I like immigrants coming to Australia

I guess that with the current economic downturn, the reduction in demand from trading partners will ease the situation with regards to the skills shortage (that might end up being the understatement of the year). It doesn't make sense to keep on getting more skilled immigrants as the job situation tightens.

Remember the 1929 Depression? It was resentment of minority groups that were perceived to be richer that led to Fascism and Nationalism.

Something similar will happen here unless we're careful.  The point is that immigrants are generally 'raring to go'. They will do everything in their power to better their lives and that of their families.

Too many Aussies have become lazy. They can't get people to do the hard work that's required in remote locations - in mining, crop harvesting etc.  Some of these suburban bludgers have never known hardship. They've leached off mum and dad, and the government for long enough. They don't have any aim in life, except to go out and hoon around, but then stick them in a black shirt and feed them hatred and they might just find a new vocation.

On the other hand, new immigrants have already done it tough, and will do whatever they can to get ahead. As things gets tough, people like that who have worked their collective asses off will probably become the victims. Maybe the Asians will be the scapegoats this time, or more probably, Muslims.

I just hope we've learnt something from the Second World War. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself, and human nature will never change.  

yet any real environmentalist would see the need to cut immigration and the development of a population policy as called for by One Nation.

Apparently a financial crisis such as we're experiencing will change the demographics of our whole society - according to this - extract only. 

The most lasting fallout of the global financial crisis is unlikely to be economic. This is the nature of true financial disaster: in the long run it brings down ideas, recasts societies and redistributes power in a way that resonates far beyond its lifespan. One day, the markets will stabilise and even recover, but the political terrain will likely be altered irrevocably.

Economics is important precisely because it has the power to topple social dominoes. And it is in the realm of social politics that some of the most frightening possibilities of the financial crisis suggest themselves.

Consider the Great Depression, to which some are ominously likening this crisis. Latin America, which was hit particularly savagely because of its significant trade links with the US, retreated into a shrill form of nationalism. The result was the rise of fascism across the continent.

The Netherlands witnessed a series of riots, increased xenophobia, and the emergence of the National Socialist Party. And most infamously of course, there was Germany. With the national economy overwhelmingly financed by American loans, the collapse of the New York sharemarket had a devastating impact. A desperate working-class sought solace in communism, while an emasculated middle class leapt sharply to ultra-nationalism. The familiar consequence was the ascension of the Nazis, whose support base suddenly broadened.

This is what happens in times of great insecurity. As the foundations of our lives erode, we search for an anchor, and social politics very often provides it. When all else fails, we may still rally around old certainties: nation, culture, religion, race. We crave strong authority figures that can imbue us with certainty and articulate for us a sense of self. That often involves fabricating a scapegoat who becomes a mortal enemy

In Germany, of course, Jews principally fulfilled that function, becoming the victims of an entire mythology that blamed them for the economic difficulties of "real" Germans. Such virulent prejudice soothes the insecure.

The bad news for us is that malignant social politics have been slowly returning for a while in Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Britain, Denmark and Norway. And it is an affliction that spreads well beyond Europe in the form of radicalism in the Muslim world and Hindu and Buddhist nationalisms in Asia.

Ours is an age of hostile identity politics. These are not all directly referable to economic crises (even if they clearly have a relationship with the anxieties of globalisation), but they suggest something deeply troubling: that the world is rich in the kinds of xenophobic resources so easily amplified by economic turmoil.

Should the financial crisis become a global recession, there is no telling precisely what forms of extreme social politics might be unleashed. An explosion of anti-Americanism across Asia and Europe? Possibly. But what about America itself? Here, the seeds of xenophobic resentment are being sown.

Writing in The National Review, Michelle Malkin blames the crisis on illegal immigrants and Hispanics who were "greedy" enough to seek subprime loans. Blogging for the same publication, Mark Krikorian wonders if Washington Mutual's demise was caused by its propensity for employing Latinos and gays. On Fox News, Neil Cavuto blames congressmen who were "pushing for more minority lending" without disclosing that "loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster".

The audacity is extraordinary. Suddenly, this crisis is something poor blacks and Hispanics have inflicted on rich white people. That is beginning to sound, well, Germanic.

A reaction is inevitable: one that sees in the crisis the exploitation of poor black people who will lose their homes, by white fat cats who skip away from the rubble with millions. The potential cycle of conflictual identity politics is terrifying. And that is to say nothing of developments we cannot predict.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-markets-will-stabilise-but-then-what-happ...

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Sorry Muso - yes you did post about the racial and cultural problems we might have - I skimmed.  

But I don't think Rudd had the right to gamble using Australia as collateral.  There is a lot we don't know and won't know until it's too late.  The financial gurus are rubbing their hands with glee - especially Hank Poulson - US Treasury.  Rudd is an idiot, which really is all Australian PM's are - weak little puppets for the yanks.

Yes the Americans have come unstuck and their unsticking us along with them.

Grendel wrote on Oct 13^th, 2008 at 1:25pm:


Yep! We need less people.