Is Kevin Myers racist? (1 Viewer)

[Kermit McDermott]

Race & immigration are political hot potatoes. Most people in public life don't want to give a strong opinion on the matter. If they do, their not going to be very popular for doing so. Chances are they're going to be labeled a racist or xenophobic. Myers idea that in the future the irish might become a minority in they're own country...I don't think that should happen either

 

[CITY BABY]

Race & immigration are political hot potatoes. Most people in public life don't want to give a strong opinion on the matter. If they do, their not going to be very popular for doing so. Myers idea that in the future the irish might become a minority in they're own country...I don't think that sould happen either

you have a point here, Everyones saying there needs to be discussion on imigration but no-ones fuckin doing it, this is a major fall down on the left, noone is willing to discuss immigration afraid of being labelled rascist and this is where the right (likes of myres etc.) and eventually the far right fill the vacum the left have left wide open.
The immigration issue should be taken up by the left not as a race or multicultral issue but one of the free market and capitalism. We keep being told how we need so many immigrants each year to sustain our economys growth, but yet absolutly nothing is being done to accomodate new commers into communties,bar the odd dont be rascist poster campaign, and these same newcommers are going to be the ones left high and dry when the economy no longer needs them, its a race to the fuckin bottom.
and the liberals cries against racism is just to keep up all happy and produtive under the boot of industry!

 

[CITY BABY]

Race & immigration are political hot potatoes. Most people in public life don't want to give a strong opinion on the matter. If they do, their not going to be very popular for doing so. Chances are they're going to be labeled a racist or xenophobic. Myers idea that in the future the irish might become a minority in they're own country...I don't think that should happen either

by the way this sort of talk is complete bollox scaremongering nonsense, the more right wing shite ya read the more their projected numbers increase ,I remember a anti-nice ICP poster claiming "vote yes to nice and have 25 million eastern eurpoeans flooding in" or some outlandish number like that

 

[shitepipe]

Race & immigration are political hot potatoes. Most people in public life don't want to give a strong opinion on the matter. If they do, their not going to be very popular for doing so. Chances are they're going to be labeled a racist or xenophobic. Myers idea that in the future the irish might become a minority in they're own country...I don't think that should happen either

women being raped by black aliens. i'm completely against it.

now lets have a considered debate on immigration. i'm not afraid to be unpopular here on this one.

 

[Vinnie]

Myers is the epitomy of everything that's wrong with this country. He is trying to be a voice that nobody called for espousing completely pointless polemics presenting himself as a fearless agent provacteur when in fact he's a pretty gutless and very lazy intellectual. The agents of public debate in this country are invariably canvassing controversy to get people reading instead of taking a rational and sincere look at Irish society and offering genuine insight and it makes me fucking sick to read. So I dont.

 

[Scientician 0.8]

by the way this sort of talk is complete bollox scaremongering nonsense, the more right wing shite ya read the more their projected numbers increase ,I remember a anti-nice ICP poster claiming "vote yes to nice and have 25 million eastern eurpoeans flooding in" or some outlandish number like that

Myers was quoting the President of DCU, Ferdinand von Prondzynski when he said that by 2050 the Irish might be a minority in Ireland. I think they mean plurality, ie the biggest group but not more than 50% of the total population. I haven't had a look at the stats and Myers did temper this with he didn't know he didn't have a crystal ball, just that that was one possibility.

 

[Goff]

Myers was quoting the President of DCU, Ferdinand von Prondzynski when he said that by 2050 the Irish might be a minority in Ireland. I think they mean plurality, ie the biggest group but not more than 50% of the total population. I haven't had a look at the stats and Myers did temper this with he didn't know he didn't have a crystal ball, just that that was one possibility.

Yes, but as usual, he was talking shite, just to stir it up, again showing his complete lack of understanding of how the world actually works. A lot of our Immigrants are going to leave when it doesn't suit them anymore. And if they don't, they'll be integrated. But the Oirish will not be a minority.

Myers is a self-publicising gobshite. Is he racist? Well, he hates the Irish, so possibly. Is he still sucking the Queen's cock in his columns?

 

[Diddles]

President of DCU, Ferdinand von Prondzynski

aka johnny forridner

 

[jane]

by the way this sort of talk is complete bollox scaremongering nonsense, the more right wing shite ya read the more their projected numbers increase ,I remember a anti-nice ICP poster claiming "vote yes to nice and have 25 million eastern eurpoeans flooding in" or some outlandish number like that

'zactly. 'Irish' is an identity that's always been mixed up, and it's always been changing, it's just that those changes have recently become more visible, or visible in ways that people aren't so comfortable with. People can look at it in different ways, but the fact is, what 'Irish' is will become much more broadly defined. so yeah, when people say 'Irish minority', they mean 'white, non-mongrel race'. And so it's pretty racist to even suggest that there will be more foreigners than Irish people: they're only 'outsiders' if Irish people refuse to let them 'in' and accept that they're not just here to do the jobs no one else wants, or fill 'high skilled gaps' in the labour market.

