by RICHARD MELLOR
WATCH THE RADIO INTERVIEW HERE
James O’Brien is very good here. The caller’s mind won’t be changed though because he’s dishonest about his real feelings and view of the world. He also probably reads the Daily Mail, the Express and other rags that also foster nationalist and racist views. I remember an English woman complaining to me that all these Somalis who come in and get all sorts of government handouts while she has to scrape by. At the time I checked with the CIA Factbook country stats about the percentage of Somalis in the UK, minimal. There’s only 12 million of them in the world.
Also, if we are talking about immigration or asylum seekers, and we have the same discussions here in the US with regard to immigrants from our southern border in particular (Canadians don’t flock here in droves, for one thing they have a health care system) we find the same attacks, they get all the handouts, overburden the miserable health care system we don’t have etc.
What has to be asked is why are they coming? People don’t leave their homes, communities and countries because they don’t like it there. The Irish didn’t flock to the US by the thousands because they didn’t like Ireland; it was a the policies of British colonialism that drove them out. This caller would not think for one minute that colonial policies in Africa, Imperial wars that the US and its UK partner have waged in the Middle east and elsewhere, are the cause of the mass immigration we are experiencing in the north. The Daily Mail, or the other rags like Murdoch’s news outlets will not explain this phenomena, but there’s no excuse for not knowing it.
Immigrants, people from different cultures and countries, different religions and appearances are the scapegoat’s for the collapse and slow death of the global capitalist system. yes, we live in a system. The capitalists know it. Their media knows it. The US has sent warships and nuclear subs to the Middle East in order to protect its colonial outpost there. So our enemies know what the cause is and that we live in a global system that they dominate. The US is not there to defend human beings and their right to live in peace. We know that. It’s not a coincidence that countries/regions where there is constant turmoil, and ongoing efforts by the US and its partners to institute regime change, are rich in raw materials, the Middle East, (Oil) Papua New Guinea, (Gold, Silver, Nickel Cobalt) Venezuela (Oil) Bolivia (Lithium) and many more. In the Russia/ Ukraine war, much of Ukraine’s land has been bought by western companies and the price of supplying arms for a war Ukraine can’t win is privatization.
So don’t fall fro the immigrant bashing. Before the people from the colonies came to the UK, the Irish were targeted with racist and xenophobic assaults. remember the fliers on boarding houses or rental unit windows, “No Irish. No Blacks No Dogs”.
Oh yes, and what about that King fellow who just got a 46 million pound raise when I was there last month. And he inherited some land in Cornwall. Start right there.
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
8-06-24