Left Archive: Outline Policy on Full Employment – Democratic Socialist Party c. 1981 October 28, 2013
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Democratic Socialist Party, Irish Left Online Document Archive.trackback
To download the above please click on the following link: DSP EMPLOY
This is one of a series of short pamphlets issued by the Democratic Socialist Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s [for the other leaflet from the DSP in the Archive please see here]. Each pamphlet took a different policy area and expanded across four or five pages on the approach the DSP would take.
This one considers the issue of Full Employment, and it argues that:
Unemployment is the most serious social problem in this country. It has been a major problem throughout the life of the state. In such circumstances one would image in that the search for a solution to this problem would form the focus for the idealism, the imagination and the efforts of substantial progressive political movements. In post-War Europe, socialist parties gained greatly in support and authority by placing full employment in the forefront of their policies and their achievements in this area have been considerable. Irish politics, however, had different priorities. The first national aim remained the enforcement of the territorial claim on Northern Ireland, with the equally sterile secondary aim of reviving the Irish language absorbing much political attention.
And it continues:
The labour movement never succeeded in taking an independent stand i relation to the priorities of Irish politics. Indeed, the achievement of full employment was first placed in the centre of mainstream politics not by the Labour Party, but by Fianna Fáil in their 1977 election manifesto. In the event their commitment proved to be a superficials one, a token gesture to the need of modern Ireland, and when a crisis point came the party replaced its new national aim with the tried and trusted catch-cries of nationalism.
In the rest of the leaflet it considers areas such as ‘Planning for Employment’, ‘Industrial Job Creation’, the ‘National Enterprise Agency’, a ‘State Development Corporation’’, The Financing of Industrial Job Creation’ and ‘The State Enterprises’. It briefly examines Services (Housing), ‘Agri-Business’, ‘Fisheries’, ‘Forestry’ and concludes by arguing that:
A sustained period of full employment is unlikely in the near future. We believe, however, that even under the present political setup much can be achieved. The trade union movement is already one of the most powerful forces in Irish society and if it were prepared to use that strength in a way that other less representative interest groups have no hesitation in doing, it could win many worthwhile reforms.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
It was remarked by a few people here a while back that unemployment was the dog that wasn’t barking in the current crisis. Back in the eighties it seemed to be the number one political priority and the bellwether of national well being. This was largely lip service but all the same there did seem to be a recognition that all the indicators in the world didn’t mean a thing if you had 15% unemployed and high emigration to go with them.
Yet there didn’t seem to be a peek out of the major parties until recently. And when the dog barked it turned out that the way the government intended to address the unemployment problem was by suggesting that unemployment was in some way the fault of the unemployed who weren’t showing sufficient get up and go because they were enraptured by the daytime treats available on flat screen TV. So the policy for dealing with unemployment involved cutting the dole and making people do jobs for which the employer would pay them next to nothing.
I’ve just finished Lucio Magri’s The Tailor of Ulm, which is very good though you’d have to have an interest in the PCI to get much out of it, and he makes the point that all the great crises of capitalism have resulted in a major restructuring of how it works. And it strikes me that this is precisely what’s going on at the moment as the whole notion of unemployment as an evil and social welfare as a right is replaced by the idea that high unemployment actually provides an opportunity for employers to employ workers at rates far below the Minimum Wage on the pretext that ‘training’ is involved.
This is a model with infinite potential from the point of the view of the employer who is actually being provided with a worker whose wages are paid by the government. It’s not hard to see that in a very short while a whole layer of low paid workers will be replaced by people on various Job Bridge type schemes which means unemployment is actually a good thing for small businesses. A friend of mine has already lost his job because the company judged it cheaper to employ someone on Job Bridge and will presumably keep them rolling along from now to kingdom come.
I also know someone who’s been forced into one of these schemes, a single mother who has now been forced to find child care even though she’s not getting enough money to pay for it. Divil the bit of training she’s getting. And she doesn’t need work experience because she worked plenty before the economy tanked.
In effect these schemes turn the unemployed and the low paid into the equivalent of the lads who used to stand around outside tube stations in London waiting for day to day building work on The Lump with the exception that the building workers were probably better paid. It seems the most pernicious development of the crisis in some ways and Joan Burton as its main promoter and figurehead the most harmful member of the current government. In fact somehow the whole policy seems to have become associated with Labour.
