London Banter - View Single Post

Robin May · November 16th 03, 12:21 AM posted to uk.transport.london

(Mait001) wrote the following in:

(a) Hire the Albert Hall or some other venue and shou, rant,
community singing, burn effigies or whatever, but don't do it so
that Central London is put into gridlock.

And this is going to get the attention of anyone?

Oh, so you judge the success of the demonstration by the
disruption (disruption = attention) it causes?

No, I judge the success of something like this by the effect it has,
and by the attention (disruption may bring attention, but so do other
things) it attracts.

I thought it was
done for the pleasure of those who attended communing with
like-minded souls and feeling good in themselves for doing
something that they thought was right.

Don't be so stupid. It's done to attempt to change things, to attempt
to get a message across. Not to feel good. People demonstrated against
war in Iraq because they didn't want it to happen, not because they
wanted to 'ave a larf.

The demonstrators clearly didn't invite him here and didn't want
him here,

No, but we have elected Governmnets to make big decisions like who
to recommend for State visits. You can always vote against them
for this (and other) reasons when the next Election comes along.

Let's take the example of a socialist. Who can they vote for? They can
vote for Labour (not socialist), the Conservatives (not socialist) or
the Lib Dems (not socialist). Or some party who won't get in because of
the way the electoral system is set up.

Let's take the example of someone who doesn't want Labour in government
but who lives in my constituency. Who should they vote for? Who cares?
They could vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party and it wouldn't make
a blind bit of difference because the only candidate who will ever be
elected in my constituency is a Labour candidate.

And by the way, you said you don't have any control over the EU. You
can vote for a member of the European parliament, so surely by your
standards you do have control over the EU.

o why they should care that Bush is a "GUEST" (any different
from "guest"?) is beyond me.

Because that's the way international relations work: Heads of
State are invited on State Visits. I don't recall much if any
demonstrations when Ceacescu was invited here by Callaghan, or a
dozen African dictators through the 1970s.

So? What do those visits have to do with the current subject? Obviously
there wasn't such a mass of public opinion against those people. End of
story.

If I invite Pinochet round to my house
does that mean that people who so desire should protest to me
about him getting away with murder? Or should they do the sensible
thing and protest about him?

If you invited Pinochet to your house presumably as a guest, you
would protect him from such protestors

Yes, I'd use my personal army of riot police. This is getting
ridiculous.

- or are you the sort of
person that would invite someone just so that their enemies can
have ago at them?

Well to be honest, you seem to have gone a bit mad here. I was talking
about a hypothetical situation to illustrate a point, and you've taken
it a little bit too far. I'm not really mates with Pinochet you know.
I'm not really in a position to ring him up and say "oi, Pinochet me
old mucker, feel like coming round for a visit?"

But some random asylum seeker is a person who hasn't done anything
to offend you beyond existing. It's not analogous to the mere
presence of asylum seekers, because it's not the presence of Bush
that they're protesting about. It's the things that Bush has done
and may yet do. It'd be like expressing your disagreement and
dislike of an asylum seeker who regularly kicked dogs if you were
opposed to the kicking of dogs.

I happen to know (as does the Government and most of the legal
profession) that the VAST majority of asylum seekers are here
simply as economic migrants, and I object in principle to them
coming here for that reason.

Doesn't the Government want free trade with the world? Isn't that what
globalisation and all those summits are about? Because if the
Government does want free trade, that involves free movement of labour
(ie economic migration).

And anyway, what's so bad about economic migration in your opinion? We
get a load of cheap labour to clean toilets and do the other jobs that
British citizens don't want to lower themselves to - sounds right up
your street.

That does not give me the right to
treat them unfairly, despit the fact that I daily see the harm
that their presence is doing to the GENUINE asylum seekers and
race relations generally. The problem is one caused by the
Government, and it is to it that I would address my objections.

This is something I've never understood about the whole asylum seeker
thing. Asylum seekers come here and are allowed to stay while their
case is being dealt with, and the government is blamed for this? They
came here themselves, the government didn't cause them to come here.

--
message by Robin May, but you can call me Mr Smith.
Hello. I'm one of those "roaring fascists of the left wing".

Then and than are different words!