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View From The Brextanic
View From The Brextanic
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Longtime Automatic Earth friend Alexander Aston talks about finding himself at Oxford at a point in time when the British themselves appear overcome by a combo of utter confusion and deadly lethargy, and one can only imagine what it must be like for ‘foreigners’ residing in Albion, who face large potential changes to their lives and know there’s not a thing they can do about it, not even vote.
I like the observation that the entire British political system, the place where decisions are made, is the size of a small village. That’s a visual we can all relate to. It’s a physical limit as well as a mental one. I’m all for sovereignty and self-determination, but how’s that going to work if you can’t even see the boundaries of your own territory?
Guys, it’s 4 weeks to D-Day today. How about we call off the landing, get a few pints instead, and talk? First round’s on me.
Here’s Alexander:
Alexander Aston: I arrived in the UK in 2015 to undertake interdisciplinary research at the University of Oxford. I am a child of the Empire, a cultural product of Britannia’s oldest colonies in the British Isles, her most important colony now turned empire as well as one of her youngest, Zimbabwe. The UK is both an intimately familiar society and yet one that is also strangely alien for me, like a wealthy, often charming and deeply abusive parent that sparks both self-recognition and rejection.
The ‘leave’ referendum occurred close to a year after I arrived in the UK and is one of the few political events over the past few years that surprised me.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Flash-Balls, Pitchforks And A Backstop
Flash-Balls, Pitchforks And A Backstop
It’s educational and even somewhat entertaining to observe the role of the western press in the ongoing erosion and demise of democracy in Europe. But while it’s entertaining, it also means their readers and viewers don’t get informed on what is actually happening. The media paints a picture that pleases the political world. And it it doesn’t please politicians to lift a veil here and there, too bad for the public.
The Shakespearian comedy that was performed last night in the UK House of Commons is a lovely case in point. Basically, MPs voted whether or not to allow PM Theresa May to change the Brexit deal she had told them about a hundred times couldn’t possibly be changed. Brexit has turned full-blown Groucho by now: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
It was exactly two weeks ago last night that lawmakers voted by a historic 432 to 202 count to reject May’s Brexit deal. And now they voted to a) let her change it and b) go talk to the EU about changing it though Brussels has said as often as May herself that it cannot be changed. Remember: the UK is set to leave the EU 59 days from now, and counting.
It’s like in a game of chess that has long turned into a stalemate or threefold repetitionsituation: you stop playing. No such luck in British politics. The only way the parliament could find ‘unity’ (in a narrow vote) was to agree to ditch the Irish backstop that is an integral part of why the EU accepted May’s deal to begin with.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Incidents and Accidents, Hints and Allegations
Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-semite. Julian Assange is a rapist, a Russian agent and a terrorist. Donald Trump is an anti-semite, a rapist AND a Russian agent. Vladimir Putin wants to invade and enslave the entire western world and to that end employs Assange, Trump, maybe also Corbyn(?), as well as thousands upon thousands of hackers and murderers who make people vote for whoever Putin chooses, and poison former Russian agents on western soil.
These allegations, and there’s many more of them, have a number of things in common. Most importantly, they serve to change your mind. They serve to change your perception of reality. They seek to whip up your support for the very people and forces that launch them into the media.
Something else they have in common is that none of them has ever been proven, even though some of them are getting on in years. But they were never meant to be proven, simply because they don’t have to be. If your mind is a fertile breeding ground for such allegations, all that needs to be done is plant a seed, and plant another, and then water them day after day by repeating the allegations and make them ‘yummier’, until they sprout a plant or a tree ‘spontaneously’.
A third feature the allegations have in common is that as they change your perception of reality, you will be -more- inclined to support those who invented them for that exact purpose, so you will not oppose their -further- grab for power and wealth.
That Jeremy Corbyn would hate Jews goes against the man’s entire life history. But he’s been exceedingly weak in defending himself, and his Labour Party, against the accusations of anti-semitism, so the label sticks and has been very successful.
Gross Incompetence
Here’s the lowdown: the EU’s single market mechanism dictates freedom of movement for labor, capital, services and goods. These are not divisible; you cannot have one without the other. Still, that’s precisely what Theresa May, again, is proposing. She basically wants to keep the UK in the single market for goods, and make other arrangements for the rest. The EU will not accept that because it could have 27 other countries coming with their own versions of single market à la carte.
So why does she come with version 826 of what she already knows will not be accepted? And why did her cabinet comply? There are a few possibilities. Perhaps May has finally understood that there is no manner of leaving the EU left to her that will not lead to utter disaster. Maybe she just wants the whole thing to stop. Or maybe Boris Johnson et al, sensing failure for May, see a chance to dethrone her and take over power. Then again, maybe they all look for a way to blame the EU for their own failures.
