18 July, 2012
Quotes of the day
My apologies for the ongoing dearth of quality bigotry, racism, unrighteousness and general downright unpleasantness on this blog. Even us retired baby-boomer scum, reduced to sitting all the livelong day in Wetherspoons, sipping Russian lager, tutting over CiF and wondering how to spend our bloated final-salary pensions, occasionally find what's going on in the world so fucking bizarre as to be beyond comment. My flabber has been so comprehensively gasted that I am currently waiting for a nice Polish gentleman to find time to fit me with a new flabber (handcrafted by ethical Chinese slave labour and covered in finest halal pigskin which has been depilated using only the urine of untrafficked Moldovan virgins — or so Marek assures me).
Anyway, here's a brace of quotes to be going on with. First, professional arsehole and IPPR apparatchik Matt Cavanagh, writing at CiF about the Census results, reassures us that we are not overpopulated and that ongoing mass immigration into the UK is a jolly good thing
It's difficult to know how to respond to that kind of nonsense; it's just pig-ignorant belligerent git down the pub sort of logic. So, in this magic world, will we eat each other for food and burn our shit for energy? Or will it be the other way round?
I do find it curious how the attitude of the Left to overpopulation has shifted. Forty years ago, any left-leaning environmentally-engaged commenter would have taken a Malthusian view, that resources were finite, whatever the mitigating effect of technological improvement, and that we could not support unlimited human population growth, whether or not in growing prosperity.
Now the issue of unsustainable population growth is completely off the table. Odd that. Mind you, during the Sixties and Seventies the (native) population of the developed West was still growing steadily. One could argue about the threat to sustainability by pointing at ever-increasing numbers of fat, greedy White people gobbling up finite resources.
That no longer applies. The ongoing growth in population comes almost entirely from the Third World and must therefore be actually celebrated. I recall a BBC programme marking the passing of the 7-billion mark in world population. A random but picturesque rural shack in Malawi was selected to symbolically represent the birthplace of the 7 billionth child. We were invited to rejoice in the fecundity of the Malawian people.
I also remember, if rather vaguely, a BBC World Service radio programme in which a former US international official (diplomacy, NGOs, that sort of thing) recalled a conversation with a senior government minister in Bangladesh. "Your country is poor, waterlogged and massively overpopulated. And the population is growing. How will you deal with this?", asked the American. "No problem", came the reply, apparently in all seriousness. "We will simply export our surplus population to the West."
Ain't doublethink and entitlethink wonderful? No worries, just raid the freezers of the rich and throw another banker on the fire.
I'll leave it to veteran CiF commenter haardvark to have the last word,
Anyway, here's a brace of quotes to be going on with. First, professional arsehole and IPPR apparatchik Matt Cavanagh, writing at CiF about the Census results, reassures us that we are not overpopulated and that ongoing mass immigration into the UK is a jolly good thing
As for those modern-day Malthusians who worry about whether we are recklessly contributing to a global population crisis, it's worth considering that if the entire population of the planet – estimated to have passed 7 billion last year – lived like the residents of Tower Hamlets or Kensington and Chelsea, they would all fit in an area the size of France. Again, global demographics do raise serious issues, but they concern urbanisation and the efficiency and inequality in how we use resources, more than sheer numbers.
[my emphasis]
It's difficult to know how to respond to that kind of nonsense; it's just pig-ignorant belligerent git down the pub sort of logic. So, in this magic world, will we eat each other for food and burn our shit for energy? Or will it be the other way round?
I do find it curious how the attitude of the Left to overpopulation has shifted. Forty years ago, any left-leaning environmentally-engaged commenter would have taken a Malthusian view, that resources were finite, whatever the mitigating effect of technological improvement, and that we could not support unlimited human population growth, whether or not in growing prosperity.
Now the issue of unsustainable population growth is completely off the table. Odd that. Mind you, during the Sixties and Seventies the (native) population of the developed West was still growing steadily. One could argue about the threat to sustainability by pointing at ever-increasing numbers of fat, greedy White people gobbling up finite resources.
That no longer applies. The ongoing growth in population comes almost entirely from the Third World and must therefore be actually celebrated. I recall a BBC programme marking the passing of the 7-billion mark in world population. A random but picturesque rural shack in Malawi was selected to symbolically represent the birthplace of the 7 billionth child. We were invited to rejoice in the fecundity of the Malawian people.
I also remember, if rather vaguely, a BBC World Service radio programme in which a former US international official (diplomacy, NGOs, that sort of thing) recalled a conversation with a senior government minister in Bangladesh. "Your country is poor, waterlogged and massively overpopulated. And the population is growing. How will you deal with this?", asked the American. "No problem", came the reply, apparently in all seriousness. "We will simply export our surplus population to the West."
Ain't doublethink and entitlethink wonderful? No worries, just raid the freezers of the rich and throw another banker on the fire.
I'll leave it to veteran CiF commenter haardvark to have the last word,
On immigration, the Guardian is the gibbering sailor on the deck of the Titanic still insisting it is unsinkable. The facts don't actually matter.
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 13:30 
Comments:
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I bloody love the Guardian.
Only there can you find people who can argue put of one side of their mouth that immigration hasn't impacted the housing supply, whilst snivelling from the other side about the blessed Margaret selling council houses to their long term occupants, as though this made them mysteriously disappear forever from the national housing stock.
Cnuts.
Only there can you find people who can argue put of one side of their mouth that immigration hasn't impacted the housing supply, whilst snivelling from the other side about the blessed Margaret selling council houses to their long term occupants, as though this made them mysteriously disappear forever from the national housing stock.
Cnuts.
# posted by 
: 18 July, 2012 23:22
: 18 July, 2012 23:22
Excellent stuff as usual Edwin.
IPPR are a complete joke. They seem to favour the country at large being 'enriched' by third world immigration, but go to the 'Our People' page on their website, and you'll notice they don't employ a single brown or black male (I counted 46 employees or 'interns' on their books). A very selective form of 'diversity' there. They do however employ Will Straw (son of Jack) and a young woman called Mulley (niece or granddaughter of Fred, perhaps ?). Where is Trevor Phillips & his Equality and Human Rights Commission ? It would appear that having family connections to Labour cabinet ministers trumps mere ethnicity in their employment policy. Is that allowed in 2012?
The article itself is a re-working of a feature Beeboid journo (and my drippingly wet namesake)Mark Easton did a couple of weeks ago as a softening up exercise prior to the release of the census data-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096
Britain an overcrowded island ? That's just a myth cooked up by those right wingers at Migration Watch dear boy !
IPPR are a complete joke. They seem to favour the country at large being 'enriched' by third world immigration, but go to the 'Our People' page on their website, and you'll notice they don't employ a single brown or black male (I counted 46 employees or 'interns' on their books). A very selective form of 'diversity' there. They do however employ Will Straw (son of Jack) and a young woman called Mulley (niece or granddaughter of Fred, perhaps ?). Where is Trevor Phillips & his Equality and Human Rights Commission ? It would appear that having family connections to Labour cabinet ministers trumps mere ethnicity in their employment policy. Is that allowed in 2012?
The article itself is a re-working of a feature Beeboid journo (and my drippingly wet namesake)Mark Easton did a couple of weeks ago as a softening up exercise prior to the release of the census data-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096
Britain an overcrowded island ? That's just a myth cooked up by those right wingers at Migration Watch dear boy !
# posted by : 19 July, 2012 06:12
: 19 July, 2012 06:12
"Now the issue of unsustainable population growth is completely off the table"
That's because "sustainability" is the new apostle's creed of the left.
That's because "sustainability" is the new apostle's creed of the left.
# posted by : 19 July, 2012 08:59
: 19 July, 2012 08:59
"That's because "sustainability" is the new apostle's creed of the left."
Except where it is trumped by "victimhood".
I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with understanding and managing resources sensibly, including planning for or mitigating their depletion and succession. What's interesting in this case is that such planning, plausibly sensible whether or not you agree with its assumptions in detail, has simply been cast aside in favour of the perceived needs of an approved victim class.
If population growth in the UK were being driven by high fertility among the indigenous population supplemented by the large-scale return of descendants of the British diaspora from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the likes of Matt Cavanagh and Mark Easton would be screaming blue murder about the environmental impact: the country is full and cannot take any more people, they would be claiming.
