The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 11:42 AM

My goodness, such passion! I begin to think the man may be serious.

Everybody's into cultural purity, aren't they? What I mean is, everyone just naturally promotes their own culture, is in favor of it, instills it into their children, celebrates it, goes on and on about it how wonderful it is, defends it against any perceived threat of any sort whatsoever... This is also true of people who bitch all the time about racism.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 12:26 PM

Forgive me those who've heard it all before but, in my defence, I went a tad beyond "kindergarten" (IB) and achieved 4 technical certificates in manufacturing and a BA in humanities.
Let me ask you a question, IB - do you at least accept that someone who questions immigration, and likes their own culture, may OR MAY NOT be a racist?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Insane Beard
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:51 PM

Let me ask you a question, IB - do you at least accept that someone who questions immigration, and likes their own culture, may OR MAY NOT be a racist?

The real question is one of reality, WAV. Anyone who questions immigration does so without stopping to think of the effect of such witless grunting on actual immigrants, such as my dear friend, Rajinda, who came to live in England when she was eight months old & has lived here for the last forty-five years, her family likewise. Needless to say Rajinda, a Pakistani Moslem, thinks of herself as English; I think of her as English, as does her husband, likewise Pakistani, and her children, who are also English Moslem, born on English soil, living all their 21 years on English soil.

How are these people expected to feel when someone, such as yourself, starts gibbering on about immigration & repatriation?

So, in answer to your question, anything that causes racial offence is racist by default; such as your ideas, hatched in moral & human vacuum without ever once stopping to thing how offensive this thinking is likely to be to other people.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:05 PM

Words in someone's mouth, again, Volgadon. And saying that future immigration can't be questioned due to fear of offending those here due to past immigration is, frankly, ridiculous.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:21 PM

"So, in answer to your question, anything that causes racial offence is racist by default; such as your ideas, hatched in moral & human vacuum without ever once stopping to thing how offensive this thinking is likely to be to other people."

Yeah - and he doesn't like girls playing sport in case they squash their norks (see other thread).

Another "ism" to the list?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Insane Beard
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:49 PM

WAV, your whole philosophy is founded on ethnic & cultural purity and the facile belief that England was a better place before immigration - God knows you've made no secret of that. Opposing future immigration on any grounds whatsoever is (frankly) ridiculous, let alone when you are so open about your passions for Our Own Good Culture as it (supposedly) existed before the immigrations of the last 50 years, exclusive of any of the other cultural aspects & attributes of the Multi-Cultural UK as we know today. So it is not future immigration that bothers you, it is immigration period.

I was born into a multi-ethnic & multi-cultural Northumbria; I grew up with Moslems, Hindus, West Indian Blacks, Chileans, Chinese and Yemenites. No bother, WAV - and no rivers of blood. Ethnic diversity & cultural harmony, and unity, in diversity.

Why oppose immigration, future or otherwise, if you're not a racist? Where is your argument? If you weren't a racist, you'd be getting on with your life; living & letting live; happy with the cultural diversity we can enjoy in many parts of the UK, to a greater or lesser extent. Obviously you're not happy with this state of affairs, ergo, you are a racist.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:08 PM

I'm not going to go back though all this twaddle, but if you oppose immigration on the the grounds that it affects the culture of this country, surely you must oppose emigration - even foreign holidays on the same basis. So all you white-skinned Americans, Canadians, Australians etc - get yourselves back to Europe!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 05:38 PM

A non-racist could have lots of reasons for questioning immigration/emigration, such as population density, land rights, trying to have a multiple number of cultures living under the one state law, caring for young Spanish couples who are being priced-out of the property market by wealthy English and Germans - not content to just visit as respectful tourists, etc.

Poem 76 of 230: LAND RIGHTS

If there is a good thing
    From the Second World War
It's that most peoples learnt
    To conquer lands no more.

In Africa, Asia,
    And the Pacific, too:
Post-war independence -
    Steps only bigots rue.

But for some indigenes,
    Outnumbered much-too-much,
It has all come too late
    For liberty, as such.

