The problem with Tucker Carlson.

[James Wilkinson]

There's no problem in acknowledging the reality that immigration helps nations with declining birthrates shore up their labor forces and retirement systems. But that's not what alt-righters like Carlson are doing.

Carlson is instead arguing that one political party has all but declared war on white people by conspiring to exacerbate immigration by non-whites in order to secure electoral strongholds. If you think this might be true, then just admit it so we can have an honest debate.

“The Democratic party is trying to supplant the current electorate, the voters casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the third world," he asserts. "That’s what’s happening actually, let’s just say it, that’s true.”

It's not enough to note the increase in refugees largely fueled by first- and second-order effects of the climate crisis. These global trends must be reduced to a sinister, partisan, anti-white conspiracy.

I have to believe there'd be a greater reflexive aversion to such insidious ethnonationalist demagoguery around here if the JFK assassination research community weren't so disproportionately white, let alone aged and, yes, male.

Edited December 21, 2022 by James Wilkinson

[Matthew Koch]

18 minutes ago, James Wilkinson said:

I have to believe there'd be a greater reflexive aversion to such insidious ethnonationalist demagoguery around here if the JFK assassination research community weren't so disproportionately white, let alone aged and, yes, male.

  There wasn't any talk of "insidious ethonationalist demagoguery" around here until you showed Cliché Guevara, sounds like you've read too many Noam Chompsky books. Watch this Tucker segment, it's relevant given your last sentence... 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, James Wilkinson said:

There's no problem in acknowledging the reality that immigration helps nations with declining birthrates shore up their labor forces and retirement systems. But that's not what alt-righters like Carlson are doing.

Carlson is instead arguing that one political party has all but declared war on white people by conspiring to exacerbate immigration by non-whites in order to secure electoral strongholds. If you think this might be true, then just admit it so we can have an honest debate.

“The Democratic party is trying to supplant the current electorate, the voters casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the third world," he asserts. "That’s what’s happening actually, let’s just say it, that’s true.”

It's not enough to note the increase in refugees largely fueled by first- and second-order effects of the climate crisis. These global trends must be reduced to a sinister, partisan, anti-white conspiracy.

I have to believe there'd be a greater reflexive aversion to such insidious ethnonationalist demagoguery around here if the JFK assassination research community weren't so disproportionately white, let alone aged and, yes, male.

Maybe.

Keep in mind the most ardent immigrationists in US history were...the slavers. They were also "shoring up" US labor.

Chinese labor was brought in to build railroads for magnates, competing with Irish.

Suppose large-scale immigration depresses wages below the point where the employee-class reproduces? Then you need immigrants....

Carlson may be all the awful things people say. 

But bashing domestic labor through immigration is an old, old class warfare card. 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Maybe.

Keep in mind the most ardent immigrationists in US history were...the slavers. They were also "shoring up" US labor.

Chinese labor was brought in to build railroads for magnates, competing with Irish.

Suppose large-scale immigration depresses wages below the point where the employee-class reproduces? Then you need immigrants....

Carlson may be all the awful things people say. 

But bashing domestic labor through immigration is an old, old class warfare card. 

Agree - This flooding the market with labour is great for big corporations and keeping their wage bills low. Politicians will always dress it as something else. Its no different this side of the Atlantic. 

[Benjamin Cole]

23 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

Agree - This flooding the market with labour is great for big corporations and keeping their wage bills low. Politicians will always dress it as something else. Its no different this side of the Atlantic. 

The professional classes are brought along too, seduced by low cost maids and gardeners, nannies, cheaper waitstaff in restaurants, etc. 

This sets up the most appalling class snobbery imaginable, sometimes mixed with condescending ID-politics PC-ism. 

 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

No, the same old doctrinaire solutions don't apply in the U.S. Chris,

Ben, Same old, same old, you're not in the country and your only lens in evaluating this is the newest headlines you're getting about the borders from right wing media.. 

I don't think I can fault anything James has said on this forum yet.

Re: immigration, in the U.S. We currently have a situation where there's almost 2 workers for every person willing to work. A lot of the low wage jobs, and where you see  a lot of hiring signs is  in service industry, restaurants, fast food, cleaning hotels, and of course out in the fields. And you see overwhelmingly white people  simply won't take those jobs.

