the lefts stance on immigration

[SocialismIsCentrist]

The worker has a vote in an election. the worker chooses which party to vote for and they can feel torn.

The left, a kinder, gentler sort of people seem to in the west come out with policies which are good for workers, but good for would be economic migrants.

anti-immigration feeling is tainted with the sort of racism that the left distances itself from.

The worker is basically at the moment fucked in england and probably the rest of the western world.

Vote rightists in to stop immigration (they wont really) the motiviation to vote that way is i think deeper than simple hate - it is fundamentally a fear of loosing ones job. so the right seem to offer a hope in that regard..

..but the left offer good things for workers like more trade union rights and NMW and other good stuff. But all that seems to be undone by the issue of economic migrants that the left seem soft on.


economic migration is a business friendly policy, its what the rightists want, no matter what they say. it is a splendid way for them to devide and conquer the worker in a developed country. it all part of the race to the bottom. unregulated trade and migration is part of this.

For the left to suceed in britain, it should recognise this concern. it would make their case more coherent to the currently torn worker-voter. overall, it would sidestep a fundamental cause of racism - the inflow that destablises peoples jobs and keeps wages down whilst fat cats are seen to get ever richer.

as yoda from star wars said: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering..

...there is a fear that the left is soft on jobs because they are weak on the issue of immigration. the worker is trapped without hope because no faction will deliver the worker what they want. And i think this leads to the anger and hate. kill the root fear, remove the racism and gain votes and influence in britain and other countries like mine.

[slim]

Judging from your post i assume that you are also from the UK.

Everything you said is just about right. For the past few years i have told people about the evils of capitalism and now it is coming true. My Mum worked at Allders before it changed hands to Debenhams; now she is doing all the work, the rotors, paperwork etc because her bosses are incompetent fools who are treading on the workers. She is not a manager yet finds herself doing the work. There are no unions because of general ignorance of the people in such matters, there is no-one to complain to because the manager is always off site and there are no other jobs to go to.
The system is failing and i think my right wing mother is starting to see the truth the hard way.

I think nationally the people will vote in the far right because they feel underrepresented and exploited by New Labour. There will be harsh consequences for this election and the people may suffer.

It is our duty to educate the people on how to bring back democracy.

[Bugalu Shrimp]

You cannot legislate for others ignorance, when working class individuals blame lack of jobs or homes etc.. on immigrants legal or otherwise - they are missing the point. It is easy for the far and centre- right to exploit as we saw the Tory's do in the recent election, the thing is most people aren't quite as stupid as they estimated - and see beyond the effect to the root cause and through their lies.

[SocialismIsCentrist]

it is difficult to unionise when the job market is under constant disruption and manipulation. unions will not save a company from bankruptsy if it faces labour cost based competition.

The best way to solve such problems is to eliminate the competition. this is achieved in two ways. protectionism towards trade, protectionism towards labour movement.

[bolshevik butcher]

scotland needs immigrnats. There is a labour shortage here!

[SocialismIsCentrist]

labour shortage is a mechanism to gain higher wages.

[romanm]

Anti-Mexican chauvinism is on the rise.

Most of the so-called working calss are a bunch of white chauvinists who want to kick the Mexicans out of land which was stolen from Mexico. Every time the do a poll about the border issues or "immigration" the vast majority of the settler-nation vote to continue the tradition of depopulaing occupied Mexico. Yet more evidence proving that MIM is right and there is no white Amerikkkan proletariat and that Amerikkkans as a whole are the class enemy.

[SocialismIsCentrist]

Originally posted by romanm@Jun 13 2005, 07:27 PM
Anti-Mexican chauvinism is on the rise.

Most of the so-called working calss are a bunch of white chauvinists who want to kick the Mexicans out of land which was stolen from Mexico. Every time the do a poll about the border issues or "immigration" the vast majority of the settler-nation vote to continue the tradition of depopulaing occupied Mexico. Yet more evidence proving that MIM is right and there is no white Amerikkkan proletariat and that Amerikkkans as a whole are the class enemy.

Most of the so-called working calss are a bunch of white chauvinists who want to kick the Mexicans out of land which was stolen from Mexico.

a dangerous line of thinking that might be. my view of history: After world war 2 history started again - everything else water under the bridge and loose ends. generational held vendetta is invalid. But i doubt you hold strongly to that view.

if people were not loosing their jobs to mexican immigrants in the USA, then there probably would be a lot less anti-mexican sentiment. Fear leads to scape goats and disharmony.