So 'tis in Australia,
    And America's sites,
Where the best now, I think,
    Is to respect land rights.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:38 PM

"Racist? No, of course I'm not a racist! I resent the implication! As far as I'm concerned, those people are perfectly fine!

"It's just that I don't want them living next door to me!"

O-o-o-o-h, yeah!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 04:12 AM

You posted that 2 hours after my last, Don - but it's as if we'd posted at the same time and you hadn't read it.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 04:26 AM

A non-racist could have lots of reasons for questioning immigration/emigration, such as population density, land rights, trying to have a multiple number of cultures living under the one state law, caring for young Spanish couples who are being priced-out of the property market by wealthy English and Germans - not content to just visit as respectful tourists, etc.

A truly non-racist would see these things as in the light of the economic realities of 21st century capitalism which really have fuck all to do with immigration. Only a racist would attempt to use them as scapegoats to justify their anti-immigration cause.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 06:46 AM

I thought that's one of the things we do agree on, IB - a dislike of free-market capitalism? And, if so, why support future economic/capitalist immigration/emigration. This is where the likes of the Socialist Workers Party get confused - they, too, are against capitalism but they end up supporting those who emigrate to get rich...

"Within the broader music industry, and beyond, what some get for their hour's work, compared with others, is ridiculous and inhumane; hence, many relatively competent musicians within the folk-scene are really struggling to make ends meet; so, if we like fair competition, we don't like capitalism. A better way, as I've suggested in verse, is to accept that humans are competitive, and have strong regulations (partly via nationalisation) to make that competition as fair as possible – whilst also providing "safety-net" support."(from here)...
And accepting eco-travl and fair-trade between nations, via the UN - rather than yet more conquest and capitalist immigration/emigration.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 07:44 AM

Yet another smokescreen to obfuscate the real issues here.

For a start, being a free-market capitalist I have no dislike of free-market capitalism; it is an organic necessity of the world, as it is today, and always has been, & any attempts to over control it invariably result the horrors of totalitarianism. Secondly, we're not talking about supporting those who emigrate to get rich, rather those of diverse ethnicities who have immigrated into this country simply to make a living, and those who have been born to those families, into their second, third & forth generations. It is against these people that you direct your Own Good English Culture claptrap, constantly banging on about how much better things were before they came, using the immigrant population as a scapegoat for 50 years of political mismanagement - just as any self-respecting racist does.

This is not a personal attack, WAV, but a serious questioning of your published ideology. Whatever personal feelings that lie behind you so-called conclusions you are entitled to, much as any other flawed human being, but once you publish it, then it becomes something else altogether - it becomes a manifesto, a potential rallying point for those who would seize on such ideas as a justification for the racial hatred you claim not to espouse, but which seeps as a rancid bile between your every word.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 08:19 AM

Some recalcitrance and inconsistency here? I'm not sure where on mudcat...but I am sure I've read, and agreed with, critical remarks re. capitalism and the rotten inequality it produces from you, IB.
I've also recall you knocking television one day, and then talking about your enjoyment of, e.g, the Early Music programme (which I too enjoyed) just a few days later..?
And, it's getting rarer, but I have heard the media question immigrants as to the reason, with "to get rich" being a common and accepted reply - as most here have not learnt to question capitalism, of course.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 09:16 AM

I love & hate television in equal measures; capitalism likewise. Not a matter of recalcitrance or yet even inconsistency, but my personal (and, indeed, unpublished - unless posting here counts as publication) dialogue with respect to most aspects of life. For example, I love singing folk music, but rarely, if ever, do I listen to it by way of recreation; I also love attending Roman Catholic Mass but in no way shape or form do I believe in God. Life, I fear, can never never so simple as to be 100% consistent, WAV - and if it is, chances are there's something missing.

Unlike you, I have no strong opinions nor yet have I reached any conclusions; nor do I believe that I have stumbled upon the best way forward for humanity. I just make observations along the way that are subject to change, as such things do, the more one experiences & the more one learns. One thing remains fundamental however, is the belief that whatever one does, one must do it quietly, & happily, & in the hope that it in no way inhibits others from doing likewise. Any sort of bullshit that gets in the way of this - such as the ill-informed racist propaganda you insist on promoting at every available opportunity - I will, quite naturally, oppose.

