Here is a disgusting Tory. Being disgusting. It's still too fucking hot.
This is Sally Ann Hart who earned infamy, and - inexplicably - a seat, during the election. People voted for her. They actually thought it ok. On top of that she demonstrates the paucity of decency among the ruling class. To then argue, fatuously and emotively of course, that Britain is a tolerant place (an appeal to emotion, not evidence, and a thought terminating cliche), is nonsense. If we cannot find people that ,at the very least, need media training to not be racist (which sounds to me more like training in how to avoid being caught out), then surely that proves the point?
That is what we mean when we say Britain is racist/xenophobic/intolerant. We are speaking to the qualities of its leaders, captains of industry, politicians, ruling class etc.
Some quotes:
"These border crossing are illegal. It's illegal to facilitate..."
I don't think she was deliberately trying to conflate things, because I don't think she's that smart. However those are two separate propositions. One is illegal: people smuggling. The other is just people trying to reach somewhere, for various reasons (they might speak English, as opposed to any other EU language), to legally make a claim. To conflate them, which is her argument throughout, is disingenuous. What she's doing is trying to get people to think criminality is the underlying factor, which conveniently abrogates the government's responsibility as decent human souls, which is the crux of this. Decent human society helps each other out. We do not have that, as one look at twitter will demonstrate.
Her response is full of emotive "feels" based content. No arguments, nor evidence. Suddenly, and thanks largely to a sustained media effort, the British are existentially terrified that migrants, the least among us, are going to swamp Britain and do unspeakable things to our people. It's plain and simple racism: fear of the other. Of the swarthy foreigner and his debacuhed ways. It trades on a kind of chauvinism; a misogyny that implies women are vulnerable and waiting to be despoiled by Syrians and Africans.
These are people doing what any of us would do if our homes were bombed. Who wouldn't seek refuge? Oh but why do they have to come to Britain? Some do, some don't. So what? It should be a privilege to take care of these people; to show them what it means to be kind and decent. To plant that seed of goodness and humanity in them that it may flower. That seed is in short supply these days. The milk of human kindness, as it were, has soured, curdled into nastiness. Drank bitterly.
Maybe they come here because they've (mis)heard Britain is an enlightened state. Mauybe they speak English, or have relatives. Maybe they, foolishly, believe our welfare state is benign. The right will say that it's a soft touch. This is clearly false. It's not kind to our own, refugees are entitled to nothing but a twilight zone of misery. They don't get to work, get very little money, and have to rely on charity. Something they are then attacked for, as happened recently with, again, Farage bullying a charity that helped a few. Fortunately Liverpudlians were on hand to tell him to fuck off, but that hasn't stopped him framing it as an attack on his liberty. Liverpool hasn't banned him, nor could it.
What is bitterly ironic though is the likes of Ms Hart constantly appealing to the people traffic argument; something of a straw man, actually. She correctly identifies that there is a "market" for their miserable trade. Of course there is: it's capitalism in action. Clearly she would find that horrifying, but for the wrong reasons. It should be horrifying because it's exactly the misery capitalism creates: people exploiting others for profit. In the worst way and at their weakest ebb. How can these Conservatives be so naive or so blind? This is exactly what is supposed to happen: if you are an ardent free market capitalist then you should be applauding these enterprising people for their entrepreneurial gumption. She won't of course because, fortunately, morality wins out. Just not enough to wake her from the capitalist conservative coma.
One day eh!
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