The Brexit thread

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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby blankly » Fri Jul 08, 2016 3:55 pm

I've not read through all 24 pages of this thread, so apologies if I cover ground already well trodden. I'm an expat Brit who did not get the right to vote because those of us who have lived in Europe for more than fifteen years were judged to have severed ties. Yet, most of us have not and will be perhaps amongst those most affected. We will be very low grade pawns in any negotiations , and few in the UK will have any sympathy with our situation. The leave campaign largely appealed to the dispossessed, or at least those most struggling. It feels like divide and conquer.
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby slimmouse » Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:32 pm

Heres a serious question to Jack and Co.

How the fuck do you know what any single individiual is thinking at one time?

You who think you know.

When you, AD and the rest of your ilk (LOL) think you know, then let me know , cos I dont know.
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby American Dream » Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:57 pm

Do you think the Sun rises and sets in your armpit, slimmouse?
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby slimmouse » Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:03 pm

American Dream » 09 Jul 2016 00:57 wrote:Do you think the Sun rises and sets in your armpit, slimmouse?


Thanks for that studious answer AD. Then again should I expect less? You too Jack

As for your own question, no.
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby SonicG » Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:27 pm

slimmouse » Sat Jul 09, 2016 7:32 am wrote:Heres a serious question to Jack and Co.

How the fuck do you know what any single individiual is thinking at one time?

You who think you know.

When you, AD and the rest of your ilk (LOL) think you know, then let me know , cos I dont know.


I don't know if I am of a stature to be considered "and Co" but I have never said I know what people are thinking, I can merely comment on what people actually do and say. That is, how the Brexit campaign appealed to voters, what the leaders have said and say, and what actually voters say and do...There seems to be plenty of evidence from that as far as what happen in the referendum vote. Sorry if I really don't "know" what you seem to know, but remember, there are a lot of unknowable inknowns out there...right?
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby coffin_dodger » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:53 am

Corbyn speaketh:

We can’t leave the negotiations with Europe to the Tories The Guardian 8 Jul 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/08/jeremy-corbyn-labour-negotiations-europe-tories-exploit-cheap-labour
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby American Dream » Sat Jul 09, 2016 11:28 am

Britain's insularity has been punctured throughout its history in moments where the need for migrant labor has trumped the Little Englander aversion toward foreigners. One such moment was the post-Second World War reconstruction era when the devastated country needed people to aid in the reconstruction of the national economy (much like the rest of Europe). The importation of guest workers from the colonies, followed by decolonization and the migration of former colonized subjects to the metropole have triggered virulent xenophobic and racist responses in Britain. That the British political classes have refused to reckon with the country's colonial legacy and their steadfast refusal to acknowledge the racism interwoven in its institutions have only exacerbated this xenophobia and racism.

The most prevalent cliché of post-referendum analysis has been that the vote for exit should be read as a "working-class revolt."

This xenophobia takes different shapes according to the historical moment, but neoliberal policies have only ever intensified these sentiments. Migrants are today blamed for taking up places in housing and schools, burdening the country's publicly-funded universal health system and weakening the working class. Scant attention is paid to how, beginning with Margaret Thatcher's scorched-earth neoliberalism, policies of privatization and austerity -- during both feast and famine -- have led to a degradation of national life, a diminishing of social mobility and a growth in inequality in the UK.

In the 1990s, under the reign of Tony Blair's New Labour, Thatcher's policies continued in new guises: the fiercely beloved National Health Service (NHS) was funded, but often via public-private partnerships that have in fact burdened the NHS with serious debt and crumbling infrastructures, while enriching private investors and developers. Instead of preserving unused schools, local councils were encouraged to sell off their school buildings in the 1990s, again benefiting property developers who turned these attractive Victorian structures into high-end housing without anticipating the acute future need for school buildings and school places. The sale of social housing, which had been a pillar of Thatcherite policy of privatization, has been exacerbated by wholly inadequate construction of new affordable housing and no effort to replace the stock of social housing lost under Thatcher.

The privatization of the efficient national rail, electricity, phone and water infrastructures has been a boon to profiteering private firms, while the basic transport and utility infrastructures have deteriorated, and their costs -- especially of commuting -- have become exorbitant. The replacement of manufacturing jobs with service jobs, the destruction of the mining and shipping sectors, and the weakening of trade union protections -- particularly in the more militant sectors -- have also had massively detrimental effects on vast swathes of Britain's industrial areas.

More than two-thirds of Asian voters, nearly three-quarters of Black voters and 70 percent of self-identified Muslims voted to remain in the EU.

It is no matter that the Tory Party (under its official name the Conservatives) is ostensibly a party of both fiscal and social conservatism, that the Liberal Democrats are ostensibly a party of social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, and that Labour is a self-avowed socialist party (though subjected to neoliberal reforms under Tony Blair, New Labour moved to the center as did many other social democratic parties in Europe). In the face of rising popular discontent with this abasement of social life in the UK, it has been easier for politicians across the political spectrum to displace the blame for these policies to vulnerable migrants rather than to acknowledge the role not only of the Conservative (Tory) Party (and for a while, its Liberal Democratic coalition partners), but also of the Labour Party in bringing about this turn of events. In this regards, Labour has been wholly complicit in pandering to xenophobic sentiments in order to deflect blame from New Labour policies.

In the face of rising popular discontent with this abasement of social life in the UK, it has been easier for politicians across the political spectrum to displace the blame for these policies to vulnerable migrants rather than to acknowledge the role not only of the Conservative (Tory) Party (and for a while, its Liberal Democratic coalition partners), but also of the Labour Party in bringing about this turn of events. In this regards, Labour has been wholly complicit in pandering to xenophobic sentiments in order to deflect blame from New Labour policies.