I see no reason why the left should be on the side of big business in this. The left I think has been clumsy on this issue, its softer kinder intincts harming the overall objectives. An own goal.

Taking a stiffer attitude to migration would play well in the minds of workers fearing job losses due to competition from developing nations. the approach can be different than how the far right do it.

The far ultra-nationalists, a fast rising faction in most of the developed world says, "look, hard working people of our land, you're loosing yours jobs, your way of life to foreign scum who are bad people. vote for us." and the message is working.

the right want immigration because its good at undermining job security, pay and conditions.

the left wants immigration because it wants to be kind. however it is still possible to be against disruptive economic migration and be kind. Perhaps this is how:

the fundamental message could be - restrict disruptive economic migration thus fostering job security- resist the ultra-nationalist message of hating people who just want to work hard - instead focus all anger upon the ruling classes that seeks to devide and conquer the worlds labour by exploiting the hopeless and dissrupting regions that have achieved some level of worker protection.

--
fundamentally i think leftists should seek to guard what has been achieved, and spread this further.

One form of activism should be, the relatively rich trade unions of the developed nations being even more involved in spreading worker rights to were there are none.

[codyvo]

Romanm is right, the current american working class, as far as factory jobs go, is full of white, overly patriotic americans. These are not the workers we should be representing, they claim they are already represented by the republicans, we should be representing the true working class, the immigrants. The immigrants and foreign laborers fuel the economy and revieve nothing from the country in return. Even other workers and worker unions are now against them because the they have been brainwashed into thinking that the immigrants are the cause of the problems. We need to end this dispute within the working class, and show them that their problems are not race or nationality based, but caused by the rich. After we do this their won't be an immigration issue, the rich will want them to come work, and the poor will want more comrades for the fight, and will hopefully realize that lack of jobs is caused by outsourcing not immigration.

[SocialismIsCentrist]

so what do you think of the response to this immigration thing?

there are two response, radicalism towards nationalism. and since these white workers that you seem to hate will be loosing their jobs -well, they'll respond by competing harder for those jobs, eventually nullifying the need for immigrant labour..

..and then what have you got - a radicalised working population that hates immigrants and remebers the good old days, when there was none.

it is the immigrants who will be the scapegoats, not the ruling class who wanted them in to do the jobs they took. the left has to rethink this if it was to suceed in places other than desparately poor and near broken states.

[Black Dagger]

SocialismIsCentrist, so you support immigration restriction?

[SocialismIsCentrist]

no restrictions for refugees.

but I am for restrictions on business friendly migration. It undermines the solidarity of the workforce it is factor breaking the unions.

in south american they send thugs after union members - in the richer countries they send in workers from poor countries to break up such orgs.

consider a region like europe. this is how the world should be - though things can and must be improved. in europe you have a high level of social-economic freedom. you're chance of sucess in some countries in particular denmark, have little or no bearing on your origin class.

This was achieved through socialistic principles. These must not be eroded by ultra-capitalist immigration. Instead what has been achieved in the world must be protected and defended - and what has yet to be achieved must be pushed forwards.

[Severian]

Originally posted by SocialismIsCentrist@Jun 14 2005, 05:43 PM
but I am for restrictions on business friendly migration. It undermines the solidarity of the workforce it is factor breaking the unions.

I see...so the way to build solidarity among workers...is to deport some of them!

Not exactly "workers of the world, unite!" What you recommend is not a pro-worker policy but a policy of seeking to preserve privileges of part of the working class. Which were not achieved "in a socialistic way", but by winning partial concessions from the capitalist class..which can afford them because of its exploitation of the rest of the world.

And the policy you recommend is not a particularly effective one, even on its own terms. Migration is a fact in the modern world. A permanent one.

I just heard some academic expert on the radio talking about the U.S.-Mexico border...he was asked whether there was any way to stop the migration there and he said no, no matter what you do migrants and people-smugglers will find a way around it. Even though the UK is an island that'll be true there too, if there's no legal migration there'll be illegal migration.

Which is in fact better for the bosses; illegal migrants can be more easily kept in line through the thread of deportation. This helps keep their wages down; and thereby everybody's.

That's why even the notoriously bureaucratic AFL-CIO, in the U.S., has adopted a position in favor of immigrants' rights...they've realized all the immigration cops accomplish is to keep immigrant workers too intimidated to join unions.