So - stick to the facts, WAV; you make any more personal remarks like that and I'll be having a word with the mods.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:05 PM

Was your tongue in your cheek as you typed that last line, IB?!...things had gone quite light-hearted with some good humour on a couple of these threads, before you came back on and brought up the R-word yet again, possibly hoping that others will follow suit (as often occurs). I won't complain to the moderators if you do it yet again, but will, yet again, try and make clear to you the difference between questioning immigration and being racist.
Now, back to the thread, any opinion on my above "Land Rights" verses?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:08 PM

you still have the influence of Mcgonagle,.
your last line,has too many beats.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: irishenglish
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:29 PM

Discuss it. Oh I'll discuss it. Most people learned not to conquer lands so much since World War II? Where in the hell is your precedent for that one WAV? Honestly. That has no basis in reality. One wonders, other than waxing poetical about this WAV, what do you do to support injustice, human rights, discrimination, hunger, and as someone once wrote-"all the ills of mankind"? Do you belong to any organizations? Do you attend rallies or protests against injustice? Do you just sit back and think how we should have a nice multicultural world, while at the same time waxing poetical about all things English, or do you actually do something? Words are fine, action is better.

I guess your poem on Land Rights does not refer to South Ossetia. Or East Timor. Or Darfur. Or Iraq. Or Western Sahara. Or Tibet. Yes....I guess your poem is spot on when looks at all of those places, and the countless others. Spot on WAV. Way to remember those history lessons.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:40 PM

I said "MOST peoples learnt", above, IE, as part of a collection that I have gifted to 10s of libraries and made free on the web. And, in so far as I keep participating in the local folk and poetry scene. I do still "do something", and have in the past taken to the streets politically.
And, to CB, I just re-read it aloud and it sounded okay to me...maybe you could do likewise...

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:58 PM

ROTFLMAO..........Gifted to libraries?..........oygawdam.........................LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.............aw geeziz, what a hoot..................***gasp***pant***choke...........I can't catch my breath..............................hahahahahahahahahahaahhahahahahahaahhahahahaahahhahahaahhaahhahha......................gifted to libraries..........................Doncha' just know how overjoyed they were?......................okay now......breathe in----breathe out..................................................***chuckle*****.....woooo........Man, that was a good one........gifted to libraries..................................


Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: irishenglish
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 02:02 PM

And I say "MOST" is not valid when you consider what happened post war. Separation of Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Korea, et al were, if anything, a result of the war.Since 1945 I'm sure you could find countless instances of conquest for every year since then. I don't see how you can say that WAV. For real. Who you gifted your prose to has no bearing on the point, its just more self promotion.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Amos
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 02:03 PM

It's not so much the number of the beats, but the signal they carry.


A

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 02:43 PM

I did read your post, WAV, including ". . . not content to just visit as respectful tourists . . ." and that's what prompted my post.

You are perfectly willing for people from other cultures, other nations, to come as "respectful tourists" and spend money. But you object to those who are not wealthy enough to spend what little they have on tourism, but who will spend it to emigrate on the chance that they can make a better life for themselves in another country, such as England or the United States. You also seem oblivious to the fact that many people emigrate from their home countries because of political oppression.

No, WAV, I know exactly what you're saying. I think I've been on this planet for a few more trips around the sun than you have, and I've seen it / heard it all before.

I might point out that linking to something you have said on your own website in an attempt to supporting what you say here is both pompous and silly. And almost embarrassingly feeble.

And ". . . and have in the past taken to the streets politically."

For what causes?

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, my wife is a librarian. There are people who walk into the library all the time with books they've self-published or material they have written, and generously contribute their great, immortal works to the library for the enlightenment and edification of the multitudes.

It amounts to great heaps and piles. Do you have any idea of what's done with this stuff?

"Thank you very much," says the librarian. Then, when the person is out of sight, "THUNK!" into the round file.

Otherwise, libraries would have to maintain warehouses full of aspiring writers' and poets' unpublished material. And there is generally a very good reason that it's unpublished.

