The UK's shock decision to exit the European Union has left a foreboding shadow over the American political landscape, sending the U.S.—and the world—a stark warning about the dangers of a disaffected working class and the power of negative politics.
Conservatives worldwide have been heralding Thursday's vote as a victory for "the people" over the "political elite."
E. F. Schumacher wrote Small is Beautiful. Perhaps it applies to countries and states. What use have we for empire in this day and age?
But unfortunately, it seems that only among the Spanish is their seething resentment being directed in a healthy, non-fascist, and/or effective direction. Podemos is a gleam of hope in a pretty bleak world right now.
Absatively posolutely. Globalization has been the naked parasites dancing around the musical chairs with their fig-leaf logos specially colored and jaw-flapping on about how you’d better listen to them 'cause they’re the Xpurtz! That of course after they spent hundreds of years claiming, under threat of death (ongoing genocides) , that only they know how to identify the experts.
All the while the REAL local experts have their lands stolen, their water sources usurped, biomes and community base destroyed, rights assertions falsely criminalized, US and allied military bases and trainees oozing poison in as many areas as possible.
And the power brokers will smugly remind you that one man’s poison is another man’s profit. One might want to reciprocate with a reminder along the lines that if the system being advanced is premised on ignoring its moral failings in order to be able to rationalize not being accountable for [externalize] the damages it foments, pretty soon all you have is a destruction killing machine with flappy ‘logo’ banners flapping all over the place as it blindly drives into the abyss.
…
Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end for unregulated greed and capitalism. One can only hope. #JillNotHill #BernieOrBust
The Leave campaign, Eskow explained, “prevailed despite opposition from all three major political parties” in the UK, as well as U.S. President Barack Obama, who “crossed the Atlantic to stand beside Cameron and offer his support.”
ZeroHedge features this observation and an interesting graphic to back it up:
While the blame for today’s historic moment in the collapse of crony capitalism could be laid at many feet - from Brussels totalitarianism to Cameron and Osborne’s scaremongering blowback - one look at the charts and it becomes pretty clear when exactly the inflection point occurred…
April 22nd, Obama wrote his “Stay or screw the special relationship” Op-Ed followed by his apology tour visit.
It appears The Brits don’t like being told what to do by other nations’ leaders…
From: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-24/was-deciding-factor-brits-vote-leave
Conservatives worldwide have been heralding Thursday’s vote as a victory for “the people” over the “political elite.”
I’m getting pretty damn tired of CD’s main spin on this issue. It’s by no means just “Conservatives” who are “heralding this vote as a victory”.
Seems like almost all the stories in the left-hand, main column of the page take this negative view, while most of the stories in the right-hand, Views column are taking the positive reading (which I, personally, share). Yes we have a certain number of racist assholes celebrating, but aren’t we way past the days when you could judge the badness of a movement by the dislikability of its members? The Brexit could topple over into a dangerous insularity, racism etc, but I find it very hard to lament their escape from the high-elitist dominion of the EU.
“Trump Era America”? The prospect of the pathology and mindless extremist blather of Trump being forced on the US via an “election” is terrifying - the Brexit vote is far different!
“British Exit From EU Not Inevitable, Despite Referendum”
“Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the failed campaign to convince voters to stay in the EU, told the public that an exit would not happen soon, as he intended to resign in three months and leave it to his successor to decide “when to trigger Article 50″ of the union’s basic agreement, the Lisbon Treaty, which says that a member state has two years after declaring its desire to leave to negotiate the terms of its exit.”
"the man considered most likely to be prime minister in October, Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, also seemed in no hurry to get the process started. - “In voting to leave the EU, it is vital to stress that there is no need for haste,” Johnson said, “and indeed, as the prime minister has just said, nothing will change over the short term, except that work will have to begin on how to give effect to the will of the people and to extricate this country from the supranational system.”