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Curiously in Spain unemployment is still seen to matter, although there are plenty of people on the Right who would like to play it the Joan Burton/Iain Duncan Smith way (and there was a recent kerfuffle where a very senior government figure tried dishonestly to claim that half a million benefit claims had been stopped because people were working). My suggestion would be that there is a connection between societies where unemployment isn’t to be blamed on the unemployed and societies where the labour movement still possesses some practical strength and ideological traction.
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+1 ec
but what to do about it? blaming it on a weak labour movement seems like a circular argument, since that is exacerbated by a general lack of social solidarity and especially when it comes to unemployment. plus the youth are frequently not in unions to start with.
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I see too that the Wexford County Enterprise Board is advising local businesses on how to reduce labour costs by employing people on Job Bridge and similar schemes.
What a scam it all is, as Joe Higgins pointed out this week it merely enables businesses to, “employ people at 50 euros week at the taxpayer’s expense.”
No doubt there’ll be no mention of this when they’re fawning over Joan Burton at the Labour History Conference.
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I suspect this might be from 1982: I think Jim Kemmy won a seat as an independent socialist in 1981 and then the DSP was founded early the next year.
Eamonn, you are right, it’s houses prices that are the indicator of economic recovery now, not jobs.
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I would say number of sales not specifically prices. In my street a few houses have sold and there are lots of renovations going on, thus jobs. My guess is that each house sold means a minimum amount of work being done.
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I wonder if you are using different meanings on “indicator of recovery”. I read Brian Hanley’s comment to mean that the “Irish Times discourse” is that increasing house prices shows we are in recovery.
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That’s interesting Brian, there’s a bit of contention as to when it was founded with some sources indicating the early to mid 70s..I’m presuming that’s a conflation with Kemmy’s independent outfit.
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“when a crisis point came the party replaced its new national aim with the tried and trusted catch-cries of nationalism”
‘regaining sovereignty’, ahem
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Read a piece on the front page of one of the Mayo papers today. Unemployed young men there are receiving letters from the Department telling them that there are jobs available in Canada. No details of where the jobs are or how much they pay, just that there are jobs (hint, hint). This does seem to be the first government which is unashamedly pushing emigration as a solution. Could Joe Higgins or someone ask a question in the Dail about this and at least embarrass that prick Kenny about the fact that the Taoiseach’s own constituents are being tacitly encouraged to leave the country? I wonder if we’re long away from a day when unemployed people who fail to show they’ve checked out jobs abroad suggested by the authorities will have their Dole cut because this will be viewed as not actively seeking work.
All bitterly ironic after the year of The Gathering when we’ve been enjoined to show the descendants of previous emigrants that there’s a lovely oul Stage Irish welcome by the hearth for them. For wealthy Irish-Americans, love and fawning respect. For unemployed Irish, a sneering suggestion that they get out of here pronto.
All this shit about training is largely an emigration encourager too as is the cut to the dole. I know someone who was told he had to go on a training course to prove he was seeking work. The course involved a three hour round trip and was a computer class of such an incredibly basic stripe a bright kid could have taught him more of an evening. He took the hint and went to London.
Brian’s point about house prices is very well made. The unemployed seem to be the ones in the lifeboat who’ll be pushed overboard or eaten by the other passengers in order that everything stays afloat.
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Michael McGrath’s response to the budget in the Dáil made reference to these Canada letters: http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2013-10-15a.6&s=michael+mcgrath+canada#g115
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“For wealthy Irish-Americans, love and fawning respect.”
Here’s one in today’s IT letters page today, advocating emigration from Ireland’s “confiscatory” tax regime so “wealth creators” can pass on their wealth to their children on the basis of $10m tax free – because that’s working out so well in the US in terms of social inequality and fiscal stability – instead of “only” €240,000 here. http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/letters/the-cost-of-returning-to-ireland-1.1573558
Not a nice thing to say, but sometimes you’re glad some people have left. The gathering traction in Ireland of such American conservative tropes, in the absence of a European alternative to provide the employment discussed above, is more worrying however.
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Agree with all that. Mass emigration is bad news but so is mass economic immigration and we have to be honest and clear in acknowledging that. The direct purpose under EU rules of free movement of labour is the undercutting of wages of the domestic working class in better off countries. People strictly at the lower end of the employment market who are not seen as sufficiently subservient and “don’t want to work” are being specifically targeted by a policy of mass immigration from poorer countries in order to promote employers interests.
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Mass emigration is bad news but so is mass economic immigration
What absolute nonsense.
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The direct purpose under EU rules of free movement of labour is the undercutting of wages of the domestic working class in better off countries
It’s not, of course. The purpose of the free movement of goods and peoples within the EU was to make it operate more as a single economic unit, the idea being that if you di so, not only would people be freer to move around, but that standards would level up across the economic area. It came into being long before the present strategy of dividing the EU into a centre and a periphery.
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As far as we are concerned its more of a case of standards levelling down in the vunerable lower level employment market. Its fine for those workers in secure protected areas like public and professional private sector. They are net beneficiaries in getting slightly cheaper services in restaurants and hotels. The economic migration from East Europe has transformed things for the worse for indigeneous workers at the lower end of society and theres no benefit for the left in refusing to acknowledge the fact. In almost every country in Europe Social Democratic parties have lost a good 10-15% chunk of the vote, almost entirely working class due to the adverse effects of mass immigration. Middle class interests are entirely indifferent to their plight and unfortunately the far left seem to be generally dominated by the middle classes.
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The economic migration from East Europe has transformed things for the worse for indigeneous workers at the lower end of society and theres no benefit for the left in refusing to acknowledge the fact.[sic]
Any proof for this? A reference to tables for wages in Ireland after the Eastern European states joined the EU or a survey demonstrating declining living conditions following on from migration from Eastern Europe might be a good start.
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The problem with Richotto’s assertions is that there isn’t any proof for any of them, or rather that he never sees fit to furnish a single fact or figure. We are, unfortunately, in the realm of “stuff everyone knows.” And you can’t argue with someone who retails “stuff everyone knows,” because as far as he’s concerned, it just is and doesn’t need to proved.
On a very trivial point for example, I’d imagine that the cost of a meal in restaurants was actually higher, even in relative terms, during the immigration rich Tiger era than it was in the immigration free period preceding this. Though he actually says, “the cost of service.” Which is what exactly? It’s either added on to the end of your bill or you provide a tip. How can its cost be seen to have gone up or down?
Though I suppose it’s a novelty for R, normally it’s the Public Service rather than Immigrants.
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When I moved over to London a couple of years ago, I met up with a family friend who’s been here since the 80s. He said the thing that made his mind up to leave then was this: he’d been hassled into several FAS courses by the dole office that consisted of learning how to answer the telephone by practicing with a banana, so he got the bus home to Donegal for the week (the fare being a good chunk of his dole) in order to do a course that might actually be helpful for getting a job; he was told that he wouldn’t be able to enroll in the course without a letter of support from the local FF or FG TD. He got the boat to England instead. We’ve come so far as a nation haven’t we.
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The attempt to coordinate the presence of X number of immigrants with X number of unemployed/ ‘native’ emigrants in order to make them ‘the problem’ is one of those pieces of ‘common sense’ that is anything but: like the notion that a national economy is something like a household budget writ large.
If all the Poles went home, it’s unlikely that the live register would show any significant decrease. Full employment yields no real benefit to capitalism in terms of consumption or growth, whereas the stripping away of SW benefits, and the increase in precarious employment does. We’re stuck with a 40/30/30 society for the foreseeable – 40% in secure and relatively well paid employment/ 30% precarious/ and 30% out of the labour market. The consumption of the 40% can reliably fuel the whole economy, trickling down just enough to keep services going without giving the two lower 30s anything like a stake in things.
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Its a convenient default response to misrepresent objections to mass economic immigration from poorer parts of Europe as an attack on immigrants themselves. Its of course really a matter of an undemocratic EU economic policy dictated by the lobbying of business interests in the richer countries to import cheap and more compliant labour to boost their profits.
As to the demands for evidence, you can’t be serious or else must be living in a bubble similar to climate change denyers. Its everywhere in the labour market figures, at least half a million immigrant workers, births from outside Ireland and UK over 20%, a complete transformation. Ask any unprotected private sector worker across Europe forced to adapt. Read about the changing electoral landscape. I can’t believe the existence of this major change in labour market and European politics is being disputed. Ed Milliband has recognized that the left have to deal with the issue seriously and not just give working class people no option but to desert to the right wing parties.
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As to the demands for evidence, you can’t be serious or else must be living in a bubble similar to climate change denyers. Its everywhere
Then show it to us. Some figures, please.
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You are being asked to support this claim:
The economic migration from East Europe has transformed things for the worse for indigeneous workers at the lower end of society and theres no benefit for the left in refusing to acknowledge the fact.
You have attempted to side-step the issue with this trite statement:
Its everywhere in the labour market figures, at least half a million immigrant workers, births from outside Ireland and UK over 20%, a complete transformation.
Nobody here is denying that things have changed. Things are wont to do that in any event. The question is whether this change has caused a certain section of society to become worse off. This is what you asserted and this is what we have asked you to support.
This:
Ask any unprotected private sector worker across Europe forced to adapt. Read about the changing electoral landscape.
is not a rebuttal or a refutation. An unprotected private sector worker may be forced to adapt (to what?) but is this caused by immigration? One might ask the question as to why they are unprotected? Perhaps joining a union might be more beneficial than fuming at the Polish bloke down the street.
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‘Working class people have no option but to desert to the right wing parties’ is a bit of an unsupported assertion too. As far as I am aware (though I don’t have figures) wages in the building industry were much higher during the Tiger era, even though there were plenty of immigrants employed there, than they had been previously. The race to the bottom is in fact being driven by the government in this country.
Job Bridge, for example, which has the potential to deal the biggest blow of all to those at the lower end of the employment market wages wise, has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with the demands of small indigeneous (sic) businesses who are the most vociferous campaigners against the minimum wage and employment agreements.
If the private sector worker is ‘unprotected’ that’s because this is how the private sector employer wants it. It has nothing to do with the number of East Europeans in the country.
But bang away with the unsupported assertions. I’ve decided to adopt a new charitable persona.
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And it’s an utter solecism to try and distinguish between ‘attacks on immigration’ and ‘attacks on immigrants themselves.’ If immigration is a bad thing then the presence of immigrants is a bad thing. ‘I’m sure you’re a lovely person but I don’t want you in my country’ is anti-immigration and also anti-immigrant because the two things are the same.
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lobbying of business interests in the richer countries to import cheap and more compliant labour to boost their profits.
Examples please? The business interests that have influence actual policy tend to be high wage ones. Places like google have significant immigrant workforce components too, but I guess they’re not the ones you’re objecting too, right?
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Use your logic please. High wage economies have business interests that would just love to reduce their labour costs. Free market often ruling conservative parties are very explicit in what they are trying to achieve. It has to be acknowledged that the the free market right and the far left open border people have absolute zero policy difference in this area. The far left are being the “useful idiots” I would suggest but they are disgracefully equally dismissive as the right of the consequences for private sector indigeneous workers at the lower levels. Its probably the single issue that is most driving anti EU sentiment at the moment in Western Europe.
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Use your logic, please.
For some reason, SoS, the name W. V. O. Quine comes to mind here.
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“An unprotected private sector worker may be forced to adapt (to what?) but is this caused by immigration? One might ask the question as to why they are unprotected? Perhaps joining a union might be more beneficial than fuming at the Polish bloke down the street.”
This is a nonsensical circular climate change denyer kind of argument. If you have a massive import of cheap and eager to oblige workforce into a generally unskilled non-unionised environment what is bound to happen? Any hope of successful unionised activism can only but be diminished. The present state of the labour market with falling real wages and no hope of resistence has to be attributed to various things but to ignore this factor is disingenuous. As far as joining Unions is concerned I have found anecdotally that East Europeans are very resistant to anything that that smacks of pro worker rhetoric or socialism for obvious reasons.
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You are the one who specified the ‘unprotected’ private sector worker, richotto, not I. Now, you complain when I focus on that qualification, which you clearly added in as a hedge.
“Falling real wages” is also a cheesy dodge since that can result from wages staying static while inflation rises. A round of quantitative easing by a Central Bank could trigger that. Hard to see how a bloke from Slovakia working in a Spar has any impact on that.
There is nothing circular about the argument since I am asking you to support the claim that immigration causes these things or causes a certain part of society to become worse off. You have since reduced this claim to ‘it is a factor’ another cheap move. Animal Spirits are a factor in all of this and probably play a more prominent role. But you aren’t focussing on that part.
I have found anecdotally that East Europeans are very resistant to anything that that smacks of pro worker rhetoric or socialism for obvious reasons.
Where have you found this? if this is the level of debate, then I should add I have come across the opposite – eastern Europeans are very sensitive to their rights and their position and are very much inclined to do something if either are threatened.
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Come on, either piss or get off the pot. What is obvious and bound to happen can be demonstrasted with statistics showing that it was obvious and bound to happen.
Some facts and figures, or trouble us no more.
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You’re gone mad on this ‘climate change denyer’ thing R. I’d actually have thought you might be in that camp yourself but you’re obviously not so fair play on that.
But there’s no point in getting all anecdotal when you’re asked for something concrete. While I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as regards your intimate knowledge of the East European working class, your notion that they distrust anything ‘pro worker’ or socialist is an odd one.
Lithuanians, for example, are one of the big immigrant groups here. Lithuania has a left wing government. So do Slovenia, Rumania and Slovakia. The Lithuanian and Slovakian governing parties are members of the Socialist International which would seem to give the lie to your notion of a general East European hatred of the S word. And so are the governing parties in Rumania and Montenegro and Croatia and Albania, also in Eastern Europe last time I checked. There are also left-wing parties in coalition governments in Serbia and Moldova. They mightn’t be left-wing enough for some people on CLR but they’d be far to the left of what you’d consider acceptable.
So either you’re hanging out with some very atypical East Europeans or else you just blurted out something with no basis in fact because it sounded like it might be true. Perhaps you saw an old guy on a news programme vox pop saying ‘I hate socialism’ or something.
Dasvidaniya.
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I do have this picture of Richotto imagining a horny handed son of the steppes, a bit like one of those old Stakhanovite Russian posters, saying to him, “Yuri loves free enterprise system. Do not talk to Yuri of rights, that is communist word. I will work for boss till I drop. You are Yuri’s friend Richotto, you know how East European people really feel.”
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Principles of supply and demand are not easy to admit to here but I’ve done my bit. The main defensive function of a Union is to insulate a group of workers from adverse market forces. Similarly I think the citizens of a country would naturally expect the state to do the same but the opposite has been happening with mass immigration from poorer to richer EU countries and that is the scource of much of the anti EU feeling in Europe which is well documented. To deny also that there is an inheritance of anti socialist idealogy among East European migrants is lacking credability. Anyway lets not get diverted to mention the characteristics of migrants themselves. That is not the point at all and its always the default response of pro immigration or free market people to make it out like some kind of xenophobic beef. Its about the business driven policy of encouraging the importation of cheap and compliant labour on the free market American model. Lastly an analysis of East European govts would show up things like flat income tax and low levels of state support. The left wing governments mentioned would make Tony Blair look distinctly red.
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“As far as joining Unions is concerned I have found anecdotally that East Europeans are very resistant to anything that that smacks of pro worker rhetoric or socialism for obvious reasons.”
My local area, which has quite a few East Europeans around, is currently showing ‘Walesa: Man Of Hope’ in the multiplex, which suggests that ingrained anti-trade union attitudes might not be as widespread as our fount of wisdom thinks. True, I also have a Polish house-mate who drones on about what a great leader Maggie Thatcher was and how all her taxes go to pay for lazy scroungers on benefits, but she works in an architect’s firm so I suppose by Richotto’s standards she belongs to the bourgeoisie.
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Anyway let’s not get diverted
Indeed let’s not: you’ve been asked for facts and figures and you’ve come up with none. Waste our time no more.
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Principles of supply and demand are not easy to admit to here but I’ve done my bit.
::Sigh:: Another dodge and a rather poor one at that. Supply and demand in the text-books seldom applies to the real world. You would have to ignore the existence of, say, a minimum wage, collective agreements, and other advantages (such as a stronger command of the English language) that the natives might enjoy before you could demonstrate that workers have been disadvantaged in any way.
Also, supply and demand relates to individual markets. Immigration would have to affect those markets where (i) the least well off were abundant, and (ii) there were no protections or safety nets. If one day one you have a market of 500 doctors and on day two 500 bankers immigrate, do the wages of the doctors decrease? So we would have to ask the further question of what markets the majority of immigrants entered into.
You have still failed to demonstrate your unequivocal claim from above:
The economic migration from East Europe has transformed things for the worse for indigeneous workers at the lower end of society and theres no benefit for the left in refusing to acknowledge the fact.
Even if you could back this up, richotto (and you could just go to the CSO or the SILC databases to look for evidence), you would still have the problem that the promotion of greater protections for workers would, in fact, prevent any of the race to the bottom scenarios you paint here. Anyone with half a brain might also wonder why we should set two groups of exploited people (immigrants vs. natives) against one another rather than focusing on the exploiters and making moves to delimit their power.
Of course, you cannot come to this conclusion since you think the left should get into bed with and accommodate business.
You need to try harder. Grade: D.
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‘Those governments would make Tony Blair look red.’ No, they wouldn’t. ‘To deny anti-socialist sentiments among East Europeans lacks credibility.’ No, it doesn’t.
There’s no point talking to you, is there? All you have is stuff which you believe must be true because it should be. And you still don’t have the manners to go away and find a few facts and figures to prove any of these assertions. You’re the same about the Public Sector. Saying something over and over again doesn’t make it any more true.
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I know a sometimes Sunday Independent columnist who only has to look into his heart to know what the working class of his adopted Phibsboro feel about any particular issue. I wonder does Richotto know him.
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Know him? Sometimes I wonder if he is him. It’s a pity that the lengthy denunciation of the kidnapping Roma which was probably being written this time last week will never see the light of day. Though he did his best to keep the hate going on Twitter even after it was obviously a lost cause.
BTW, a relation of mine once removed the phrase, “Thieving Roma vermin,” from the copy of another columnist, who also prides himself on his links with the working class, and had to explain to the irate enemy of all things PC that there was such a thing as incitement to hatred. And decency, though our friend was more moved by the former consideration than the latter.
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I feel sorry sometimes for these lads that Paddy Donegan isn’t around for them to idolise.
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Richotto? Richotto? BICOtto perhaps?
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The usual snide thought police are just out to shoot the messanger now. Fine then, I’m off. Personalisation and abuse are no substitutes for rebuttal. The electoral vunerability of the mainstream left in dealing with legimate working class concerns on this issue where they have capitulated to business demands for liberal movement of labour across borders has been bourne out loud and clear over the last ten years. At least Ed Milliband has acknowledged it as a mistake. Its a start. Otherwise the nationalistic right will continue to capture votes across Western Europe that naturally belong to the left of centre parties.
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Even ignoring decency and the notion that we should be committed to a rational society who advances on the basis of evidence and reason, your proposal is:
“Let us advance the interests of a section of the working class by setting them against the interests of a section of the working class.”
Can you really not see any strategic problems with this approach?
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Richotto, have you ever come across notions of evidence, referencing, offering up arguments where one thing follows another in a sequence that could be objectively defended? All I get is ‘everyone knows’ and ‘it’s obvious’. Perhaps we’re all thick here, but part of our way of doing things is not to automatically assume that because ‘everybody knows’ something, it is automatically the case. RiD mentioned Quine up there – you might have a look at ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ as an example of how unobvious the obvious may actually be. (And Quine was a conservative, so no fellow traveler politically of most around here)
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Did Stockhausen do anything on this theme?
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Before you go, Richotto, you need to provide evidence before you get a rebuttal. You have provided nothing.
Your analogy with climate change denial is wanting – those who have investigated global warming have had their data and evidence tested in journals and have provided it to the public. Deniers ignore it or make specious arguments. You have provided nothing.
I have answered your vague pleas to ‘supply and demand’ with reasons as to why it does not obtain in the real world. (I did not even bring up the matter of the requirements for a perfect market, which has never existed anywhere). You have provided nothing.
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Isn’t it a current right wing trope, though, that factual evidence doesn’t really matter. People just KNOW what’s right. In fact even people on the Left KNOW, they just pretend not to because of Political Correctness or Middle Class Guilt or something like that. But right wing political positions are simple common sense and don’t actually need to be backed up with a lot of statistical mumbo jumbo. They are based on archetypes, ‘the squeezed middle’ ‘the coping class,’ ‘the welfare queen,’ ‘The Public Service dosser with his gold plated pension, ‘ ‘the East European who has no time for workers rights’ rather than evidence. When it comes to something like the Tea Party this is evinced as part of its appeal, you don’t need to think or interrogate your prejudices, you just say what everyone KNOWS but is prevented from saying by the media/the PC lobby/them.
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The guy who used to get up in the back of the Gay Byrne Late Late Show audience and say, ‘I don’t know much about this issue but what I think is . . . ‘ used to be apologetic.
When he got up in The Frontline he gloried in his ignorance as though it was not a lack of but rather a superior form of knowledge.
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To labour this point (and make a bad pun), it is incredible to me that richotto would not even bother to google this and find an answer. It is not like it is hard.
For anyone who is wondering, here is a useful study:
This, too, from here:
But, yeah, the left should focus on hounding Czechs out of the country.
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