BF2S Forums DAST Chat

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Advocates for migrants have spoken about how migrants will be able to make up the labor shortage. Horrible argument to make.

Do you think migrants would be a net positive for the nations they are going to?

"it depends"

wages have shot through the roof in aus, even in professional services due to lack of migration. good for me i guess.

Thank you for telling me what the immigration/refugee debate is in the country I live in.

Unless my eyes and ears were deceiving me, I have seen people argue that Afghan refugees can be used to alleviate our labor shortage. Of course this isn't mainstream Democrat belief but it is something people say when trying to explain away the legion of issue that widespread refugee settlement will have in the U.S. There are no good arguments in favor of Afghan refugee resettlement though.

i don't know, were your family a net-positive to america? how about the polish? what about the germans? the sikh community? the irish? the italians? asian-americans from japan or china? mexicans and latinos? have they been net positives?

Each group has/had their own growing pains. Islam, which you brought up and not me, has caused some issues in many places these last 2 decades.

Irish, Poles, Italians, Germans, Mexicans...my beloved Catholics.

Mexican migrants are the real victims. In the grand scheme of things, Muslim migration to Europe and everything that came with it hurts efforts to advocate for Mexican refugees. Again, the real victims.

I am not naïve enough to think that if Europe had never taken in a single Muslim since the year 2000 people like ATG would suddenly not be so hateful against Mexicans. But I think a lot of white genocide paranoia that bubbled up as a result of the drama in Europe would have not taken root in the U.S. The racism drama in Europe complicates efforts in my part of the world to advocate for my beloved Catholics. Why should I be so gung ho for more Muslim immigration?

Yeah but it would be great if there were no Europeans rattled by Muslims sharing the reading list with Americans every time something went down in Europe.

if only we had available frameworks of thought or analysis which considered these socio-historical trends of migration and native resentment ... if only we could analyse the economics of such labour movements, such differentials of wages, such systems of exploitation ... without playing a tittle-tattle game of checkers using 'muslims', 'mexicans', 'indians', etc, etc, as the supposed 'causes' of resentment ... hmm ... if only.

as newbie said, cultural conservatives will find any reason for resentment.

workers on the bottom-rung have more in common with one another than differences. the historical processes and system at work deserve examination, not endless ressentiments between the american blue-collar class and indigent mexican labour, for e.g. these aren't issues of race or religion causing considerable conflict or clashes of interest.

you have an extremely distorted vision of how much 'the migrant crisis' has played into 'european drama' there tbh. the far-right is on the ascendancy for any number of reasons, sure, but its 'rise' is still pretty modest in most european states and seldom equals any major electoral victories (you see this time and time again with france: media circus about their 'dangerous new presidential candidate', they all blow off some steam in the primaries and grumble, and then vote for the nice centrist candidate again). and the migrant issue has been blown out of all proportion by said right-wing groups and their lackeys in the right-wing media/press.

the centrist-liberal line is very much one of angela merkel's "wir schaffen das". don't be fooled by right-wing conservative governments playing the migration card for easy votes. the conservative party in the UK, for instance, needs to be seen as being tough on 'boat people' and migrants because their remaining core voter base are ageing white people -- ditto to the republican party. you can see that for what it is: desperate pact-making with the devil in a redoubt against the inevitable. it's not particularly big and it's not particularly clever.

it's interesting that nigel farage and the hardline brexiteers, who have always been fringe even within the conservative party, despite the recent electoral calculus, made a trans-atlantic relationship with trump, particularly in the bannon era. make of that what you will. most european states are not up in arms or full of 'drama' because of migrants. your average european middle-class voter is about as enraged and passionate about this stuff as your average educated american is a supporter of steve bannon and breitbart, which is to say: not very much.

i've said this many times here, but the rise in the right-wing in europe is down to the EU/UK's disastrous handling of the 2008 financial crisis. neoliberalism bailed out the banks and guilty actors tout court and foisted huge amounts of debt and public services cutbacks on workers. that's what has created resentment which has been opportunistically funnelled into nativism, xenophobia and right-wing alarmism since then. the migrant crisis does very directly affect greece, italy, etc (and latterly poland via belarus) in their border policing, and many of the northern and western states have had to accept tens of thousands of asylum seekers annually; but this stuff is very much being played out of all proportion by the right wing. same deal with scandinavian right-wing parties and media talking about their 'epidemic of crime' because of migrants. these are very, very old tropes.

i can confidently say that most european liberals' commitment to asylum-seekers or multiculturalism has not been shaken by the ructions from the right-wing and the new age of populist nativism. these have become ‘hot button’ topics because political parties on the right know that it plays into the fears and resentments of their dissatisfied working classes (whom they have fucked over economically, not an influx of migrants).

it's also pretty clear that american conservatives have very selectively and opportunistically used the european situation to play on the fears of americans. they want to make it look as bad as possible. this is also a very, very old trope. american conservatives have been talking about 'birming-HAM' and other european cities with the infamous 'no-go zones for whites' rhetoric for over a decade. this stuff makes most europeans scratch their heads; it's not our reality.

