Brexit

[steve25805 121,332]

16 hours ago, owlman76 said:

There is the problem, money, I'm sick to death of hearing wealthy businessmen whine on about how they'll lose money if they can't employ Poles, or Lithuanians, etc. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but since we have the 'minimum wage' over here, which is a legal requirement as far as I am aware, then how is it cheaper to employ foreigners than our own?

 

 

Brcause many sectors - eg construction - used to pay good wages far above the paltry minimum wage before cheap migrant labour was used to keep pay down. But the problem was never the migrants, it was the employers being allowed to exploit them in such a way to the detriment of all of us.

The minimum wage is only a low base below which pay cannot legally be dragged. But it is a base towards which higher rates of pay can be dragged down. 

[steve25805 121,332]

On ‎12‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 12:32 AM, 2prnot2p said:

I'm getting the sense that many UKers share my distaste for Germany.  Let me assure you of one thing.  If they ever tried to ramp up their military, I truly believe that the sane world would intervene.  (Please don't tell me that they are already doing this!)

My mom died in 2003.  She always held the belief that they will rise up again and repeat their actions of the two world wars.   Man, just the thought of that is horrifying.  They have always come across to me as having an air of superiority about them.  I don't consider myself a bigot  However, as my earlier post explains, I do have my reasons for feeling this way.  I'm just being honest.  I hope that's still allowed in our PC world.

 

A few might have some distaste. Many of these - like you apparently - still seem to think the very nation of Germany is a walking talking plot to achieve world domination, and have zero concept of how different the German nation, mindset and people are to that of 1940.

I had a German girlfriend a while back who was a lovely human being, her only real flaw being a lack of interest in pee, lol. She and her family were ardent anti-Nazis and anti-militarists. And they are typical of many others. The Germans are people very much like you and I. Whatever nationalistic BS some of them in the increasingly distant past might once have bought into was pretty much knocked out of them by the experience of World War 2. They have been a very different people since then - literally so today, since no German under 73 was even alive back then, and no one younger than their late 80s old enough to have played any serious role.

 

[steve25805 121,332]

MOD NOTICE

This is just a friendly warning to politely ask members to be a little careful in the expression of their opinions.

Site rule 4 states in part - Racism and homophobia will also not be tolerated

I fully understand that there has been no attempt to be deliberately mean or nasty to anyone, but we need to be careful. Being negative about entire peoples - eg the Germans - instead of merely some of them, is sailing close to the wind with this rule. We have members of other nationalities as forum members, including some Germans. 

If any such were to lodge complaints on the basis of one or two posts here, we as mods would have to act - in the first instance with warnings and edits. I know we would all hate to have to intervene in this way.

I am sure we can be as forthright as we feel the need to be without crossing any red lines re forum rules.

Thank you.

[likesToLick 9,826]

27 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

I also do not believe that as human beings we are any different to Germans or Frenchmen or Italians or Latvians or Poles or Spaniards. We all love, laugh, work, love our families.

Thank you Steve.  Your clear and thoughtful post expressed the issue much better than I could.

[likesToLick 9,826]

2 hours ago, steve25805 said:

A few might have some distaste. Many of these - like you apparently - still seem to think the very nation of Germany is a walking talking plot to achieve world domination, and have zero concept of how different the German nation, mindset and people are to that of 1940.

I am also quite stricken by the similarity between the modern racist propaganda that led to Brexit,  and the old Nazi propaganda of Hitler and Goebbels.

It seems that people can still be taken in by such simplistic stuff,  blaming other races or cultures for problems that have simply been caused by their own bad government.   Reading what the "leave" voters write,  they sound much more like Hitler's Nazis than modern day Germans do.

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3 hours ago, steve25805 said:

Because many sectors - eg construction - used to pay good wages far above the paltry minimum wage before cheap migrant labour was used to keep pay down. But the problem was never the migrants, it was the employers being allowed to exploit them in such a way to the detriment of all of us.

This could indeed be a major root of the discontent that people feel.

British people have been suffering.  Badly treated in the workplace,  wage cuts,  many forced into poverty,  health services gutted,  bedroom tax,  zero hours contracts,  universal credit,  the list goes on and on.

The cause of these problems is not immigrants or "Brussels".  The problem is only one thing.  Tories. Neocon economic fundamentalists.  Not just in the Conservative party, but also in the Blair faction of the Labour party.  The British working class has been robbed of its birthright.

Unfortunately,  these people are masters of propaganda.  They come out and say "We didn't do that to you.  It was those nasty brown people," and a big chunk of the population falls for the con.

The human rights rules of the EU are one of the few things that still protect British people from the worst of the Tory excesses.  If people think its bad now,  just wait and see how many kicks in the teeth they will get when that last layer of protection is removed.  They are not going to like it.  (Of course,  many of them will still go on blaming it on immigrants. That's much easier than paying attention to what is really happening.)

 

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by likesToLick