The more Irish people treat foreigners like the hired help, the less we're/they're going to integrate, and every time the Brothers Lenihanihov talk about it in labour terms, the further away from integration they'll move. Maybe one Lenihan is trying to start a race war so the other Lenihan can swoop in and clamp down for the sake of his Justice portfolio?

There are a bunch of problems when it comes to immigration stuff. First of all, immigrants never seem to be included in the immigration discussion. There's all this talk about how badly we're needed, but then, if you need us so badly, why aren't our needs ever taking into account, why doesn't anyone ask us what we want? The government is running like an employment agency, where they 'hire' foreigners for the country and we''fill gaps' for a while until we're chucked out. I came here as a student under the impression I'd be able to work when I was done, and I'm not. So how the hell I'm gonna pay for this degree I can't use, I don't know. I was talking to a Japanese woman who just finished a degree in NCAD and she can't figure out what she's allowed to do -- which is kinda nothing -- now that she paid double for a degree she can't use in a country where she now has roots.

And I fucking cry when I see the politicians blatantly lie to the media about shit like that because I have to pay 40,000 back to the US government that was taken off me by a university who refused to speak to me for five years in a country where I have only the rights that the university wants me to have, which at the moment, are 'shut up and obey our orders'. The company or university who brought you here owns your whole person, control everything you do, but because the country only cares about you as an economic unit, you have absolutely no value to anyone. And now there's no payoff for paying double for everything -- you never get that self-determination back, you either get turned over to someone else or you leave with a huge amount of debt and some useless training/education/experience.

The stress of simply being here, with someone else having total power over you, I don't know how I've stuck it for this long. we have no freedom of movement, no self-determination, nothing. And we're moving further and further away from an IReland where foreigners will EVER have that. There's a new underclass and new, more restrictive policies will keep them there, not in the informal way that classism has always worked in Irish society, but in a very real way, a caste system created through policies meant to 'protect' Ireland and some vague and distant and totally romanticised notion of pure Irishness.

One serious problem, which is very real, is that you can't include the immigrants who REALLY NEED to be included in the debate because the reason they really need inclusion is because their situation is so precarious. Even I can't publish anything about my experience because it might end up as the deal-breaker in the "Should we or shouldn't we deport her?" question. And in the immigrant pecking order, I'd be among the most coddled and least hassled, so whatever happens to me is teeny tiny, practically invisible potatoes.

So the stuff that's really happening, the terrible effects of policies on everyday people's everyday lives never gets discussed because we are not safe to talk about it ourselves, and people generally go, "Oh, that's terrible.....[pause] lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" It's not 'sexy' enough for activists, and it's just plain not seen as properly disgraceful. The government is only giving passports to rich people (or those who make over 60k a year) and no one seems to give a fuck. People say they care about immigration, but they seriously don't know a thing about the policies in place, or the ones proposed, which are much more terrifying. Is it only when this new Immigration bill passes, which stomps all over human rights, that people will shake their heads and go, "Oh, that's terrible."?

People from the NGOs are the only ones who make sense, and put forward these issues, but they get painted as these lefty loonies. They're fucking not, they just happen to have the realities and the effects of policies in front of their faces every day. And the only people with voting power are those who can pick and choose when they think about immigration. So the decisions are made FOR immigrants largely by those who care the least about what happens to us, and mainly by people who don't see any problem in seeing us as some kind of threat (because look who is in power!).

It will never be possible to have a reasoned debate on immigration when it's a bunch of white guys giving only those reasons that are of concern to them. Conor Lenihan, on the first day of Ramadan, was standing in front of the Clonskeagh mosque with an Imam and called it a 'church'. There's yer integration.

LAstly, I think Mr Myers should be reminded that HE IS ALSO A FUCKING IMMIGRANT. Christ. So when he says 'immigrants' he is a.) living in his Last Days of the Raj Kildare Colonialist Fantasy and b.) talking about Eastern Europeans and black folk. When the factual reality is that the greatest number of immigrants BY FAR in IReland are returning Irish from the US and people moving here from the UK. By FAR, I mean. There aren't even as many of us yanks as you might think. I was surprised when I saw the stats.