Which fact should serve to refute: " Romanm is right, the current american working class, as far as factory jobs go, is full of white, overly patriotic americans". Even the labor bureaucracy is not as reactionary as you seem to assume all workers are (and believe me, the labor bureaucracy is worse than the workers.)

I might point out, incidentally, that plenty of Black, Latino, and Asian people work in factories. A disproportionate number, even, of Blacks and Latinos at least. I have to wonder if Codyvo's ideas about the working class come from watching Archie Bunker reruns.

[SocialismIsCentrist]

socialism shouldnt be about aiding the elite in dragging everybody down to the lowest common denominator.

[h&s]

This issue is raised far above where it should be. People fail to realise that if a country like the UK has had a successful revolution the world revolution will be widespread, and it would not be long (relatively speaking) until the whole world is under working class control.
This control creates jobs. Once the revolution is completely spread, there will be no economic migrants. Until then the revolution will just have to grin and bear any slight changes these migrants will bring.

[romanm]

Border issues is one place where we can make a difference. We need fight to keep the border open and we need to expose fascist pigs like Tom Tancredo, Bill Oreiley, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Samul Huntington.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by h&s@Jun 15 2005, 03:50 PM
This issue is raised far above where it should be. People fail to realise that if a country like the UK has had a successful revolution the world revolution will be widespread, and it would not be long (relatively speaking) until the whole world is under working class control.
This control creates jobs. Once the revolution is completely spread, there will be no economic migrants. Until then the revolution will just have to grin and bear any slight changes these migrants will bring.

Also the immigration isn't really major, it's only so because the daily mail and sun want it to be.

[SocialismIsCentrist]

i would say it is major. 100k-200k per year. its not just jobs they take, because they end up on benefits payed for by a fairly regressive tax system. this leads directly to resentment of ordinary workers. further resentment emerges when people realise that immigration enhances other social-economic problems like housing costs, etc.

the immigrant becomes the scape goat - now some of that is over exhagerated, some of it is quite justified, but the only people are saying, lets stop this cause of some problems - like job losses, like increased costs of living - are the ultra-nationalists.

it is working class people who vote for these ultra-nationalists in ever greater numbers - so it is wrong I think, for the left that claims to represent the worker to have policies that would deliver them into economic slavery.

i hope many of you recognise the point, that leftist generally advocate policies on immigration that are in complete alignment with the wishes of big business.

why is this?

I see two possible reasons -
1) the leftist movement has been co-opted at the highest levels. this would seem odd because leftists tend to be more grass roots types in my opinion, leadership more from below - but still there are hierarchies in any organisation.

2) the leftist movement thinks with its heart too much. taking a line against immigration, kinda-sorta sounds like what the ultra-nationalists want for their own perverse reasons. so the leftists may take a polarised position. for sake of clear blue water - a symbollic expression of their abhorance to ultra-nationalist causes.

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by romanm@Jun 13 2005, 01:27 PM
Yet more evidence proving that MIM is right and there is no white Amerikkkan proletariat and that Amerikkkans as a whole are the class enemy.

This is the most absurd thing I have ever heard, of couse there is a white American proletarian, regardless if they are class conscious or not.

[xnj]

Originally posted by SocialismIsCentrist@Jun 15 2005, 09:18 PM
its not just jobs they take, because they end up on benefits payed for by a fairly regressive tax system.

In the US, undocumented immigrants pay billions INTO the Social Security and Medicare systems, through payroll taxes deducted from wages, without ever receiving a cent of the benefits.

Illegal [sic] Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security with Billions (NYTimes)

i hope many of you recognise the point, that leftist generally advocate policies on immigration that are in complete alignment with the wishes of big business.

Not really. Big Business wants immigrants to come into the imperialist metropoles while keeping them undocumented and unequal and maintaining a police apparatus to control them, in order to superexploit them above and beyond documented workers. Undocumented workers don't have to be paid the minimum wage, don't have to be given legal working conditions, and can't unionize easily (if at all).

I know what you're getting at, but it's not right. The way to prevent the "race to the bottom" isn't to restrict immigration (which is going to happen anyway), but to fight for the full equality of all workers, documented and undocumented, by demanding amnesty for all. It's to promote class unity around the lowest stratum against the bosses.

the leftist movement thinks with its heart too much.

It's not about being nice or bleeding hearts, it's about class solidarity. Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are PART of the working class. Often, they're even the most militant and class-conscious section. They bring traditions of struggle with them that contribute positively to the labor movement in imperialist countries.