Sensible immigration is needed but the Republicans brand the Democrats as being for open borders like you Ben and the Democrats brand  Republicans for being for closed borders.Both sides know it's false but won't work each  other. There are a lot of restaurants, hotels , farms that are small businesses that are struggling to survive.The situation now is stupid, in that people are allowed in the country to wait for the immigration case, and they can't work. Right now, instead of scoring na na na points loading people up to Martha's Vineyard.  We need people in the fields. They could be directing people to where the jobs are, on a short term basis,  just like in the old bracero programs. .

The Fed is on a crusade to strangle the hot economy by raising interest rates to bring down inflation..In normal cycles,  their primary aim would be to bring down wage inflation to the working person, but that's not working very well, though inflation has cooled somewhat. They could well force the nation into recession with this  draconian series of  of interest rates hikes they are doing, but they keep pushing on because the decline in wage inflation hasn't happened, but that's because it appears we're heading to a white collar, not a blue collar recession.Though it's not conclusive we're heading to a recession. The danger is that they can't know the effects of their current policy as it's been  front loading and they typically don't see the effect for a year or so after they begin. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Kirk Gallaway

[Benjamin Cole]

"A lot of the low wage jobs, and where you see  a lot of hiring signs is  in service industry, restaurants, fast food, cleaning hotels, and of course out in the fields. And you see overwhelmingly white people  simply won't take those jobs."---Kirk

Oh, people of any color will take those jobs, when wages get high enough. 

BTW, visit Las Vegas. You will see lots of people, of various ethnicities (one of the least important aspect of a person) working in all sorts of jobs. Unionized labor means hotel workers are well-paid. 

There is a solution to "labor shortages." It is called higher wages, to being supply and demand back into balance. 

Your solution, labor-bashing through heavy immigration, is the solution of the last 50 years. And wages have been stagnant since 1972 (and really less than stagnant. Check out housing rents on the West Coast).  

Frankly, the Donks are lost, foundering and way out to to sea on this issue, joining Ronald Reagan and his rhapsodizing about immigration, c. 1980. 

In fact, the Donks are the 'Phants of 1980. No? 

Tell me again: Is a Liz Cheney-HRC ticket in the cards 2024? One of them wears glasses in public---that's how you tell them apart. 

 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

A lot of the low wage jobs, and where you see  a lot of hiring signs is  in service industry, restaurants, fast food, cleaning hotels, and of course out in the fields. And you see overwhelmingly white people  simply won't take those jobs.

This is something that happens throughout the west, Kirk, not some exception in the US. As families shift up the social ladder, they then won’t work at McDonalds or in jobs that they believe are beneath them. In Britain they’d often rather claim state benefits than work doing something that they deem is beneath their social status. Thats a sad reality. 
 

28 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Sensible immigration is needed but the Republicans brand the Democrats as being for open borders like you Ben and the Democrats brand  Republicans for being for closed borders.Both sides know it's false but won't work each  other. There are a lot of restaurants, hotels , farms that are small businesses that are struggling to survive.The situation now is stupid, in that people are allowed in the country to wait for the immigration case, and they can't work. Right now, instead of scoring na na na points loading people up to Martha's Vineyard.  We need people in the fields. They could be directing people to where the jobs are, on a short term basis,  just like in the old bracero programs.

I think we can all agree that we need sensible immigration, and that is where the point of friction comes, determining how this is controlled. 
 

30 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

The Fed is on a crusade to strangle the hot economy by raising interest rates to bring down inflation..In normal cycles,  their primary aim would be to bring down wage inflation to the working person, but that's not working very well, though inflation has cooled somewhat. They could well force the nation into recession with this  draconian series of  of interest rates hikes they are doing, but they keep pushing on because the decline in wage inflation hasn't happened, but that's because it appears we're heading to a white collar, not a blue collar recession.Though it's not conclusive we're heading to a recession. The danger is that they can't know the effects of their current policy as it's been  front loading and they typically don't see the effect for a year or so after they begin.

Are you focussed on the bigger picture here, Kirk? They knew exactly the impacts of their pandemic policies, before they even begun them. Meanwhile, people like yourself are sifting through the rubble trying to make sense of it or acting like it is chance. It’s a dispossession of wealth on a monumental scale, and its the poor and middle class that are the victims. 
 

I am pleased you said you agree with pretty much everything James has said thus far on the forum. As it is perhaps the most transparent disclosure of your actual position. Thank you for the clarity. 
 