Last edited by uziq (2022-01-05 08:45:08)

the migrant crisis is absolutely a part of european politics now, i mean it's one of the biggest humanitarian crises thus far this century and a huge challenge to any western nation, on a national or supra-national (i.e. EU) wide basis, to deal with.

but the idea that european liberals are now doubting their multiculturalism or pluralistic tendencies, which is tantamount to reneging on liberalism itself; or that they've suddenly come to regret multiculturalism as a 'failed experiment' (a big right-wing buzz phrase, that); or that they've been duped - suckers!- into inviting loads of muslims into their societies who have then undermined their harmony and cohesion, etc ... all this is fervid right-wing imaginarium stuff.

you can definitely find quotes of david cameron or macron flirting with the above lines, but they’re very consciously (and cynically) party-politicking comms in order to try and keep a certain portion of their traditional voter base from drifting away to fringe parties. not the mainstream view at all, and many people from within their own parties/tendencies are highly critical of such manoeuvres.

also lol it seems funny to me that someone from NYC would fear jersey city.

Last edited by uziq (2022-01-05 09:21:11)

who ever spoke about reprogramming?

https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/stat … 05731?s=21

i just love it.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/stat … 94401?s=21

what a clown.

Last edited by uziq (2022-01-05 13:15:05)

different connotation here. to get a face that red involves a lot of luncheons at private gentlemen’s clubs on pall mall and daily lashings of port and claret.

most endearingly the old boys wear corduroy in the same colour very often. or paired with mustard colour cords.

incidentally the hash rate of bitcoin dropped by 20% when the leader pulled the plug on their internet. poof. gives you some idea how many russians/chinese had built mining farms there.

Been reading/watching a lot about urban planning and development recently. Way back in uni I once followed a course or two about urbanisation wrt development studies so the topic has always been in the back of my mind. Here's a few well produced/researched videos that are definitely worth a watch. The B1M in particular is a very good channel that I recommend.







What's particularly interesting to me are topics like sustainable urban planning and ensuring affordable housing in metropolitan hubs. Both seemingly elusive goals to city planners in most western countries. Between these two there's two factors that stick out to me; the privatisation of social housing in western Europe and the prioritisation of mega-billion development projects in most part of the globe, and city and neighbourhood planning centred around cars (which is very prevalent in the USA and also modelled in a city like Dubai, or many Chinese cities).

Car-centric planning is especially annoying/irksome if you start thinking about it. For most dense metropolitan places it really seems such an out of place 50s view of the future that we just went and implemented everywhere. It perhaps made sense in an era of larger rural populations and on-going rural to urban migration, but in actual city life cars are really nothing but a nuisance and extremely pollutive to boot. You'd reckon that with proper planning and investment, most major cities can be made almost entirely car-free and wholly managed through public transport, bike lanes, walkability and perhaps here and there designated logistic supply routes via either train or truck. Especially from a POV of sustainability I reckon it would hugely help towards climate goals to just strive for the removal of cars pretty much everywhere.

Another topic is how future-proof skyscrapers really are... cities like New York are going to get such massive headaches around the repurposing of them and necessary renovation or demolishing over the next years/centuries.

Last edited by Larssen (2022-01-08 08:35:36)

There's a number of cities that are doing quite well, but the removal of cars from city centres and expansion of public transport there is still something that's being put off mostly. Everyone needs to know how to drive, everyone needs a car and there is a fucking massive global automotive industry that needs supporting.

Yes I do think Billionaire's Row will stand as a testament to the age of marketisation/privatisation. But only if that age would soon come to an end. Sadly, the trend is more the opposite. And while greener cityscapes are being built, they're not cheaper at all. I reckon it's entirely possible the current trend of global metropole developments can continue for the rest of this century if not the next one as well. Saddest part is seeing people who had been living in these cities like London, Berlin, Paris, NY for generations now being completely pushed out due to housing prices and general cost of living. It's like these places are slowly transformed into a playground for a number of global ultrarich that have condo's in every huge city.