It’s hard to say, really. What’s obvious, through the comments of industries like Airbus and Jaguar Land Rover, is that 100,000s of jobs are at stake, along with 100s of billions of investments in Britain. Large enterprises are often branched out all through the EU, and they need to comply with EU rules; separate rules for their business with the UK would be a nightmare.
And even smaller companies, to varying degrees, face those same problems. For all you may think of the EU, it has arranged the single market strictly and successfully. There are enormous advantages for companies in that. Take those away and they will look at relocating towards the continent, where they would regain those advantages.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Globalization is Poverty
Marc Riboud Zazou, painter of the EIffel Tower 1953
Ironically, all three of these factors are unremittingly praised as forces for good. But living standards for many millions of people in the west have come down and/or are laden with uncertainty, while millions of Chinese now have higher living standards. People in the west have been told to see this as a positive development; after all, it allows them to buy products cheaper than if they had been made in domestic industries.
But along with their manufacturing jobs, their entire way of life has mostly disappeared as well. Or, rather, it is being hidden behind a veil of debt. Still, we can no longer credibly deny that some three-quarters of Americans have a hard time paying their bills, and that is very different from the 1950s and 60s. In western Europe, this is somewhat less pronounced, or perhaps it’s just lagging, but with globalism and neoliberalism still the ruling economic religions, there’s no going back.
What happened? Well, we don’t make stuff anymore. That’s what. We have to buy our stuff from others. Increasingly, we lack the skills to make stuff too. We have become dependent on nations half a planet away just to survive. Nations that are only interested in selling their stuff to us if we can pay for it. And who see their domestic wage demands go up, and will -have to- charge ever higher prices for their products.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Trump, the CIA and the Yokeldom
Jackson Pollock The Deep 1943
The western world is mired in a mile-deep political crisis and nary a soul seems to notice, or rather: everyone just sees their own little preferred echochamber tidbits of it. Which is not a good thing, because that crisis is bound to trigger other bigger crises that are much more damaging. And I’m sorry to say it, but Donald Trump is not your main problem. Not even close.
The main problem is the collapse of western political systems. While that is what brought Trump to power in the first place, he didn’t cause the collapse. The collapse is also what ‘gave you’ Brexit, and Trump didn’t cause that either. Moreover, in the next step, on the far end of all this, Trump may well be the only thing standing between you and CIA warfare. I know, who wants to hear that, right?! Who’s ready for that next step?
But it’s not that crazy. Trump was the one who stopped the CIA from arming Syrian ‘rebels’, which are just a bunch of extremists gathered by that same CIA in its attempts to unseat Assad, and who Trump saw laughingly beheading a child. And who was it that had previously, and enthusiastically, decided to support these crazies? The US Republican and Democratic parties, in unison, while Obama was president and Hillary slash Joe Biden was Secretary of State. Remember the Chelsea Manning footage of videogame-like drone killings? What did Obama do about that?
Still, that’s not where the core of the demise of our political systems lies. Though it does gave us a flavor of their priorities. The core can be found in economic issues. In both president Bush II and president Obama bailing out banks while letting people’s incomes and wealth tank, and not sueing any banker for anything at all. Obviously, the same scenario played out in Britain as well. And in many other nations.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Brexit: The System Cannot Hold
Stephen Green 18×24 inches. 2016. Acrylic on canvas. MuseumofAwesomeArt.com
Well, they did it. A majority of Britons made clear they’re so fed up with David Cameron and everything he says or does, including promoting the EU, that they voted against that EU. They detest Cameron much more than they like Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson. It seems that everyone has underestimated that.
Cameron just announced he’s stepping down. And that points to a very large hole in the ground somewhere in London town. Because going through a list of potential leaders, you get the strong impression there are none left. Not to run the country, and not to negotiate anything with Brussels. Which has a deep leadership -credibility- hole of itself, even though the incumbents are completely blind to that.
But first Britain. The Leave victory was as much a vote against Chancellor George Osborne as it was against Cameron. So Osborne is out as potential leader of the Conservatives. Boris Johnson? Not nearly enough people like him, and he fumbled his side of the Leave campaign so badly his credibility, though perhaps not being fully shot, is far too much of an uncertainty for the Tories to enter the upcoming inevitable general elections with.
Who else is there? Michael Gove? Absolute suicide. Likeability factor of zero Kelvin. That bus these guys drove around which proclaimed they could get £350 million extra a year for the NHS health care system in case of a Brexit will come back to haunt all of them. Just about the first thing Farage said earlier when the win became clear, was that the £350 million was a mistake.
I guess you could mention Theresa May, who apparently wants the post, but she’s an integral part of the Cameron clique and can’t be presented as the fresh start the party so badly needs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
