it was probably contrarian trolling but it often seemed quasi-sincere.
i dunno, it'd be interesting to read some leftist studies/research about immigration instead of either the neoliberal or libertarian (who are actually in favor of open borders) think tanks that release info.
Edited by aerdil ()
HenryKrinkle posted:i briefly remember a time when some rhizzoners advocated immigration restrictions as a means of protecting first world wages and spiting liberals (even tho maintaining an iron fist on freedom of movement for human beings while allowing free movement for goods and capital is totally compatible with capitalist globalization). some of them even used "pragmatic" racist arguments that the left should advocate crack downs on the undocumented as a means "understanding" white resentment.
it was probably contrarian trolling but it often seemed quasi-sincere.
would you be ok with closed borders if they were combined with heavy import and export tariffs
in the same way that elections themselves are pressure release valves for pent up alienation and frustration under capitalism, the sanders campaign will ultimately achieve nothing while allowing anger against the system to radiate away via unproductive action.
elections are useful in a way though, because that energy can be used as a barometer of class consciousness in the nation. the us is now 7 years into still feeling the effects of a financial crash under the first Black president, and there are now a large amount of people who (in their minds at least) want to push the country farther left as a response.
frustration with the cult of bernieality is understandable. but this is the us where most of the people think that europe is socialist, and yet the word is still a slur or a radical posture. (if talking to liberals about socialism, i recommend standing near a bust of stalin to help clarify.) and you can't win a revolution in a nation where the majority of people recoil with fear at the very idea you're trying to promote. bernie is just the canary in the coal mine in this respect, and so far, he's sucking up a lot of oxygen.
to win a revolution, especially in amerikka, the support of other classes, even some of the petty-bourgeois, for the proletarian is essential. so the huge rallies in support of even a vague vulgarized 'socialism' are significant with respect to the changing us political climate where passive fascism is the norm.
but meanwhile, the largest uprising of the Black community in years has been happening for a year now across the nation. it has also been one of the most militant and revolutionary minded movements in some time, in many cases training activists in tactics for direct confrontation with state power. due to myriad political pressures the movement, especially its leadership, is starting to cohere to some degree, and as a result create political fault lines. what's troubling in this respect, is the attempt to counterpose racial and economic equality as divergent trends, or, more plainly, to sever the tie between Black Liberation and Socialism.
that this fight occurs between reformist, opportunistic sectors of each movement doesn't necessarily make its outcome meaningless,
National borders by definition are political boundaries. They mark the edge of a particular territory over which a political entity — a state — claims exclusive jurisdiction.
Since political borders require states, “open borders” is an oxymoron. Nothing controlled by government is “open,” whether we’re talking about the New York City taxi market or federal ethanol subsidies or the Brownsville, Texas border bridge.
Open borders can exist only if states do not exist. States require borders because they are defined by borders.
aerdil posted:it's tricky because it's one of those all or nothing policy commitments. open borders require full and equal legal rights and equal worker's rights for every immigrant. anything short of that, like guest worker programs or allowing under minimum wage, creates a system of further exploitation and legalized corporate slavery. and of course in the current world of globalization, it'd contribute to brain-drain when those with the means and capital to move to the first-world suddenly can - which is one of the reasons capital currently doesn't allow freedom of movement, so that they can maintain exploitation of skilled workers in geographies with less worker's rights and lower wages. the soviet union, after all, put restrictions on emigration.
i dunno, it'd be interesting to read some leftist studies/research about immigration instead of either the neoliberal or libertarian (who are actually in favor of open borders) think tanks that release info.
There are many good questions to unpack here, but I don't think we have to view the matter as an all-or-nothing choice between 'open borders' and the present system. For one thing, even from the perspective of a government that prioritizes the working class, there's a strong, non-security-related, non-xenophobic, reason for enforcing borders: combating human trafficking:
Correa did oversee a raft of changes that dramatically loosened immigration standards. First, in June of 2008, he announced the abolition of visa requirements so that anyone could enter Ecuador for up to 90 days. But rather than encourage reciprocity from other countries, as expected, the measure unintentionally benefited human smugglers. By December of that year, almost 12,000 Chinese had entered Ecuador—roughly six times the volume during the first half of the year. Many were headed to the U.S. via human-smuggling networks...
The visa measure made “it easier for human trafficking because it didn't come accompanied with adequate policies about security, internal controls, and the like,” said Daniela Salazar, a law professor at the University of San Francisco in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.
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Sanders gives us a vision of the day when ‘we will no longer be outsiders in the House.’”
... part of me thinks the title is an allusion to slavery.
Lykourgos posted:How upset are you lot that Trump is going to be the next president?
if trump becomes prez, mark Ames will kill himself
Gibbonstrength posted:Lykourgos posted:How upset are you lot that Trump is going to be the next president?
if trump becomes prez, mark Ames will kill himself
if Trump doesnt become President, i will kill Mark Ames