspective of the gravity of the situation.

Britain can and must do more – it’s time for the Government to wake up to the cruelty of its current stance and give many more refugees the chance to settle here.

[Little John]

The top of the left and of the Green movements have clearly no idea
whatsoever of the kinds of pressures many ordinary citizens in this country are under and how this kind of message is going to drive them straight into
the arms of the far right. Or, at least, if they do have an idea, then their
ideological imperatives outweigh that.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.