R Is For Refugee

REFUGEES are, according to the UN people who are fleeing persecution. This word is misused by both sides of the pro and anti migration argument.

Mass migration benefits few people other than those of the middle class who seek cheap labour 

and those of the politician class who seek a bogeyman to scare us with, or to guilt trip us with.

Please see also our comrade Jason’s article on immigration and this analysis of the immigration question by the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

SUSTAINABILITY does not mean environmental or “green”. It means any endeavour which can carry itself on.

It could refer to farming, to well managed land with soil that never runs out of nutrients, which continually grows quality crops.

It could refer to a business model that never runs out of money. 

It could refer to a society that provides for the people who work to keep society going.

It is not, however, a buzzword to placate people by telling us that wildflowers have been planted, or the vaccuum-packed steak is partially recyclable.

Sustainability is a serious issue which applies to our built and natural environments, and which will never be achieved under a wasteful, profit based economy.

A TROLL, not in the Billy Goats Gruff sense but in the internet sense, used to be a harmless (if sometimes annoying) wind-up merchant. 

Like a prank caller.

E.g they might swear blind on an LFC forum that Phil Babb should be in the all time top XI instead of Ron Yeats.

Then troll came to mean someone, in a nastier way, who would comment on a stranger’s memorial page “I hope the rest of your family die”.

When the mainstream media found out about the internet they further warped the term to basically mean “A person who disagrees with, or disapproves of another” 

Whether they’re calling Katie Price-Jordan a mess or questioning Sir Keir Starmer’s ability to better things for the working class.

We all love an UNDERDOG, we all love an outsider winning a race we all love a giant-killing we all love Robin Hood.

This is not our fault, but our nation has never really been an underdog. 

Yes, Churchill wanted our badly trained and equipped forces to beat the Nazis in 1940.

Yes, our propaganda machine made a big thing of rescuing those troops in leaky fishing boats. 

Yes, if our Empire was to last for a thousand years and that would have been our finest hour.

An Empire of one quarter of the world, but apart from India, of lands conquered from people who didn’t know what gunpowder was.

A nation supporting the underdog through film and sports reports, but one that has invaded, or been in conflict with, all but 22 countries that currently exist.

Now America has taken over that role and we really are the underdog. Now is the time for us to act in such a British way and overthrow our own oppressors.

This is the penultimate part of our alphabet series! Come back next week for the conclusion!