re: the migration issue, think that we veered away from the migration theme as such, in order to generally rant about institutions and the narrow scope of analysis when solving problems within the institutional structure (lack of adequate theory). the point being that institutional discourse is a complete farce. suppose that 'migration policy' was merely a case.

"immigrants aim to better their lives. They may aspire to be as rich as us and in the US their earnings usually overtake those of native born citizens in 10-15 years" - "the slave doesn't want to be free, he wants to be a master as benevolent as his own"

you are saying immigrants flee persecution/poverty. persecution/poverty which is precipitated by western intervention in developing countries, colonial history and resulting power gradients. obviously one has to practically help these individuals, i'm all for solidarity. but whether this language allows us to look at the bigger picture (reflective of power gradient), is a different question.

my point: merely showing solidarity with immigrants is almost like carpet bombing a village and then handing the victims a first aid kit (which is what we do). policy debate on our end would then be re: how much money to spend on post-war aid. and we'd feel so benevolent about it too.

so in a sense, debating re: how much money should be spent on foreign aid is implicitly accepting the war, or the imperialism/economic protectionism that caused the war. 'britain needs more immigrants' debate then, is implicitly accepting the power gradient that causes persecution/poverty/war for migrants to flee from in the first place ie. not reflective, just symptomatic treatment (a.k.a. reactionary whitewash).

what about that ft-reading scumbag on the central line?

so the rant is largely about the lack of critical reflection in institutional discourse. which isn't anything new/surprising at all really... positivist social science will never uncover anything that may be inconvenient.

in any case, this wasn't supposed to be a qualitative assessment of your, benji's, postings, especially not on the personal level. they merely offered matter for talk/rant/expression, x