And posting it on a web site, other than getting you ideas out in front of others, does not really count as "published" in the sense that it doesn't have to pass the scrutiny of an editor.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 02:52 PM

WAV, have you ever printed your poems and other writings out in correct manuscript form, put them into a Manila envelop, and sent them to a book or magazine publisher? Have you ever subjected your material to the eyes of an editor?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:14 PM

Hey, Spaw, you have no idea. The library in Blind River, Ontario has been a proud and grateful recipient of a whole set of WAV's collected works.

Unfortunately, though, most of that stuff got destroyed in that rampage that Shane went on there when he got arrested awhile back after Rapaire had driven him into a frenzy with some insensitive things he said to Shane online. It wasn't really Shane's fault, though. It was the cops who overreacted and brought in a lot of high tech weaponry and escalated the situation beyond reason so that the library got half-wrecked before Shane was hauled out to the paddy wagons screaming obscenities.

I think that almost all of WAV's work on display there got damaged beyond repair. Blind River has taken a real cultural blow over this, and so has Shane. The "liberry" has banned him for life over it! He has been driven to begging the use of his brother Don's girlfriend's computer. It's sad how the innocent are always made to pay for the heavy-handed behaviour of bureaucrats and law enforcement personnel.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 04:06 PM

But please say that McGonegal's work was undamaged...

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 04:26 PM

Wow Hawkster.....What a tragedy. I had no idea .............................. I'm sure Wav's work was a prize for Blind River to have and now to have it lost is simply terrible, a major blow (much like Shane himself...or Wavy).

Are there plans for renewing it?   I hate to think of the folks in Blind River without such a valuable resource and cultural guide at their disposal. I'm sure that poor Shane has been so angry he's seeing double..............wait....uh, check that.......Seeing QUADRUPLE. Shane already sees double on most days.

Fortunately, as I understand it, the statue in the town square of Cheech Wizard was saved and the locals have been going there nightly for their usual evening vespers and candlelight worship of his greatness.

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 05:28 PM

If several words have already been typed in somewhere on the web, why not do, as many have done, and give a link to it, rather than retyping; hence, Don, I refer you here for some of the places I've been published post-self-publication. (And I haven't checked with every library, but know that 1 or 2 have indeed ditched it - while others still have it either on the shelf or at least in the system.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 07:26 PM

Okay, WAV, I checked the link you gave and I don't see anywhere where it says you've been published. Other than self-publshed.

I'm talking about publication that has been read and accepted for publication by an editor, and then printed in a book or in magazines.

And, for that matter, for which you have been paid.

So. Where exactly does it say?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 07:30 PM

Hi WAV
I remembered this bit of poetry from the early 1970s. I'd welcome your learned critique:

Take a pinch of white man
Wrap him up in black skin
Add a touch of blue blood
And a little bitty-bit of red indian boy..

Curly, black and kinky
Oriental sexy
If you lump it all together
Well, youve got a recipe for a get-along scene
Oh what a beautiful dream
If it could only come true
You know, you know..

What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough to take the world and all its got
Keep it stiring for a hundred years or more
Turning out coffee-colored people by the score

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 05:08 AM

before you came back on and brought up the R-word yet again, possibly hoping that others will follow suit (as often occurs). I won't complain to the moderators if you do it yet again, but will, yet again, try and make clear to you the difference between questioning immigration and being racist.

I bring up the R-word - racism - because it's such an intrinsic part of your entire self-published philosophy; it's there in your narrow exclusive concerns over English culture, which would be bad enough on their own but when you couple this to your views on immigration and repatriation, then I'm afraid there is no question about it, WAV - you are a racist, and what's more, you've published this fact for all the world to see. If you weren't a racist, you wouldn't publish such potentially inflammatory racist jargon; and if your concerns were truly with the English Folk Culture & Folklore you supposedly love, then you'd spend your time immersed in the study of it rather than relentlessly promoting your bizarre ideas which, alas, only demonstrate how little you know and understand of the subject.

I await your clarification on the difference between questioning immigration and being racist - only, please don't quote from your published rhetoric.