But because growth is driven by the large-scale immigration and higher fertility of, well let's call them "Darkies" for short, shall we, including people granted honorary "White Darkie" victim status when convenient, like the Poles, the entire logic is turned on its head. I find the hypocrisy in that quite astounding.
The Easton article linked to above by Mark is breathtakingly innumerate. Easton is basically saying, "Look at that big field with only two houses on it. Plenty of space to build a whole estate there. What's the problem?" The problem, Marky baby, is that unless you seal up the mouths and arseholes of the new residents, you are going to need farms to grow food for them, reservoirs replenished by natural water cycles to provide them with fresh water, sewers to take away their waste, sewage treatment works to process it and somewhere to dispose of the processed waste. Power stations to provide electricity and sources of fuel to power the power stations. Roads, transport infrastructure, administration, shops, schools, etc, etc.
Instead he has the gall to stand there and say, "Hey, look at that empty mountain over there. Plenty of room to build on that."
Except where it is trumped by "victimhood".
I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with understanding and managing resources sensibly, including planning for or mitigating their depletion and succession. What's interesting in this case is that such planning, plausibly sensible whether or not you agree with its assumptions in detail, has simply been cast aside in favour of the perceived needs of an approved victim class.
If population growth in the UK were being driven by high fertility among the indigenous population supplemented by the large-scale return of descendants of the British diaspora from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the likes of Matt Cavanagh and Mark Easton would be screaming blue murder about the environmental impact: the country is full and cannot take any more people, they would be claiming.
But because growth is driven by the large-scale immigration and higher fertility of, well let's call them "Darkies" for short, shall we, including people granted honorary "White Darkie" victim status when convenient, like the Poles, the entire logic is turned on its head. I find the hypocrisy in that quite astounding.
The Easton article linked to above by Mark is breathtakingly innumerate. Easton is basically saying, "Look at that big field with only two houses on it. Plenty of space to build a whole estate there. What's the problem?" The problem, Marky baby, is that unless you seal up the mouths and arseholes of the new residents, you are going to need farms to grow food for them, reservoirs replenished by natural water cycles to provide them with fresh water, sewers to take away their waste, sewage treatment works to process it and somewhere to dispose of the processed waste. Power stations to provide electricity and sources of fuel to power the power stations. Roads, transport infrastructure, administration, shops, schools, etc, etc.
Instead he has the gall to stand there and say, "Hey, look at that empty mountain over there. Plenty of room to build on that."
There is a huge movement afoot to keep trying to convince the poor people of this nation that immigration is great (we were all once foreigners ourselves, apparently) and every new arrival brings joy, vibrancy and new thinking to these islands.
Well, yes... to a point. If I sit in my garden i hear nothing but the happy chatter of not-English around me as curry smells waft over the hedge. I see people on the street who prefer not to be English (or British, as we now must be) out in their tribal pyjamas or black bags but I have to be happy that some of them pay tax, though no one ever seems to produce any figures.
Oh well, they probably pay their TV licence... well, if the enforcers can manage to get round them to check that is.
There is much to be said about how the immigration policy of the past government has wrecked a lot in this country, and threatens to wreck more. You can provide your own examples.
My newest observation right now is that the arts, that delight of the lovely champagne-sipping left, is not going to be supported by many immigrants no matter what.
Not unless you want to see Swan Lake in burqas and Les Mis declared 'haram'
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Well, yes... to a point. If I sit in my garden i hear nothing but the happy chatter of not-English around me as curry smells waft over the hedge. I see people on the street who prefer not to be English (or British, as we now must be) out in their tribal pyjamas or black bags but I have to be happy that some of them pay tax, though no one ever seems to produce any figures.
Oh well, they probably pay their TV licence... well, if the enforcers can manage to get round them to check that is.
There is much to be said about how the immigration policy of the past government has wrecked a lot in this country, and threatens to wreck more. You can provide your own examples.
My newest observation right now is that the arts, that delight of the lovely champagne-sipping left, is not going to be supported by many immigrants no matter what.
Not unless you want to see Swan Lake in burqas and Les Mis declared 'haram'
# posted by : 23 July, 2012 17:25
: 23 July, 2012 17:25 << Home
