So a couple days ago I seen This Is England, mostly because I read somewhere (IMDB?) that it was the best film at the Berlin Fest. Enough said.

It's about a kid who joins up with a group of skinheads (in England, obviously). At first things are great - he's got new friends and he's having fun. These are not racist skinheads, by the way. At least, not until an old member of the gang is released from prison. He splits the group of friends in half; some of them stay the way they are, and the others buy into his nationalist propaganda.

Anyways, it's a great film, and you should all see it. It really got me to thinking about hate groups. The big question being "Why do they feel the need to hate other groups of people?" I think I'm on to something here.

In the movie, the nationalists are sick and tired of being unemployed and underemployed, and generally poor, while they watch immigrants get jobs and open businesses. Economic distress; it's understandable that they are angry and want to take action. However, they are, as Thoreau would say, hacking at the branches. The problem isn't that immigrants are getting the jobs they used to have. The problem is that the system A) employs people who will work for the absolute lowest wage and B) overworks said people rather than spreading the work out over several employees. And don't even get me started on how those wages could easily be significantly raised without putting the employer in the red in nearly every situation.

Just a little tidbit to help along my hypothesis: in the past few years in the USA, as immigration rates have gone up, membership of neo-nazi and KKK groups have also gone up considerably, as young people face unemployment, poverty, apathy, and all that comes with it.

So in otherwords, I now hold the capitalist system responsible for the mass majority of hate groups (that is, not necessarily including those caused by religious-based hate).

Oh and uh... I hate to get all political on you guys (again), this being a gaming site and all, but I got the boot from RevLeft. Apparently, unity is not a leftist value; sectarianism is. My mistake. :roll: