For the US - would a parallel article with the same sort of tenor be "How Russia and Lies and Citizens United and Ignorance and Racism caused Trump" (probably needs more nouns)

... but fortunately we aren't as screwed as the UK. Yet."

Thanks.

p.s. I thought Scotts were supposed to be tight-fisted, lol.

Because that's all they talked about during the lead-up...

I'm guessing this is another flavor of that tired "It's not racism it's economic anxieties!" -talking point? Because the author has lost the plot here (although she gets a bonus point for pinning this fiasco on that old boogeyman of the left, 'neoliberalism')

And given the biblical clusterfuck this whole stunt has been, it's crystal clear that this had Jack Fuckin' Shit to do with the economy or "Taking back control," whatever the hell that means.

I could go on but what would be the point? It's obvious that Corbyn and the horseshoe left have a bigger boner for ditching the EU than Farage ever did... They wanted this shit so they can deal with it

Read it. It's really good.

Why this author insists on labeling longtime established conservative policies as "neoliberal" ones

It's just a word that means whatever people want it to.

Neoliberalism in economics is "free market" and "individualism" writ exceedingly large, its preferred method of influencing economics arrogated to the persons and corporate interests with the most money. Government influence on economics is abhorred, except to the extent it provides a legal and regulatory framework for transferring the wealth created by labor to the upper reaches of the economic strata.

So it's not terribly useful as a description. To the extent people like Krugman or Paul Volcker or Abhijeet Bannerjee are neoliberals, so am I.

Wealthy people screw over poor people and convince them to blame immigrants. The article is a good long read and worth reading. The author does bring up the many parallels to Trump's wall and what people thought they were voting for vs what they got.

Screwing people tends to bring out the worst in them. Hurt people hurt people. Conservatives love using apocalyptic war language because it mentally justifies doing terrible things that no rational human being would ever agree to in a peaceful prosperous time.

Most wealthy like cheap immigrant labor. They would just prefer if their native born citizens saw immigrants as a competitive threat for jobs as a way to lower wages/benefits and avoid collective bargaining. They use racism as a tool to benefit them financially.

First of all in the actual article, "neoliberalism" is rarely mentioned. But furthermore, he gets to this point:

That about sums it up. Sums up the wall as well.

precisely as well. He was sold to frightened children in the U.S. Foreigners....the bogeymen/women/children that are scaring the bejebus out of people who actually believe there was a "good old days" to return to. I lived through that era, and I never considered them that good at all. Post World War II was a time of plenty, yes, but the price that was paid and the lives that were lost to attain those "halcyon days" were far too great a price to pay. Those "Halcyon Days" didn't extend themselves to all Americans, as I'll state later on.

The delivery system used to deliver both Brexit and Trump was statistics. Algorithms were designed to twist people's emotions into pretzels with their weaponized language. Cambridge Analytica, and other such companies, were hired by wealthy Americans (code named "Mercer" ) and spearheaded by Steve Bannon in both Brexit and the Trump Coup. They carefully designed language that would transform normal people into raving racist lunatics who were spurred by blatantly untrue catch-phrases that could easily be remembered by the proletariat. "Take back control" (like they were ever control in the first place) and "Make America Great Again". America may have been great for some, but anyone whose skin wasn't lily white can't describe those "great times" with any words or phrases that compare to the answers provided by privileged whites. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and several other ethnic groups were left behind, and never got to share in the "peace dividend", or the "Great Society" or any other number of catchy phrases designed to keep Americans numb and docile. Minorities in America were anything but numb and docile, and the Civil Rights movement started in earnest behind the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King and others. They were demanding to be treated as equal! Imagine that, wanting to be equal with their other American citizens. We're still working on that almost 70 years later.

Enter Russia, whose goal has always been to throw a monkey wrench into the economies and democracies of any freedom loving country. They had the resources of their entire intelligence community and a building adjacent to the Kremlin stuffed to the rafters with hackers, whose only job was to create false troll identities to sow discord in both the U.K. and the U.S.A. They provided enough fuel (lies) to get both Yanks and Brits arguing with their fellow country-folk to the point of violence, and even murder. They did their job very well. Oh, and don't forget the obscenely wealthy American (code named "Mercer" ) and the Svengali of the white supremacist movement, John Bolton, who were supplying their data mining companies with enough money and mission critical direction to achieve their desired effects; the U.K. leaving the E.U. and the disastrous placement of Donald Trump in the White House.

The honest, intelligent and law abiding citizens of their respective countries never stood a chance. Evil people took their revenge on honest, hard working Brits and Yanks. Revenge for denying them a chance at a few more billion pounds or dollars that they seriously don't need, and - almost amusingly so - just to see if they could do it. Really.

Sadly, many of them are my relatives. It has made large family gatherings impossible to endure.

trying to save the European Union, the fact is it is her austerity policies but did so much damage to the idea of the EU. Yes, the UK will always deserve a bit more mocking for actually swallowing a Trump idea, but Angela knows who started souring Europeans on the idea of a union. It happened long before she tried to crucify the Greeks. This also goes for Macron. Yes the Yellowjackets are probably being paid in rubles, but that does not hide the fact that he was very eager to try and ditch the social programs that were not only making Europeans strong, but that were actively dispelling the myths of austerity because the EU was more productive than America.

PS: if England's actions wind up bringing back "the troubles": I do not want to hear it. The EU had actually given your nation a better future, if only because it curbed your tendency to treat your Celtic neighbors like crap. Mark my words, watch Russia offer to be England's big brother and partner, and watch them accept. Then the Chinese will just sit back, and watch Europe finally go ahead and destroy itself.

Thanks for posting this lucid essay!

I'll be sharing this around

I picked this up over at TPM this morning and found myself shaking my head repeatedly. Because this is self-inflicted. A sentence in the piece popped out:

One Brexit supporter interviewed on the street by the BBC about warnings from retailers over supply chains insisted that it would “do the country good” to go without food.

Really? Going without food is a good thing.

That's some fairytale! Talk about diving down the rabbit hole.

What struck me is how familiar this sort of nonsense sounds. Very much like the Trumpster trying to convince people that large swaths of Federal workers supported his 'principled' Shutdown. Meanwhile there were stories galore of people fearing they'd lose their homes, crying because of no food for the kids or money for healthcare, utilities, gas for the car. But the Fantastist-in-Chief would have us believe that all was good and well. In the same way these Parliamentarians are pretending there's an easy way out or anything resembling normal if Brexit, particularly No-Deal/Hard Brexit occurs. They're talking about evacuating the Queen, for God's sake, instituting martial law.

We've all gone nutter.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-collective-madness-behind-britains-latest-brexit-plan/2019/01/31/48d4d67e-2578-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?utm_term=.a782febee40a

Mass suicide because, the suicidals want everyone to commit suicide, just to spite the one who want to live.