The Brexit thread

[Harvey]

I do but no one is interested. .

Not quite.

[Morty]

We all already know why we can't have good government, and other nice things:

In the end, whatever the reality of Talbot’s most sensational claims, he unquestionably makes the case that — unless you believe we’re governed by shape-shifting space lizards — your darkest suspicions about how the world operates are likely an underestimate. Yes, there is an amorphous group of unelected corporate lawyers, bankers, and intelligence and military officials who form an American “deep state,” setting real limits on the rare politicians who ever try to get out of line. They do collaborate with and nurture their deep state counterparts in other countries, to whom they feel far more loyalty than their fellow citizens. The minions of the deep state hate and fear even the mildest moves towards democracy, and fight against it by any means available to them. They’re not all-powerful and don’t get exactly what they want, but on the issues that matter most they almost always win in the end. And while all this is mostly right there in the open, discernible by anyone who’s curious and has a library card, if you don’t go looking you will never hear a single word about it.

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/02/the ... hessboard/

[Morty]

George Galloway facebook video (2 mins) commenting on Corbyn/Labour:

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialGeorge ... 853780797/

[Nordic]

Willow, if your liberal friends are anything like my liberal friends, they support the EU because they've been told it's a bunch of ignorant racists who want out of it. Basically it's PC. As usual.

[justdrew]

a vote of such consequence should require more than a bare majority to win.

Why? Did it take a massive supermajority to enter the EU in the first place?

Well, it probably should have, if it didn't. If it were re-voted today, I bet 51% at least would say, "stay in" - and if they did, would that really be so fair to then 'stay in' ? All this "democracy" and "voting" that ALWAYS seems to come within a handful of percentage points either way... I think the issues should be more clear or something, because having a vote and then telling 49% of the population to go fuck themselves afterwards, because they "lost" - is kinda bullshit.

No country should be making decisions of this magnitude by popular bare-majority referendum. These are the sorts of things our elected representatives are supposed to be handling, knowing about and making the best possible compromises about.

There are good things and bad things about the EU, and I'm fairly skeptical of it, as it's currently functioning. Reforms are needed, why wouldn't reforms be needed? Of course adjustments need to be made. Now any chance of that coming from Brittan is likely gone.

Of course, the people currently running Brittan couldn't reform shit, and would only advocate for terrible reforms, so... it's a wash.

Basically, "democracy" as practiced is currently making effective government impossible, and not just in Brittan.

[Nordic]

a vote of such consequence should require more than a bare majority to win.

Why? Did it take a massive supermajority to enter the EU in the first place?

Well, it probably should have, if it didn't. If it were re-voted today, I bet 51% at least would say, "stay in" - and if they did, would that really be so fair to then 'stay in' ? All this "democracy" and "voting" that ALWAYS seems to come within a handful of percentage points either way... I think the issues should be more clear or something, because having a vote and then telling 49% of the population to go fuck themselves afterwards, because they "lost" - is kinda bullshit.

No country should be making decisions of this magnitude by popular bare-majority referendum. These are the sorts of things our elected representatives are supposed to be handling, knowing about and making the best possible compromises about.

There are good things and bad things about the EU, and I'm fairly skeptical of it, as it's currently functioning. Reforms are needed, why wouldn't reforms be needed? Of course adjustments need to be made. Now any chance of that coming from Brittan is likely gone.

Of course, the people currently running Brittan couldn't reform shit, and would only advocate for terrible reforms, so... it's a wash.

Basically, "democracy" as practiced is currently making effective government impossible, and not just in Brittan.

Matt Taibi wrote an article just for you:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... 627?page=3

The Reaction to Brexit Is the Reason Brexit Happened
If you believe there's such a thing as "too much democracy," you probably don't believe in democracy at all

By Matt Taibbi June 27, 2016

In 1934, at the dawn of the Stalinist Terror, the great Russian writer Isaac Babel offered a daring quip at the International Writers Conference.

"Everything is given to us by the party and the government. Only one right is taken away: the right to write badly.

A onetime Soviet loyalist who was eventually shot as an enemy of the state, Babel was likely trying to say something profound: that the freedom to make mistakes is itself an essential component of freedom.


As a rule, people resent being saved from themselves. And if you think depriving people of their right to make mistakes makes sense, you probably never had respect for their right to make decisions at all.

This is all relevant in the wake of the Brexit referendum, in which British citizens narrowly voted to exit the European Union.

