Yes you were right on one point but you challenged me on other points here and elsewhere and I was actually factually correct so get over your superiority complex, you aint all that hot yourself on facts!

I posted earlier today that I had made an error and that post 91 NATO & the UN did back the no fly zone but in Blair's reign there was no backing for a no fly zone. Desert Fox had no UN backing in 98, Blair was informed by his own legal team that the no fly zones were illegal. The US and the UK interpreted that as member states of the UN they could maintain and enforce no fly zones, they were wrong as it is only the organisation that can authorise the act and not the member. There are no references to no fly zones in any of the UN resolutions used by Bush and Blair to attack Iraq.

I typed the post about eight times and it didn't appear, I don't know why.

One tiny error amongst a wealth of posting across here. Put me against the wall and shoot me for such a terrible crime.

For the record, I wasn't quoting Pilger in any of it and my information wasn't from anything of his I might have read.

Oh and shame we didn't stop Saddam's murderous reign of terror on the Kurds by not selling him the ingredients in the first place, let alone do anything when it was actually happening.

It's also a shame that we didn't stop Turkey being able to attack the Kurds from 95 through to 2000 either and what's more our own RAF complained bitterly about being told to ignore what was happening, turn back to their base in Turkey whilst Turkey attacked and killed thousands upon thousands of the Kurdish people.

So yeh, we really cared about the Kurds and wanted to protect them didn't we?

Anyway, we've detracted from the article for too long which was originally about immigration, race and class.

From the article;

'It is crucial that racist and fascist politics remain firmly outside the mainstream'

I on the other hand would say that it is crucial we recognize what fascism really is.

After 30 odd years of neocon foreign and econominc policies USA and Britain ARE fascist states. It doesn't get much more bloody mainstream than that!

Stop worrying Lou, I'm only messin around with ya.

Lou - So it's extremist now to oppose the replacement of your own ethnic group with others who are invading and colonising its territory, is it?
Well, off you go and tell the Tibetans they are extremists not to welcome the colonisation of their homeland by Han Chinese.

Lou: this is who I am:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/tbr/tbr026.htm

even Buckskins knows

Some of those headlines from the Express/Mail are OTT, but you can't deny that we have been swamped by immigration over the last 20 years or so, and that has put immense pressure on public services, the NHS, schools and especially on wages. The white working class cannot fail to notice that while we're supposedly such a prosperous nation, many of us have seen our living standards drop immensely, due to public services approaching breaking point, wages getting depressed and being forced to work longer for less.

Moreover, many of the tight knit white working class communities have changed beyond recognition. I am not saying that change is a bad thing at all, but the scale and speed of change, combined with an reduction in our economic condition, has led to the current negative attitudes towards immigrants.

People who express fears over immigration are not racists, they are just worried about some of the effects that MASS immigration has had on this country. You cannot deny that the white working class have seen a reduction in their condition, and while immigration is by no means the only reason for this, it is one of the main ones.

In that link you posted of Mail/Express headlines, you posted a byline by Amanda Platell, Mail columnist, who criticises how immigrant mothers don't pay anything into the system before getting showered with benefits. This is exactly the same argument that Will Hutton, the Guardian journalist, has made in his book "Them and Us". He is not a raving far right bigot, as you can tell given that he's writing for the Guardian.

Moreover, Newnsight's Economics editor stressed in a report last March about how, wherever he goes in the country, the main issue that angers people is immigration, and the undercutting of wages by immigrants.

We need to have an honest debate about immigration, and perhaps the results of the poll may for once make politicians start paying attention to the white working class for the first time.

Yes EnragedBrit, your rhetoric is extreme... what you describe is just not happening, your ethnic group is not being replaced and you aren't being colonised or invaded.

You may feel like a minority in your own country but you really are not. You can access statistics on immigration from the Government websites and see for yourself that the white British native is safe and sound and not about to be driven from his home in some sort of mass white cleansing of the population by non white people.

I think you misrepresent Will Hutton's book, he argued for social justice for all and a fairer society and your arguments about the housing queue jumps and benefits are factually incorrect as has been pointed out to you with Govt statistics on many an article on NS. Clearly the facts are not the propaganda you wish to promote, dare I say that's because the facts show your argument up for it's inconsitencies & inaccuracies?

Finally, your comments always single out Muslims regarding immigration, are they the only immigrants coming in to this country?

Hold on, I specifically said in a previous comment that conflating immigration with Islam is the wrong thing to do. I have not singled out Muslims in any of my posts (if you're replying to me that is)

Immigration is good for business who receive a ready supply of cheap Labour, it's good for the middle/upper classes who get to use cheap cleaners and builders, and it's obviously good for the immigrants who are allowed to jump the queue in terms of social housing, and can receive benefits without paying anything into the system. Also, they get a job that pays really well relative to what they would receive back home.
Who doesn't benefit from immigration? The WWC, but of course, no one talks about them

The so called benefits from immigration have been called into question several teams, including a report by the House of Lords. I want to see a good argument from someone at the New Statesman why immigration is needed at all. We've got so many young, unemployed amongst the indigenous population, why do you want to make life harder for them by increasing the competition for scarce jobs?

A Searchlight poll discovers a majority of the population would consider voting Tory or New Labour.

However,

I apologise as I mixed up your comment on Will Hutton with Enraged Brit's. Apart from the Will Hutton point though ( the bit about misrepresenting his book ) my comment was to EnragedBrit.

Work, meaningful work, to fill the day, unlike The City of London/Sodom sold overseas for a song for just themselves and their mates.

That is what it is all about.

Life is simple, until you get these bankers manipulating things to give their own a good bonus at the end of the year.

Anyone north of Watford here ever got an end of year bonus in their life time?

I fecking think not since Thatcher times!

As long as the British public focus on the narrow view that it is the "immigrants" causing our problems then you will always be shafted by big business and the politicians!

This is exactly what they want you to focus on because if you actually focused on the truth of what is ailing our country then they will be in "real trouble"

The real culprits are CAPITALISM, BIG BUSINESS and POLITICIANS. This 3 entities work together to fleece us on daily basis, just look at the profiteering going on, the immigrants are small fish! This multi-nationals own our politicians!

The immigrants have always been brought here going back to the days of slavery, they have been encouraged to come and provide the cheap labor for our capitalism, our way of life is entwined with Capitalism and if the British public do not want immigrants they must be prepared to provide the cheap labor required by Capitalism. Capitalism is driven by cheap labor!!

I see people saying they do not want immigrants but still want high wages, that is wishful thinking, Capitalism will collapse without cheap labor!

You cannot separate Capitalism with cheap labor and cheap labor equals immigrants unless of course the white Brits will be happy to work long hours doing dirty jobs and being paid peanuts!

Are the racist peddlers willing to slog long hours, doing dirty work for peanut pay?

And the argument I'm making is not extreme. As I said, people like Will Hutton of the Guardian and Paul Mason (BBC newsnight) have made similar arguments, yet they're hardly what I would call far right loonies.

In Europe and the States the recent Immigration wave has brought both benefits and costs. However, all the costs are bourne by the Working class and the poor, and all the benefit go to the UPPER Middle Class and the Rich. The working folks see quiet plainly that they suffer for the benefit of the rich.

That the immigrants are pawns in a game they didn't choose to enter is vile. But can we really expect the workers and the poor to eternally bare the burden of the luxuries of the rich?

Would we want them to?

Midland Bank is an old farmers drover bank which was a bit Welsh, when they drove cattle and sheep to London and other concerntrated centres of required meat. and Midland Bank became part of HSBC, when, yes, I wished I would have been served by that boosmed teller, in Wind Street, in Swansea,