Meanwhile, think on this: The human & cultural history of these British Isles (of which England is a part) is one of tens of thousands of years of invasion, immigration, assimilation and diversification; the resulting cultural flux being a process of ongoing change and redefinition whereby not only might the country redefine itself with every overlapping generation, i.e. every three years, but remain entirely different things to any one of its 60 million citizens, native, immigrant, or otherwise. The experience of the individual citizen defines the overall character, and culture, of the nation.

Further - what percentage of England's 50 million citizens would agree that Morris Dancing, English Concertinas & the Unaccompanied Singing of Traditional Folk Songs in any way represented Their Own Good Culture? Also, in the England of 2008, there are more people Morris Dancing, playing English Concertinas & Singing Unaccompanied Traditional Folk Songs than have ever done so in the last 10,000 years. The same (with respect of their own Folk Cultures, albeit in the non-exclusive and cultural absolutist sense in which you might understand the term) could be said of the 5 million residents of Scotland, the 2 million residents of Northern Ireland, and the 3 million residents of Wales. The outlook is better than ever.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 06:02 AM

Sorry Don - genuine mistake: my myspace About Me was deleted a while back, and I've re-done it without mention of other publications. They are here, though. And I don't mind answering that everything I've done so far, in folk and poetry, has been as an amateur - just a few mini-free-drinks/entry-type gigs and a free journal or two. It probably is standard procedure, but I have got thankyou letters from the secretary of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the EFDSS, e.g., for the paperbacks I've gifted, and one borrower wrote asking (C) permission for my poems on her birthday and Christmas cards; you at least agree that such matters are subjective, yes? I'm unemployed at the moment, but have earned a living, rather, in manufacturing (e.g., production manager).

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 06:40 AM

And to IB, again!, moreso under New (Scottish) Labour, pro-immigrationsists have tried to equate the questioning of immigration with racism - and you are a rather extreme example of this. WITH SOME QUALIFICATIONS, you could fairly call me an anti-immigrationist but NOT a racist. If you can't fathom that, you really should have another go at formal study - preferably in humanities. I have a degree in humanities, and, in my collection, I have at least tried to support the land rights, etc., of people who are clearly not of my race - I'd be one of the least racist people in the world, and I do question immigration, and won't let the misled likes of you stop me from doing so.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 07:40 AM

Once more, you side step all the points I've made by throwing up yet another smokescreen - drawing us once again to your fucking collection. You call this the best way forward for humanity; I call it a fair indication that you have a long way to go in understanding just what the needs & requirements of humanity are, irrespective of your so-called academic training.

Your love of a Nice Multicultural World and constant banging on about land rights is another smokescreen for your bitter hatred of the realities of a Nice Multicultural UK. In this alone you simply cannot separate your anti-immigration stance from your racism. By promoting such a blinkered & unrealistic view of English folk culture coupled with your anti-immigrationist bigotry you are, in effect, actively promoting racism; by listing English dances & instruments which purposefully exclude those of immigrant & ethnic minorities who are such an important aspect of the English cultural landscape you are, in effect, actively promoting racism. If you can't fathom that out, WAV, it's you who needs to return to formal education - but not university, as I say, rather the kindergarten to get back to the basics of human decency.

I say again:

The human & cultural history of these British Isles (of which England is a part) is one of tens of thousands of years of invasion, immigration, assimilation and diversification; the resulting cultural flux being a process of ongoing change and redefinition whereby not only might the country redefine itself with every overlapping generation, i.e. every three years, but remain entirely different things to any one of its 60 million citizens, native, immigrant, or otherwise. The experience of the individual citizen defines the overall character, and culture, of the nation.

Given that, WAV - what possible non-racist reason can you have to justify your anti-immigrationist stance?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 08:13 AM

I think most are probably tired of our "fencing" IB, so I'll just deny your remarks, and say a simple - see above.
No - one more attempt. If I can accept that some who question immigration may be racist; can you accept that others who question immigration may NOT be racist (the latter is how I see myself)?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 08:53 AM

As has been pointed out before, it all comes down to the GROUNDS on which you are questioning immigration: if it's on the grounds of keeping your culture untainted and pure, you are probably racist.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 09:02 AM

can you accept that others who question immigration may NOT be racist

Please, just answer the question, WAV. On what non-racist grounds do you question immigration? And with what possible non-racist justification? And why do you want to put a stop the very thing that has defined us as a nation these past millennia?