These policies of austerity and attendant anti-migrant sentiments have occurred in the context of ever more intense hysteria around the question of "terror." We live in a time of legislations on radicalization, particularly the absurdly authoritarian "Prevent" laws, practices of surveillance not only of Muslims, but also of "suspicious" talk in schools, universities, hospitals and public places, and counterterrorism operations. These government measures -- and particularly the Prevent legislation, which makes it mandatory for school and university teachers to spy on their students and any public official to look out for signs of "radicalization" among Muslim youths in particular -- have led to criminalization of entire communities, and an increase in the sense of vulnerability among British citizens and residents of Muslim origin.

This convergence of anti-migrant xenophobia and Islamophobic racism has now become the most recognizable feature of politics in Britain and have shaped successive election campaigns. Parliamentary elections, especially since 2010, have often pivoted around the question of migration. Although in the 2015 elections, Nigel Farage's right-wing anti-immigration and Eurosceptic party, UK Independence Party (UKIP), only secured one seat in the parliament, he nevertheless picked up millions of votes and Farage managed to define the discourse around migration. So much so, that in pandering to UKIP's base, David Cameron announced the EU referendum.

The vote seems to have legitimated an extraordinary outburst of attacks against migrants.

The London mayoral election, held a scant eight weeks before the EU referendum, was another example of this ignominious turn. The campaign between Labour's Sadiq Khan, a liberal Muslim leaning toward New Labour, and the Tories' Zac Goldsmith, until then best known for his environmental campaigning, showed the extent to which even the more ostensibly liberal members of the Tory Party would appeal to this seam of racism and Islamophobia in order to win votes. This all came to a head with the referendum, where all other issues faded into the background and migration and anti-Muslim sentiments (the latter of which does not have a logical relation to the EU in any case) became the central axis around which the referendum pivoted.

Although the outcome was not really foreseen, and although the end result of the referendum was fairly close (52 percent for Leave; 48 percent for Remain), the win for Eurosceptics took even Leave voters by surprise.

The most prevalent cliché of post-referendum analysis has been that the vote for exit should be read as a "working-class revolt." Setting aside the unspoken assumption that this rebellious working class must by definition be white, the post-referendum exit polls actually indicate the "working-class" characterization of the Leave vote is inaccurate. It is true that a higher percentage of working-class voters voted for exit than did upper- and middle-class voters -- 46 percent versus 64 percent. But once turnout by class was taken into account, the numbers looked different. As Ben Pritchett's calculations (along with his caveats about the turnout numbers including anomalies) have shown, the far greater turnout of the middle and upper classes, versus the working class -- 90 percent versus 52 percent -- meant that in absolute numbers, a far higher number of middle- and upper-class voters (around 10 million voters) actually voted to Leave the EU than the working class (approximately 7 million voters), many others of whom abstained from voting.

This degradation of migrant worker rights will only accelerate the race to the bottom for all workers.

Lord Ashcroft's exit polls showed that if voters thought that multiculturalism, feminism, social liberalism, the environmental movement and immigration are forces for ill, they voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. The same polls showed that while 53 percent of voters who described themselves as white and 58 percent of those who described themselves as Christian voted to leave the EU, more than two-thirds of Asian voters, nearly three-quarters of Black voters and 70 percent of self-identified Muslims voted to remain in the EU.


http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/3 ... xenophobia
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby slimmouse » Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:50 pm

Does it make a blind bit of difference if you're ruled by the Crown, which still, somewhat miraculously manages to own legal title to around half the earth, or by an unelected group of suits who are ultimately nothing more than Corporate whores.?

As the saying goes out here in Asia, its same same,but different
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby American Dream » Sat Jul 09, 2016 5:38 pm

What is the importance of any difference and how might it matter in our social practice?
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby slimmouse » Sat Jul 09, 2016 5:43 pm

American Dream » 09 Jul 2016 21:38 wrote:What is the importance of any difference and how might it matter in our social practice?


I think its a matter of refining our collective thinking about what it is to be human..

It's probably , ultimately , really that simple
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby American Dream » Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:04 pm

Whatever your point may be, it is so vague and abstract as to be pretty much meaningless to the average person. If it is mostly about refining our collective thinking, does it suggest any particular course of action in particular?
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby slimmouse » Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:10 pm

American Dream » 09 Jul 2016 22:04 wrote:Whatever your point may be, it is so vague and abstract as to be pretty much meaningless to the average person. If it is mostly about refining our collective thinking, does it suggest any particular course of action in particular?


There is nothing even remotely vague or abstract about what Im saying as far as Im concerned

We need people to somehow find the time to think more about themselves, their lives, blah blah blah.

Because were they allowed to, IMHO things would change for the better PDQ
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby American Dream » Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:26 pm

Sounds like a subjectivist perspective, which I consider to be lacking.

I say this is as someone who is all for meditative practice but also for working rationally, materially and collectively to make deep changes in our social relationships, most especially at institutional levels.
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby slimmouse » Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:28 pm

American Dream » 09 Jul 2016 22:26 wrote:Sounds like a subjectivist perspective. Say this is as someone who is all for meditation but also for dealing rationally- and collectively- to make deep changes in our social relationships, most especially at an institutional level.


Hey buddy, who was the last person that didnt ever offfer you a subjective perspective? :thumbsup
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Re: The Brexit thread

Postby American Dream » Sat Jul 09, 2016 6:29 pm

Subjectivism is not at all the same as owning your subjectivity.
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