Read. My. Mind.
Really well written! Personally, I'm not a fan of this excessive obsession with streamlining life. I can't be bothered to do my laundry, clean my house, do my shopping, even do my work, or indeed look after my kids when they come. I can also automate or soon will AI to carry on correspondence for me. It can summarize books and films so I save time. Does beg the question...what the fuck are people doing with all this time?
Immigration, I think, is also an issue of safety in Europe. To an extent, at least, as there has been a good deal of hushed-up violence (particularly against women) by immigrants. The job thing, though, sure, they'll still "take our jobs" because it's shit pay and shit conditions. For a year. Two at best. Then all the stuff immigrants are "stealing" s gonna be AI, together with all the fancier jobs people think are too important and high-brow to be replaced. Everything else is.
Immigration in Europe is different to there. If course we have some of the same problems but DV is committed across all groups of people in this country. I suspect it's the same there and 'hushed up' is also across the board - DV is notoriously underreported as it's a domestic matter and there's shame involved as well as further threats of violence. It's tricky data I guess as well since any crimes committed by immigrants will likely be over ported as well as it confirms and validates fear of immigrants.
It's also interesting to contemplate the stresses on immigrant men that lead to DV. Post war Australians, for example, were prone to alcoholism and violence because they sure as hell didn't have access to mental health plans. And then there's the way men are raised in any culture - swallow that shit, keep it down, be the man, don't cry, provide.
Oh sorry you mentioned DV so have me going.... Oops. I'll stop.
Here too. The immigrants do a lot of the shit jobs. They're willing to put up with shit conditions and shit demands. Someone was telling us the other day that there's mainly Chinese doing plastering in Melbourne - they do a shit job not because they're Chinese but because they have mad deadlines to get it done.
Most immigrants here are so bloody grateful to be here they work hard and keep their heads down. It's not like Europe with your very porous borders. For us it's more about how it's managed by the government that perhaps isn't considering demand for housing and infrastructure which is pushing up prices for housing etc. Still migrants are not the only cause of that and migration is trending downwards if you look at the data. So many issues are perceived rather than actual. Yet we have definitely jumped on the bandwagon of far right angst going on with the rest of the world. Id hate to be an immigrant anywhere right now.
Glad you liked the poem.
Huge issues. And I get it, I could talk about this for days! I was thinking more along the lines of sexual assault outside the home, of which there has also been a strong wave (as well as thieving, battery, etc.) perpetrated heavily by immigrants - things locals in cities (esp. Westerners) know, but which seldom make it to the news, perhaps to not cause strife with the respective country's very pro-immigration views, I don't really know.
It's so important not to forget that is also the case for many.
It certainly seems to be a rising trend. We were on the leftist bandwagon for a while, but now it seems increasingly to be the other way around. I'm terrified where that might lead us, also. I was just listening to a podcast discussing how you should be worried more not about the other "side" (be it left or right), but rather the extremists on your own side.
💯
Bandwagons of any kind are ill advisable.
God I'm pretty sure there would be lynchings if immigrants started behaving that way here. That's fucking terrible. I'm glad I don't live in Europe tbh though I miss it terribly.