PS - Repetition, I know.

 

[Matt Allison]

47 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

The Fed is on a crusade to strangle the hot economy by raising interest rates to bring down inflation..In normal cycles,  their primary aim would be to bring down wage inflation to the working person, but that's not working very well, though inflation has cooled somewhat.

Until the issue of middle-class destruction is addressed, the problems will continue.

I have a family member that was living in Peru until the recent political unrest there; he had to move because he's got money, which made him a target. And what's happening in Peru has been seen dozens of times before: the wealthy rig the system in their favor, leaving a populace where the vast majority is poor, there's no middle class, and then the small percentage that are wealthy hoard all the assets. Which then invariably leads to deadly uprisings.

It's stupid, tiresome and preventable.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Ben: There is a solution to "labor shortages." It is called higher wages, to being supply and demand back into balance. 

Labor shortages are measured my the number of available jobs to people who are available to work. and it's been very high  right now So we're in a labor  shortage. Right? Weren't you're sort of into economics? Do you believe checking labor statistics or is that a conspiracy? 

Ben: There is a solution to "labor shortages." It is called higher wages

I'd like that but the truth is in this recent " labor shortage"  they started  leveling off before the fed  Fed even tightened.

You're going to have to starve the work force a lot more before you'll see that kind of service wage growth you project.

It would be more proactive to unionize.

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

20 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Until the issue of middle-class destruction is addressed, the problems will continue.

I have a family member that was living in Peru until the recent political unrest there; he had to move because he's got money, which made him a target. And what's happening in Peru has been seen dozens of times before: the wealthy rig the system in their favor, leaving a populace where the vast majority is poor, there's no middle class, and then the small percentage that are wealthy hoard all the assets. Which then invariably leads to deadly uprisings.

It's stupid, tiresome and preventable.

Amen, Matt!

[Lori Spencer]

Forgive me for posting this on every thread about Tucker but I feel the importance of this interview he did with RFK Jr in 2018 — and the network’s official censorship of it — can’t be stressed enough! 
 

Most folks never see the FULL interview online. The edited version on Fox News’ official YouTube channel has 2.5 million views — but the complete, accurate, unedited version only has 250 views. 
 

Follow link to this thread to see the entire interview, uncut! 
 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

Hey I won't address the sort of snideness I heard.

But one thing about James, is that I think I know what his interests are..

heh heh

But I'm into a lot of the same things!

But what I was referring to, over a few posts I've read is that  I couldn't find fault in anything he said. That's all

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

Until the issue of middle-class destruction is addressed, the problems will continue.

I have a family member that was living in Peru until the recent political unrest there; he had to move because he's got money, which made him a target. And what's happening in Peru has been seen dozens of times before: the wealthy rig the system in their favor, leaving a populace where the vast majority is poor, there's no middle class, and then the small percentage that are wealthy hoard all the assets. Which then invariably leads to deadly uprisings.

It's stupid, tiresome and preventable.

And for the briefest of shining moments, the people on the left and the people on the right, suddenly realised that it was the same people screwing them both. A 0.01% who don’t care at all about red or blue, left or right or the USA. They only care about maintaining and adding to their wealth and power. 
 

If only we were able to direct our passion, anger, frustration and indignance at them, instead of at eachother. If only we could see that the agitation, hate, and being sorted into polarised tribes suits them. They are the architects of it, the ringmasters. We are distracted, we seek illusions. 
 

If you want change, withdraw your consent from a system that doesn’t serve you. 

[James Wilkinson]

The immigration arguments that have arisen since my last post have stopped short of echoing the nasty racial component in Carlson's repeated rhetoric on this issue. So rather than engage with our arguments here, I'll simply note that for whatever reason, they're not representative of Carlson's insidious espousal of the Great Replacement Theory.

Unless an immigration opponent on this thread is willing to shoulder Carlson's ethnonationalist appeals, since the only gain I can see in leaving such talking points out of this debate is to effectively whitewash Carlson's stance by association -- by not saying the quiet part out loud as he is wont to do.

Carlson conflates opposition to white supremacy with opposition to white people as a whole, a sleight-of-hand designed to obscure its unstated logic that white people are entitled to such privileges. His brand is built around a steady, toxic diet of manufactured appeals to white grievance.

To remain silent in the face of such wickedness is to tacitly consent to it, on some level.

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by James Wilkinson