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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: tryptakid | Foreigner

The UK in the EU: "Brexit"

-=SS=- said:
My intentions in voting in the way I am are for my children and their children. I want them to grow up in a country with principle and potential, and not the morally bankrupt etc etc shithole this country is well on the way to becoming, which in part is due to the influence of the EU.
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Your country was a "morally bankrupt... shithole" way before immigration or the EU had any effect.
 
StoneHappyMonday said:
A few weeks ago I was idealistically in the exit campaign before I realised I couldn't bring myself to vote the same way as a bunch of ignorant little-Englander racist retards. I cannot, however, be complicit in a vote for the protection of capitalism.
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I'm not sure you should be swayed by who will also vote as you. If the reasons for you wanting to vote a certain way are valid, you should stick to your beliefs, even if it makes you feel a little dirty to be voting the same way as racists.
 
StoneHappyMonday said:
Where to start? Chomsky?



Or I could put it another way. In principal, pure unadulterated idealistic principal - vote to leave. In practical, pragmatic terms - vote to stay.

The EU has always been a friend of Capital, an institution to protect the needs of finance and the rich. This is why the mainstream Left, when we had one in the 1970's, lined up to vote 'No' to entry. Since then, times have changed. As have expectations. We are so buried deep now in the dominant culture, everything seen from a hegemonic perspective imposed by a ruling class drunk on the defeat of communism, which they see as the victory of capitalism, that we can't even trust ourselves to envisage change on our own terms. So workers rights enshrined in European Law become a big stick to beat the Left into the submission of staying. We are afraid to leave, afraid the minute we do these rights will be taken away from us, and without hope or belief that we can reinstate these things, or better, on our own terms, with our own self-determination, away from the bosses of European capital.

And look who we line up with if we go for Brexit. The extreme right. UKIP and Farage. Nutters from the fringes of the Tory party. And look who we line up with if we vote Bremain (boy are these terms shit). The IMF. Goldman Sachs. Cameron et al.

Devil and the deep blue sea.

I believe in socialism. Hell, to Droppers I'm probably a dangerous Maoist. So I believe in public ownership of the means of production. Nationalisation of industries, all of which have been taken out of nationalisation in the last 30 years. Article 106 of the TFEU (Treaty on the functioning of the EU), it is argued, makes renationalisation illegal. It goes against the free movement rules, which are dressed up as a freedom but actually can be seen to serve, when it comes to economics, as the constitutional protection of capitalism, making it harder, if not impossible, for individual national governments to pursue their own economic policies outside of a narrow range of basically neo-liberal options. Not good. Not to me anyway.

Look what happened to Greece when they veered from the road. Stitched. Although Yanis Varoufakis has actually said now is the wrong time to leave.

I don't know. If Chomsky doesn't know, I don't feel so bad about not knowing. But it's a frightening thought that a referendum of people who mostly have less of a fucking clue than even I do are going to decide this.

(Dying revolutionary lefties) the SWP (not your SWP, America) used to have a saying "Neither Washington, nor Moscow". It feels like this is "Neither Westminster, nor Brussels". But realistically where would that leave us?

It's hard to make a case for either, convincingly.
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Excellent post.

Between a rock and hard place springs to mind.

I don't see the corporate drive towards corruptible multinational and supranational governance regimes ever dissipating. Brexit offers no respite from this rubric; the Tories would systematically engineer the worst possible deals they could brainwash the public into accepting outside the EU. Meanwhile Bremaining offers at least the olive branch of slightly moderated indentured servitude. A fairly bleak future either way...
 
quiet roar said:
Your country was a "morally bankrupt... shithole" way before immigration or the EU had any effect.
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No. We were on the decline. Our failure is not complete, and it will never be.. you can't squash all morality out of human beings. But we certainly are far worse now than we were 60 years ago - immigration and the EU have accelerated the decline. They're not the only issues either, before you accuse me of being something or other.
 
"Morally bankrupt shithole" being a reasonably apt description for hundreds of years pre-EU, is i think what quit roar was getting at.
A bit of a harsh characterisation, but they are your words.
 
spacejunk said:
"Morally bankrupt shithole" being a reasonably apt description for hundreds of years pre-EU, is i think what quit roar was getting at.
A bit of a harsh characterisation, but they are your words.
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Maybe 200-300 years ago I would agree with you possibly, though I don't know enough detail about that era to make a solid judgement. