I disagree. Just because you are poorer it doesn't mean you are more prone to be a worse person.

I fully agree with Ignacio. I´ve said it before. Spain or Europe is not like America where throughtout the centuries many people from different cultures and races stablished. Spain, Italy, France, England, Germany are countries with many centuries of History, they are proud of what they are and they don´t believe in having their identities distroyed. Why do I say this:

France: Le Pen
Italy: Bossi.
Austria: Haider.-
Swizterland: El partido del Pueblo
Belgium: Vlaams Blok
Great Britain: BNP.
The Netherlands: Pim Forutyn.
Denmark: Pia ....

These political parties have raised in the last 5 years basically because they want to STOP the massive immigration to their countries. Tens of millions of Europeans don´t believe in an utophic world where millions of whites, blacks, muslims, christians, buddists, or whatever can live in the same geographical space without interference between ones and anothers.

Europeans used to live much better without this massive immigration. You can ask a Swiss, a French, an Italian, a Dutch, and many others and if they are in the mod to tell you the truth they will tell you that this is enough.

The people that defend that millions of immigrants should still be comming to Europe always says the same stupidity: "they are the ones that will pay our pensions and they will raise our bithrate". Sorry.....but there are many other ways to pay our pensions and sorry...We don´t want to be replaced by tens of millions of muslims or others just because we have a low birthrate...

Enjoy Spain and Europe while it is still Spain and Europe. In 30 or 40 years this will something else...but not a real Europe. What I still find quite stupid is the people that support it...they still don´t realize what is going in Europe (last week all Italy got mad when a muslim ordered that a christian simbol had to be taken out of a public school). That is only the begining.

This has nothing to do with racism or xenophobia, this has to do with the right of every country to preserve their identities (cultural, religious, ethnic).

I can put hundreds pieces of news of the things that immigrants have been doing in the last weeks in Spain but there will still be people saying "they are a minority, most of the immigrants are good and blah, blah, blah". So what???. Is it intelligent to admit that our neighbourhoods should go to hell just because there are other immigrants that are ok and honest working??.

There are tons of neighbourhoods in Madrid where a madrileño is almost like a foreigner in their own city. Does it makes it any sense??

Can you imagine a black Chinese?, can you imagine a moroccoan of chinesse origin?, can you imagine a black japanese?, so why do We have to have all nationalities of "Europeans" (chinese, blacks, moroccoan, pakistani, ....??, do you think it will be great that Tokio would be the land of 1.5 million muslims, 0.5 million whites, 1.3 millions northafricans, 0.7 millions australians and 2 millions ethnic Japanesse?. When you went to that Tokio will you enjoy the fact that Tokio wiould be another multicultural stupidity or would you prefer if you visited Tokio to find an homogeneous and milleniary Tokio??. Why do We have to put with it in Europe??.

BTW, if you are in Madrid, go to certain "Locutorios", you will find a revista that is called "MM", ie "Madrid Mestizo". It is a revista edited by immigrants and leftcommunists Spaniards that are PROMOTING that Madrid can become a Mestizo city. Is it not illegal to promote the destruction of race, promoving their mixture or mestizaje?. Is it right to destroy the identity of a "pueblo" editing "revistas" where the goal is to have a "Madrid Mestizo population"??. What if some Spaniards edited a "revista called "Madrid White"?. How many media would be accusing of racism to that hipothetical revista?.

I just want you to open your eyes. In the US, the socalled """latinos""" can have a "Dia de la Raza", and afroamericans can have festivals promoting their heritage. That is blatant racist because a "White Proud Day" would be considered offensive but "La Raza day" is not. (btw what "Raza"?, I suposse it is Amerindinan Raza"). Strange...and stupid...

And I want to remark another thing: NONE of the immigrants that are comming to Spain or Europe are or has been poorer than what our fathers or grandfathers where when they had to deal with the Civil War. 95% of Spaniards were VERY POOR. They used to eat a piece of bread for days and didn´t even have shoes for the winter. With their courage and hard work they could pass the Civil War and the 40 years of Dictadura and now they have a little of confort, confort that it is fastly going down when tens of thousands of immigrants are ruining their neighbourhoods with their thirdworld behaviour (gangs, loud salsa until 5.00, robberies, dirty parks, drunk adults in the parks,...).

Now they are old, and they are seeing in the parks how these so called "latinos" immigrants are asking for money to their grandsons just to let them use the public installations in the parks so they can play for a while. None of the immigrants that are comming to Spain or Europe have passed through a Civil War, they even come here confortably in an Iberia flight or pay 3000 euros to the mafias to arrive here.

Europe has had 2 World Wars in their territorry. No one was poorer than those Europeans. After it, they could do it, they did it good, now Europe is a great place to live. Why don´t they fight for their countries instead of comming here in an Iberia flight?. Stop with the demagogia of the politians and "progresists" and learn what the people in the streets are saying in private and have fear to say it in public.

O my God! Now, this is going to be hot!

Thanks for your support, but I think it's too radical and this time, it's obviously a racial-oriented point of view, which I don't support.

As for me, I don't care a d*mm wether inmigrants are black or green if they are civic and honest. Obviously, I would prefer not to surrender our identity, like the french city of Marseilles, where nowadays there is a majority of muslims and it's the french the discriminated, but I would accept cohabitation, provided there is no discrimination.

No matter if these muslims were sacndinavians white, because what worries me is not race, is convivence conditions.

"As for me, I don't care a d*mm wether inmigrants are black or green if they are civic and honest. Obviously, I would prefer not to surrender our identity, like the french city of Marseilles, where nowadays there is a majority of muslims and it's the french the discriminated, but I would accept cohabitation, provided there is no discrimination.

No matter if these muslims were sacndinavians white, because what worries me is not race, is convivence conditions."

Points you have said:

1º. You don´t mind wheter the immigrants are black or green if they are civic and honest. REALITY says that: many moroccoans and romaninans, and gipsies and other groups are not civic and honest. So your intention on not having a cultural/racial debate here comes when We go further into your own perspectives.

2º. "Obviously, I would prefer not to surrender our identity, like the french city of Marseilles, where nowadays there is a majority of muslims and it's the french the discriminated, but I would accept cohabitation, provided there is no discrimination."

Nice utophy. So you don´t want a Marseille in Spain full of muslim where the Spanish are discriminated but you didn´t mind in you first argument whether the immigrants were black or green aslong as they are civic and honest. Now We have another culture/race disccussion derivated from an original ingenous initial proposition. If you don´t want a Marseille in Spain is because you will not accept many muslims (or others) living in a neighbourdhood or city in Spain. Accept reality!. Don´t believe in utophias, ask the french how is the situation there, not only in Marseille but also in Lyon and many neighbourhoods in Paris. Good desires is great, but this good desires means NOTHING when REALITY shows that your words were ingenous.

3º "No matter if these muslims were sacndinavians white, because what worries me is not race, is convivence conditions. ". Yes, but again, the FACT IS that the muslims are not the scandinavians but northafricans-somalies-non-european-immigrants. As always. And those are the ones that don´t respect the convivence conditions and will not respect them in the future for much money and good desires they put on reeducate them. It will not work. History has showed it. It is strange that you are a Spaniard and still believe in education of minorities when GISPIES have been in Spain for 650 years and they still live as parasites of the Spaniards, receiving free houses, free schools, free money in change of delincuency, drug, bad convivence, and "raping, killing, burning, small Spanish girls like the Sandra Palo case".

You have good desires. It is a pity that REALITY is different.

I'm just looking over the posts not read all them because I always find discussions about racism, emigration and crime very boring full of topics and so on. But I'm just worried about what Ignacio said about driving drunk.
Ignacio this week we have read in the press that 37% of people killed in traffic accidents in Spain had alcohol in their blood. That's a 5% less than in 2001, great, we're improving but it's something worries me a lot because everybody thinks they're tipsy and they can drive and then accidents arrive! Law is very hard with drunk drivers, if you're catched with more than 0,3% of alcohol in your blood (that's a single beer) you'll receive a big fine and you'll have a criminal record, that means that you could go to jail in your next crime. And this will be although you were driving correctly.
.........
Well, maybe this should be another topic...

This topic is always interesting to me. When I was in spain over the last year or so I would ask spaniards about this. I would get the same answer. No we don't want people to come here to work. The United States can afford to take in all these people because they have more money. It is interesting where most of the immigrants are coming from. Countries that were former colonies of europe. It is not a coincidence that people from these countries are now going to europe, since there is a refusal to invest in these countries. Thanks to the discovery of america by a european(questionable depending on who you talk to)money and labor is now being moved around the world. Why did europeans look elsewhere, much of it has to do with greed and another part is opportunity or persecution. In most cases the people going to europe barely have the shirt on their backs. The problem with Spain is that many spaniards are not able to travel. If they were to travel south to africa and parts of south america they would see not poverty but sub human conditions. No one in this world should have to live like that. I live in the northeast U.S. aND i always encounter spaniards who are working in new York, Boston or New jersey. If they can come here, why can't other people go to spain to work. I am reminded of story about a spaniard in the south who worked for a travel agency and was making 500 euro a month. She quit her job to collect benefits from the government for 200EURO a month. Hey If you don't want to work , someone else will because their lives depend on it and als0 the lives of their families in their home countries. I talked to many immigrants from south america while I was in spain. I would ask them how they liked living in Spain, They said they did not like it there, but each time I asked them why, they would not tell me. People don't leave the security of their culture and the beauty of their country and their friends unless they have a good reason. Europe has a selective memory(this means it only remembers what it wants to rememeber) Look at the irish in the U.S., there are 40 million people of irish descent in the U.S. Way more than the population that is in Ireland today.

Can't we all just get along? I don't want to fuel the fire, I am observing that a lot of people have attacked ignacio because they read way too much into his comments. He said he is not racist, why would he lie? In his defense, nobody seemed to notice the first part of his comments, "he called the police for a colombian guy who had been mugged by six other latinos (or so he said)." First, he called the police fo a colombian guy, does this not show his compassion? Couldn't he have just as easily turned the other way? Second. How did he know he was colombian? Obviously he cared enough to ask.
Ignacio says he's not racist, I believe him.

Dear Ignacio,

I'm afraid I would be repeating myself and repeating other posts too.

My ethnic make-up makes me sensitive, yes, really it is no surprise, and I do not intend to change.
Lets just agree that we do not see eye to eye on this one and leave it at that.

Saludos a todos.

ERT:

I see your point, but I think there are somesubtleties you don't consider:

- As I said before, between a huge majority of honest workers (including morocchians honestly working long hours for "a tip" in our fields), we receive a too high (for our standards) percentage of thugs. That we agree.

The difference is that you focus it from the racial point of view, whereas I do in the social-cultural one.

I have seen black people from Nigeria working in humble jobs (nowadays, I am beginning to see african dustmen in Madrid, for example), and I have not heard of crimes comitted by this minority. No matter that they may be a couple of thousands, I never heard of a real crime in years. Aren't they black? Shouldn't they be uncivic, form your point of view? The only semi-illegal activities I heard of (obviously some of) them are prostitution and that kind of covered extortion when you park your car (you never know if they really meant any harnm to your car if you don't give a tip), this latter is very common in some areas, but they are very scarce and localized. No matter that this method pisses me off, I can live with it. I can have convivence.

Same applies, for example to Cuban citizens. They have their defects, we all have, but they are not known by being a problematic group. All kind of colours there.

Romanians, on the other side, are white, although part (half?) of their population is of gypsy origin (in case you want to make a difference). However being white, we have a high percentage of crime in this group. Same applies to our Russian and ex-Jugoslavian population, between many honest people we get too many of the others.

So, I don't think it's a matter of race. I would rather live on with more pacific african blue-black people than with any extra-caucasian thug.

- I would rather not having to walk 500 yards instead of 100 when I come out of my house for a fast dinner (because I don't feel like cooking), because I lived in a neighbourhood where everybody was muslim, or not having a church nearby but a mosque, or that my kids went to a school where they learnt Morocchian instead of English as a foreign language. That you are right.

But these are the costs of mixing. As I said before, I oppose migration (at least, that massive one), but if we have it, this price doesn't look too expensive for me.

What would worry me would be that because of inmigration, in my own country/city I was discriminated . I have a friend from Marseilles, and he tells me that whereas the French make business with the best offerer, the northern african population (and descendants) prefer making business among themselves, which results in ruin for many french people's businesses, and is unfair. That behaviour in the part of the French would have been objectable and unfair. Letting foreigners do that to you is objectable, unfair ... and stupid!

I oppose big migrations, but I think the USA inmigration diversity program is a great idea. Unfortunately 50.000 a year will not change much the social composition of the country, but it helps not to become a hostage of ONE social group.

I would be for this.

- As for spanish gypsies, you are right that, as a collective, they have as bad or even worse behaviour than many inmigrant groups, but, again, I don't think it's a racial matter. You probably know that many gypsies have integrated and are valuable members of the comunity. You know that there are the "marchantes" (or whatever the anme is) and other groups of gypsies that, precisely because they have integrated, are despiced by the rest of the gypsies.

So, gypsies can also be a good point for the society. It's a matter of education, that's where the group values come from.

In all, I agree that my position is a little theoretical, but it needs to be, because we are speaking of rights, ethics, and so on. I hope the few related examples show you how the practice could be, with a convivence with groups of different ethnia, religion or whatever, as long as these caracteristics don't make them agressive, intolerant, ..., and that there is not so many of them that we become alien in our own city/country.

Miguelito:

One thing is driving drunk, and other is being positive in blood controls. You know the press makes this equal in their need to be sensationalistic, and it isn't. I´ll quote you:

You yourself said it. Law is not only very hard with drunk drivers, but also with those having one beer, which I find very unfair. That's why it hurts that somebody says they are very lenient.

BTW, following the disinformative tradition of the press, they present that 37% of the accidents as a 37% of drunk drivers (and 99% of these probably had one or two beers, that did not influence at all the accident), and as if the reason for the accident was being drunk, which is very doubtful.

Most people have alcohol sometime along the day. Some wine with the meal, a beer if it is too hot, oviously may be some drinks at night when you get out... But that doen't mean that you are drunk, only that you are over the super-strict 0,3% that years ago wasn't demanded not even for truck drivers.

Mencey:

THANKS! You know, it took me some messages to realize we were focusing this from the racial point of view. At first I thought it was only somebody's love for his/her neighbourhood. That naive was my assertion.

Dear Miche:

:-xxxxx

I know the law is too hard, maybe unfair, but I support it, I prefer not to drink or catch the metro or a taxi(although sometimes this is as dangerous as driving drunk ). When I take the car I never drink anything, mainly because I'm frightened by the law (since my lawyer friend told me about what the crime records meant) but also because you never know which is the quantity that won't affect your driving.