“it is important to keep two things in mind. First, it was Johnson himself who suggested, when he joined the Leave campaign in February, that a vote to depart could be used as a stick to negotiate not a full departure from the EU, but a better deal for the UK.”
“the measure Britons just voted for “was an advisory not a mandatory referendum,” meaning that it is not legally binding on the government. No matter who the prime minister is, he or she is not required by the outcome to trigger Article 50. And, despite what senior figures in the EU and its other states might say, there is no way for them to force the UK to invoke Article 50.”
This could easily have been an article talking about the Brexit as a harbinger for a Sanders America, too. The roots of both populist reactions are very similar.
But hey, I know it’s that time of year to terrify people into voting for a Democrat that’s going to destroy their lives, and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of such a noble goal.
Conservatives, like roosters crowing. take credit for every sunrise and every event they can claim. The MSM loves and encourages them. They’d televise the barbecuing of children on Sunday morning if it made them a $1.98.Brexit, or Trump last April, was spun as a conservative uprising, bringing shock and awe at the crudeness of the whole affair, to the sleeping upper middle class. " Don’t tread on me " and potential for murder and mayhem at every channel change; that’s what they want to sell to every household during the 2016 election season. The world will have to decide whether this drivel, and the Corporations selling it, are worthy of even disgusting contempt. In 2014 only 38% voted in federal elections here. And, only 72% voted in Great Britain this week. The MSM and wealthy in the U S . should be concerning themselves with what 62% of the adults will do when those folks have finally given up and throw in the towel on America and its promises.
Partisans don’t let indictments get in the way of their loyalty. Even if HRC is indicted, few, if any, of the people who voted for her in the primary will alter their opinions or general election vote. The DNC knows this and will not be swayed by an indictment since the crooks that fund the DNC and Clinton won’t care either.
An indictment WILL shift a few more swing voters from Clinton to Trump or third party.
From the report:
“The UK’s shock decision to exit the European Union has left a foreboding shadow over the American political landscape, sending the U.S.—and the world—a stark warning about the dangers of a disaffected working class and the power of negative politics.”
And then:
“While many are pointing to the overt xenophobic rhetoric that enabled the “Leave” campaign to win a narrow majority of votes, observers are highlighting how it was the policies of the European Union’s political establishment—austerity, deregulation, globalization—that drove those voters into the arms of the conservative campaigners.”
It’s not just “the power of negative politics.” It’s the phony “positive politics” of the liberal establishment that cannot own or even acknowledge the horrific outcomes of its own policies and programs. Even if many focus their outrage on false targets, vast numbers of people rightly recognize they are needlessly suffering.
It has been pointed out in these comments numerous times: The DNC and Clinton Campaign are far more focused on the threat to their own political establishment from the populist left Sanders campaign, than the broader threat of a right-wing response to their “austerity, deregulation, globalization.”
The liberal political establishment’s disdain for the vast majority of everyone, is far more strongly focused on populist “threats” from the left, than from the right. The obvious and bottomless DNC / Clinton disdain for Sanders voters, leaves a much more open playing field for the ascendancy of Trump voters.
By refusing to recognize or address left critiques of “austerity,” insisting on full repayment of all manner of “odious debt,” pandering to the banksters whose bottomless greed and arrogance sank the economy, etc. etc. etc., the liberal political establishment helps breed and nurture the right-wing populist response.
Speaking of the EU vote, Trump said " They took back their country. That’s a great thing."
That’s what Bernie is trying to do here in the U.S.
There should be cause for concern here but it should also be kept in mind that unlike England and Wales (most people in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain) the US is a country of immigrants and about one-third of the population is now minority and that proportion is growing. Also, unlike in England the Muslim population is very well assimilated in the US. Those who voted to leave were largely members of the white working class and that group is too small to form a majority in the US. Also, the US does not belong to anything like the EU which isn’t really democratic and is a source of confusion to many people. Trump’s campaign of white nationalism seems to be limited in the number of people who support it. However, because of the electoral college he could win the election without getting the most votes.
