Weekender 21: Baccarat!

Or whatever that game is Bond plays when he gambles with taxpayers money against the representatives and underlings of world villains in order to gain access. 

Or is that our government?

And so immigrants are the talk of the tabloids. The perennial media scare story; the bogeyman that will never go away. It won't. Not while capitalism exists. The problem, as it were, is existential. It us used by the media to condition people into accepting a certain set of circumstances. A nationalistic, fearful mindset. Fear of the other. Work ye hard Britons for the yellow peril/the vandals/the darkies, etc, are coming to take that which you've striven for.

Meanwhile we'l be the ones actually taking what you've earned, because that's how we make our profits. 

Is anyone else tired of this crap? Even if you thought immigration was a problem, in some form, you must consider that it is a political football. The Tories have no intention of solving it, they haven't done so in ten long painful years. Now, the tides have come in again, and the latest home office fuhrer is nailing her colours to the mast. Send in the Navy! Torpedo a dingy full of desperate refugees. Is that really the solution?

What even is the problem? Fear of the other? Some people with funny ways and strange accents are moving next door. They are different. Except they aren't; they have the same basic values and just want to live a free life. Don't you? 

With nothing in power changing and nothing being done to affect the situation nothing will change. Thus, it's a political football. It is never taken seriously. If it were we'd address, as best we can, the root of the problem. We might, I hope, stop funding the wars and arming the tyrants that cause these people to be dispossessed. We might invest in building communities. 

These are things that are incompatible with capitalism. Therefore immigration will never be 'solved' as long as capitalism exists. People will be forced out of their homes and countries - wouldn't you want to flee a warzone? Obviously yes. So why should you enjoy that privilege and no one else?

Or have we become so callous we can no longer care about people artificially separated from us despite a common humanity. The difference is just a line on a map. It means nothing. It's artificial and arbitrary.