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Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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The US Supreme Court has ruled that asylum-seekers must ask for asylum at their first opportunity i.e. on reaching a safe country. The liberals are up in arms, "That'll mean Guatemala!" Yes, indeed. It's the difference between an economic migrant and an asylum-seeker. One is looking for a better life, the other life itself. It's very hard for tender-hearted people (among whom I count myself) to concur but countries are entitled to pick and choose between the two categories.

We are all selfish bastards when it comes right down to it. Except me, I'm an applied epistemologist and thus a desiccated thinking machine.
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Mick Harper
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Israeli politics resembles nineteenth century British politics in one respect. The UK Parliament had a large block of Irish Nationalist MP's who just wanted out; there were enough of them that they almost always held the balance of power between Conservatives and Liberals. Ditto Israel, where the equally large Arab bloc also wants out and holds the balance between Likud and whichever party represents the left/Ashkenazim -- currently the Blue and White Party. (I assume a reference to the Israeli flag.)

Both Liberals and Blue & White are the natural allies of the Irish/Arabs but cannot get too close without alienating the general British/Israeli electorate. In the end the British found the only way to get rid of the Irish MPs was by granting them independence and their own parliament but I do not know how Israel will solve their problem. They may look at the Potato Famine for lessons since that halved the problem more or less at a stroke. However it did not solve it. Indeed it may have laid its foundations. Tough gig.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Mick Harper wrote:
I'm an applied epistemologist and thus a desiccated thinking machine.


M'Lady was peering over my shoulder, and demanded an explanation : What are you wasting your time on now?

I explained Mick says he's desiccated... Desiccated what? came the sharp retort.

I finished what had been so rudely interrupted ... desiccated thinking machine.

More like a desiccated coconut if you ask me.

You just can't please some people.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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desiccated
1. having had all moisture removed; dried out.
2. lacking vitality or interest
.

When we paid our last visit we did find her coconut pyramids lacked vitality and interest. The toilets were clean and well presented.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Now that Gandhi has been outed as a racist perv hated by Ghanaians and the MeToo movement. https://n.pr/2Mf7M7o

Wiley is starting to wonder how many statues will actually be left?

Anyway the younger Gandhi according to his biographer thought in his 20s that Europeans are the most civilized. Indians were almost as civilized, and Africans were uncivilized.

Contra orthodoxy--Maybe he needed to hold his racist views to become a better person and a famous world leader?

We have come across many saints that have dodgy early histories and a midlife turnaround.
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Mick Harper
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I am a saint, I have a dodgy early history, I've had a midlife turnaround and I still think Europeans are the most civilized, Indians are almost as civilized and Africans are, albeit relatively, uncivilized.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Sadly no statues for MH. Unless, you have a deathbed conversion.

"I now see I was wrong about Europe, I had overlooked the two world wars......."

"Plinth for Mr Harper"
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Mick Harper
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You are, not for the first time, Wiley, too gnomic for easy comprehension. It is true there is a correlation between taking part in wars and the levels of civilisation attained (the cuckoo clock argument) but whether there is a direct cause-and-effect is not known, at least not by me.
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Mick Harper
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If you want to be an AE-ist you have to be heartless. You won't win many friends, especially with yourself, but ya gotta do it. So, the thirty-nine dead migrants in the lorry. They are not victims. They died almost literally of misadventure. All this talk of the difference between smuggling and trafficking is silly and sentimental. Everyone in Vietnam -- everyone -- knows the score. It's a long established route and thousands of people have communicated back home everything there is to know: you pay x amount of money, you take y amount of risk, you earn z amount of money.

"Human traffickers" are not wicked, they are criminals. They have to be. They are not exploiting anyone, they are providing a service. They no more have an interest in 'misadventures' during the journey, than they do in 'enslaving' their customers at the end of it. Indeed, they know full well that doing either will bring quite unnecessary amounts of law enforcement attention on themselves. Yes, they are entirely unscrupulous about getting paid by, for instance, arranging for their clients to be prostitutes or mussel collectors in deplorable conditions but that is what their customers signed up for.

Personally, I'd make the whole thing legal -- and exempt them from both anti-sex-worker laws and the minimum wage which would kill the trade stone dead, if I may put it like that -- but if we (the British) don't want cheap prostitutes and mussel collectors, then we have to do what we do to stop anything we don't like, and start treating the 'victims' as criminals, which is what they are. Lock them up, don't send them home. But like I say...
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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I've just tried explaining to M'Lady Boreades that Mick says we should employ prostitutes on a minimum wage.