Because the vote was viewed as having been driven by the same racist passions that are fueling the campaign of Donald Trump, a wide swath of commentators suggested that democracy erred, and the vote should perhaps be canceled, for the Britons' own good.

Social media was filled with such calls. "Is it just me, or does #Brexit seem like a moment when the government should overrule a popular referendum?" wrote one typical commenter.

On op-ed pages, there was a lot of the same. Harvard economics professor and chess grandmaster Kenneth Rogoff wrote a piece for the Boston Globe called "Britain's democratic failure" in which he argued:


(It goes on ..... The site makes it really fucking hard to C&P )


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... z4CqBux2Aq
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[seemslikeadream]

Steve Bell on Tory leadership after the EU referendum

[stefano]

The reason the EU is utterly FUBAR is because of the way it is designed as an organisation.

All the tsunami of steamy debate is based around political or economic or power analysis.
BUT
The problem is not one of analysis, it is one of design, according to principles from management cybernetics.

Thanks Searcher, that is very interesting stuff.

Don't you think that the EU has allowed some more devolution of power to lower levels of government than was possible before?

In my optimistic moods I think that Brussels will let go a bit to avoid losing another country, and perhaps to avoid Brexit altogether.

Related:

The European Union must stop being nit-picky and intrusive, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said today as the bloc scrambled to handle the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave.

'We must put an end to this sad and finicky Europe. Too often it is intrusive on details and desperately absent on what's essential,' Valls said.

'We must break away from the dogma of ever more Europe. Europe must act not by principle but when it is useful and pertinent.'

And I thought this was good, by a guy I really enjoy reading (but you only get three FT aticles a month for free):
I do not believe that Brexit will happen

[82_28]

And I thought this was good, by a guy I really enjoy reading (but you only get three FT aticles a month for free):
I do not believe that Brexit will happen

Seattle Times is the same way. All you have to do is delete the particular cookies. Not all of the cookies on your browser just run a search for the pertinent ones and once the list comes up select "delete all". At least that's how it works in Firefox.

[Harvey]

Steve Bell on Tory leadership after the EU referendum

Couldn't resist this also by Enguerrand Quarton for it's (possibly unconscious) embedded subtexts. Beautiful.

[stefano]

What’s interesting about Friday’s date?

It was 7 years, 7 months, 7 weeks and 7 days since September 29, 2008.

It acutally was... hmm...

All you have to do is delete the particular cookies. Not all of the cookies on your browser just run a search for the pertinent ones and once the list comes up select "delete all". At least that's how it works in Firefox.

Looks like that works... oddly primitive for the FT, I thought they did something with IP addresses or whatever. Thanks!

[Harvey]

Looks like that works... oddly primitive for the FT, I thought they did something with IP addresses or whatever. Thanks!

Or to turn that around, oddly egalitarian, since it looks like design rather than accident.

[82_28]

Yeah, I always keep the "preferences" tab open so I can easily go there (I just figured this out a few weeks ago). I thought it was IP addresses as well. But I guess numerous computers can be using the same IP so the system can't tell if you are the same computer once you wipe out the particular cookies. What I can't stand is the pop-up that say Wired uses that says, we've noticed you're using ad-blocker, whitelist us to read. Sorry, then I guess you're not worth reading.

[Iamwhomiam]

The only other way I know of to circumvent certain paywalls is to google the title of the article you want to read and access it via the link the search engine provides you. Works most of the time, but not always.

[backtoiam]

Imagine my shock. Something like this is what I expected from the beginning. I'm very skeptical that a free and democratic vote by the people would be allowed and probably only ignored. Before this is over I expect the EU to be knitted into a larger and more repressive regime using Brexit as a catalyst.

European SUPERSTATE to be unveiled: EU nations 'to be morphed into one' post-Brexit

EUROPEAN political chiefs are to take advantage of Brexit by unveiling their long-held plan to morph the continent’s countries into one GIANT SUPERSTATE, it has emerged yesterday.

The foreign ministers of France and Germany are due to reveal a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states in what is being described as an “ultimatum”.

Under the radical proposals EU countries will lose the right to have their own army, criminal law, taxation system or central bank, with all those powers being transferred to Brussels.

Controversially member states would also lose what few controls they have left over their own borders, including the procedure for admitting and relocating refugees.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/ ... ate-Brexit