FUCKING HELL, CITY BABY, can I borrow your blood pressure meds?

*sob*

By the way, if you think it's bad now, check this out: http://ris.ie/news/RIS4pp.pdf

 

[jane]

Oh god.

Sorry about that, everyone.

My rant gates opened, and it all just came out.

The short version is:

Why aren't immigrants ever included in the immigration debate?

Why doesn't anyone point out that the biggest group of 'foreign nationals' living in Ireland are those from the UK? So if Kevin Myers wants to reduce the number of immigrants living in Ireland, etc etc?

That is all.













No, it's not. Sorry again.

 

[jane]

Just noticed an inconsistency in my argument there. If Kevin is an immigrant, then he's being included in the debate, yes.

But he's far from integrated, unless you count living in the pre-War of Independence Anglo-Irish lifestyle.

 

[therealjohnny]

but yet absolutly nothing is being done to accomodate new commers into communties,bar the odd dont be rascist poster campaign,

A guy who works with my girlfriend emigrated from Africa almost ten years ago and has been living in Dublin with his Irish wife ever since. He attended a community meeting on integration where locals and newly arrived immigrants were encouraged to attend

He was the only black person there.

So obviously the idea of neighbourhoods having these meetings isn't appealing..and to be honest I'm not entirely surprised if I put myself in their position.


But the main reason I'm posting this is so I can put this here..

 

[jane]

I don't htink I'd go, either. Any time my foreignness is available for use as justification for someone else's outrageous behaviour, it seems to be used. "You're in Ireland now, sweetheart" is uttered more frequently than almost any other statement. Why would I go to a meeting where the notion that 'we' aren't integrating properly is even entertained as a vaguely valid statement, when actually, most of us, when the issue of Teh Foreigns is brought up, end up listening to some fucking prick go on about What It's Like In Ireland, or You Don't Understand Because It Used To Be Just Us Irishes And We Liked it Fine And If You Want To Stay You Have To Play By Our Rules So Now We Will Use This Supposed Integration Meeting To Explain Them To You So Don't Say You Weren't Told.

A lot of people really only like immigrants so long as they're singing and dancing and being quaint. I'm sure a lot of sound folk would go to the integration meeting, but to be honest, all it takes is one prick who thinks explaining the rules to foreigns or being patronising is akin to being 'welcoming' to wreck the buzz.

And, as evidenced by even people on here sometimes, even the smallest critique of any aspect of Ireland and all of a sudden we're painted as bigots and told -- ha ha ha -- to go back where we came from.

The fucking scariest thing is that it hasn't taken long for a lot of even supposedly pro-immigrant-hooray people to develop the same sort of love-it-or-leave-it attitude that super-ignorant American racists love to haul out.

 

[liza]

But the main reason I'm posting this is so I can put this here..

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[Diddles]

This site is funny:

http://myerswatch.blogspot.com/

Cruiskeen Eile's Myerswatch (watching Kevin Myers since 2006) is the Number 1 result on Google when the term "mad irish bastard" is entered into a fresh, virginal search field.

 

[Unicron]

He thinks immigrants should be made to conform to the norms of Irish society and law. He thinks that outward signs of religious devotion shouldn't be allowed (?!) such as veils etc.

He should fuck off to France then.

 

[jane]

Hm, where is his ideal country, I wonder?

It's gotta have the misogyny of Afghanistan, the homophobia of Iran (and both of their loves of public execution), the world war obsession of the Home Counties, Hitler's love of animals, the deep trauma of Northern Ireland, the cultural snobbery of France, the Australians' and Americans' love for locking up brown people, the Maltese love of taking almost zero asylum-seekers, and the authoritarian streak of that fucking sheriff in Arizona who makes prisoners live in tents and endure daily public humiliation....I don't know, maybe he should have his own country? Maybe there is a man who IS an island just waiting to happen?

 

[c0De_n1NjA]

"Is Kevins Myers Racist" is the name of band ye idiots!! this thread is supposed to be about them! Chuckle!

 

[JohnnyRaz]

I want to buy him a time-machine and send him back to some croquet lawn in Oxfordshire just in time for high tea and World War I.

better still, send him back to a trench in flanders just in time to order some working class squadies over the top into the teeth of the german guns. i betcha he would have written really crap war poetry as well!

 

[david jatt]

He has a point regarding Rosanna Flynn and her bedsit lobby group Residents against Racism, who it seem are quick to dole out charges of racism against anyone who wants to debate the issue of immigration. It seems she would welcome Robert Mugabe and a boatload of Serbian war criminals with open arms into the county.