The swelling is gradually going down, and I hope to be able to see out of both eyes soon.
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Mick Harper
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You are misreporting me -- I was arguing that they should be on less than minimum wage. That way they can choose what jobs they wish to do. If they want to be sex-workers, that's fine by me. If they are on the same wages as everyone else, i.e. the minimum wage, there is no reason why they would be favoured over anyone else and they certainly won't be because they are undocumented. They are obliged to do work that the traffickers arrange for them and the traffickers at least have an interest in maximising their wages.

The invaluable Channel 4 reportage from Vietnam summed up the situation very well. It has nothing to do with exploitation and everything to do with economic advancement. The Vietnamese actually said exactly that. The journey to Britain is extremely expensive, involving a legal bit (flights to Moscow and on to minor European capitals or to Paris via South America) and an illegal bit for the last leg into Britain (the only place that doesn't require ID cards). This is way outside the resources of any ordinary Vietnamese, individual or family, but it is the fervent desire of many Vietnamese individuals and families. Hence the squalor and danger of work in Britain. It has nothing to do with cruel gangmasters, it is the necessity to earn as much as possible in as little time as possible in necessarily adverse circumstances.

I'm on their side, remember. Everyone else, it seems to me, is on the side of the most grotesque and hypocritical sentimentality. But perhaps, Borry, your wife will put me straight on this.
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Boreades


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It looks like you are getting your daily exercise by leaping to conclusions.

Did it not occur to you that a person like M'Lady Boreades might just perchance consider the minimum wage a frivolous excess?
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:
You are misreporting me --
The invaluable Channel 4 reportage from Vietnam summed up the situation very well. It has nothing to do with exploitation and everything to do with economic advancement. The Vietnamese actually said exactly that. The journey to Britain is extremely expensive, involving a legal bit (flights to Moscow and on to minor European capitals or to Paris via South America) and an illegal bit for the last leg into Britain (the only place that doesn't require ID cards). This is way outside the resources of any ordinary Vietnamese, individual or family, but it is the fervent desire of many Vietnamese individuals and families. Hence the squalor and danger of work in Britain. It has nothing to do with cruel gangmasters, it is the necessity to earn as much as possible in as little time as possible in necessarily adverse circumstances.

I'm on their side, remember. Everyone else, it seems to me, is on the side of the most grotesque and hypocritical sentimentality. But perhaps, Borry, your wife will put me straight on this.


I personally didn't see much squalor in Vietnam, it looked affluent. That's the point, your ordinary folks can't afford their dreams or the traffickers' prices. No, it was the middle class dreamers that could afford to borrow the dosh. The local I saw interviewed (can't remember the channel) had previously been trafficked to Blighty where he had contributed to the nation by tending a cannabis factory.

The charges, of the lorry driver, are trafficking and conspiring to assist unlawful immigration. It does makes you wonder what folks were trafficked to do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49852678

https://bit.ly/34f2Syn
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Mick Harper
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I was equally astonished by Vietnam's obvious prosperity and progress, albeit from a disastrous base. This is hugely important when considering migrants from there. It is one thing coming from a failed state or a downright dangerous state but these were clearly straightforward economic migrants who wanted a short cut into the consumer society. People actually talked about 'getting a motorbike', 'building a nice house' and so forth. We're not talking refugees and, given Vietnamese family and village structures, we're not talking about the exploitation of the vulnerable young either.

Your point about what they were trafficked to do is also a good one. With reference to the young girls, it was 'to work in nail bars'. Now one thing British teenage girls are quite good at is nails so, like hairdressing, it is the lowest paid job there is. How long would it take a British teenage manicurist to save up the ten thousand pounds she owes to some pretty nasty and impatient people? And I don't mean her parents.

I couldn't help noticing that the males were quite cute looking as well but we know from the Chinese Morecambe Bay episode that they may be in a different situation.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Mick Harper wrote:
I was equally astonished by Vietnam's obvious prosperity and progress, albeit from a disastrous base.


Me too - so much so that I wondered - why do they want to come here?

Then a couple of stray neurons bumped into each other, and I recalled a conversation c.1978, with an ex HM Royal Marine, who had previously been on a tour of duty in Hong Kong. Where he had been offered "extra curricular" work, guarding oil rigs in Vietnam. From the Vietnamese? (I'd asked). No, from the Americans.

He was of the opinion that the main reason for the US going into Vietnam was to takeover from the French Total S.A. and get control of Vietnam's oil reserves. The US naturally thought it could do a better job of controlling Vietnam than the French had been doing. We all know how well that worked out. But roll forward 30+ years, when Vietnam was readmitted into the "world economy" they were now able to get massive loans from the WMF, but they had to mortgage their oil reserves to do so.

Against that background, perhaps any highly ambitious young people in Vietnam might understandably be tempted to follow the money?
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