You're the one who publishes & promotes this stuff, at least have the courage of your convictions and defend it.

Congratulations for the clicky-less post by the way, let's have a few more, eh?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 09:16 AM

On what non-racist grounds do you question immigration? (IB)...all that I have posted/published on this matter - in verse (see above) and prose (see above).
Ruth's gone back to "probably", and I'm going back to practiSing my English repertoire (see above).

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 09:20 AM

Culture is not necessarily based on race. Culture is based on old social customs. There is an American culture and a French culture and a Russian culture and a Danish culture, etc, and they are each based not on race, but on a long accumulated set of social customs and traditions.

Therefore I don't see that WAV can be depicted as racist. You can say that he's chauvinistic or defensive about his culture, but you can't say that he's a racist.

(Well, you can, but you'd just be engaging in a sort of rhetorical witchhunt if you did, given the fact that "racist" is a particularly charged word in today's dialogue.)

WAV is not objecting to the race of various immigrants, he is objecting to the fact that they may hold rather different cultural values, and that that causes changes in his culture which he doesn't care for.

People everywhere object to that sort of thing to some extent, depending on where, how, and in what way it manifests.

For example (and it's an extreme one), Canadians have objected strenuously to certain East Asian fathers killing their daughters over family issues that we would regard as the daughters merely expressing their own free will and choices in life. That's not a racial matter, it's a cultural matter. The Asian men who have done this violence to their daughters (or wives) apparently feel quite justified in doing it. Canadian society does not agree with their viewpoint on that.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 09:55 AM

WAV - it is apparent that you don't think of yourself as racist. It is also apparent that you consider your education to be above average. Why can you not explain your posts poems and opinions in a way that gives the impression you want to give to people instead of the direct opposite?

In musical matters why not read carefully the posts by knowledgeable people elsewhere in this forum, and learn from them, instead of developing your own notions based on very limited experience?

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Master Baiter
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:06 AM

I may have had a good time ribbing poor Wav about English football and the better version--American Football--but I think I have read most of this thread and I believe he is having a very hard time getting his point across.

I think he's saying that he sees and believes in the value of any culture continuing to carry on past traditions. He also feels that folks deserve the right to a sovereign existence and to hold cultural values within a territorial area characterized by the groups own laws and customs. Wav maintained his cultural values while in Australia but is better back in England. He thinks it could be better yet. It takes but simple logic to see that for a people to survive as a distinct cultural group they must have their own land so that their own ways can be furthered to the exclusion of alternate ways of life within that specific geographic territory. The alternate ways need to exist in their own territories as well.

Anyway, I think those are the points he's making. Much to the chagrin of his adversaries, he expresses his belief, and repeatedly so, that this is not racist.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:16 AM

I'm not sure that what you're describing couldn't be ghettoes...

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:22 AM

Okay, Little Hawk: let's say xenophobic instead. It's not any nicer. The attitude someone described earlier of "They're fine, but I don't want them living next door to me" has long been recognised as racist, bigoted, whatever you want to call it. And I think it sums up perfectly WAV's world view.


Master B:

"He thinks it could be better yet."

Yes - by getting rid of immigrants. The BNP think that, too.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Joseph P
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:34 AM

What WAV has shown is a desire for England to be purely English in culture. What he sees as English culture is something untainted by foreign influence.

On the one hand, WAV claims that he wishes immigration to stop from now on, on the other he wishes for our nation to return to more purely English cultural values, an imaginary Englande of Olde. The consumption of roasts, not curries. Listening to Folk, not 'american' rock or pop. In other words to undo the effects of immigration over the last few decades. This would be possible by either physically removing those who have cultural links with other countries, or forcibly making them practiCe goode, ye olde Englishe culture.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Joseph P
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:47 AM

"It takes but simple logic to see that for a people to survive as a distinct cultural group"

Name some distinct cultural groups in the UK today, because, you may find that each person is distinctly, culturally different.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Master Baiter
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:53 AM

I thought Wav was okay with individuals but just wished for the parts of their shared heritage to be continued and thus feels that it would be wonderful to do that within a territorial area characterized by the group's own laws and customs.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 10:57 AM

"It takes but simple logic to see that for a people to survive as a distinct cultural group"

In the UK, that horse has already left the barn. The government has finally acknowkledged that isolating different cultures is ghettoising and counter-productive. The way forward in the society we live in - rather than the one some Little Englanders would like to pretend we live in - is through cultural exchange, sharing, celebration and mutual understanding. And that means sharing and celebrating English culture as an important part of the mix.

Some of the best music England has ever produced has been the result of fusions between indigenous and more recent cultures.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Master Baiter
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 11:01 AM

I don't know Ruth. I am simply trying to state what Wav is saying and although you may be right about how it is, I think I have expressed what Wav is trying to say.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Joseph P
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 11:26 AM

Surely WAV can say it himself, what with his superior BA in humanities...

The loss of some aspects of culture unique to a specific geographical area, called a nation can sometimes be a bad thing. Using this as an excuse to justify 'cultural' segregation is a thing that is much, much worse.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 11:31 AM

but you can't say that he's a racist

With respect to the above posts by Little Hawk & Master Baiter, I don't see any evidence to the contrary, and as WAV resolutely refuses to provide any, whilst continuing to promote his published ideologies, then, as far as I'm concerned, he is as good as admitting to it.

The past traditions that WAV talks about as Our Own Good Culture are the hobbyist concern of but a tiny minority of the 50 million people currently living in England - even those of the indigenous white population (as far as we can call it such). His view of this is a personal fantasy which in no way shape or form can be considered representative of English Culture in 2008, nor indeed at any time in English history.

Now, if this was simply WAV's personal belief I would not question it; nor would I have the right to question it. However, WAV does does not express his beliefs, he publishes & promotes them in a blaze of self-glorification - which is a very different matter entirely. I have friends who express their beliefs, generally down at the pub, in their cups, spouting all sorts of racist bullshit by way of a rowdy exchange, general provocation & otherwise Devil's Advocacy, but they don't do so far as to publish it, nor yet have the supreme arrogance to assume that what they believe represents the best way forward for humanity.

WAV is not objecting to the race of various immigrants, he is objecting to the fact that they may hold rather different cultural values, and that that causes changes in his culture which he doesn't care for.

I think, sadly, you'll find that WAV is objecting to the race of various immigrants, as with WAV culture and ethnicity are synonymous, which is perhaps one of the things we do agree on. I say again, as many have, that English culture is the result of aeons of immigration, invasion, diversification & assimilation; English culture is a process determined by the English People, which is to say the 50 million or so human beings living in England at this present point in time however they came to be here, or whatever their culture / ethnicity might be.

WAV's answer to this?

Yes England, e.g, is (or was until about 50 years ago) an old old blend of mostly European cultures.

The racial implication here couldn't be clearer, thus do I maintain that by his own published writings it can be proven that WAV's cultural concerns are racist.

But once again, this is not a personal attack on WAV, but on the fact that he has set himself up as a some sort of benign ideologue, hell bent on promoting a propaganda that is demonstratably contentious, and worse, potentially inflammatory should ever it be used to fuel the already perilous tensions that exist largely because of the same sort of propagandist bullshit such as WAV has published, and evidently, believes in. I can just imagine some disaffected racist stumbling across a line such as:

As I've said in verse, English culture is taking a hammering and, when people lose their own culture,society suffers.

and believing it, and adopting it, and using to further the racist cause.

Fact is, never has English Culture been richer, healthier and as diversely dynamic as it is now. In no way, shape or form is it taking a hammering. And as I've said above, there are more people engaged with Folk Music now than at any point in history, even though it still remains a minority concern. No shame there, of course because culture does not, and cannot, exist without people; culture is what people do - something that WAV, for all his anthropological training, has failed to realise.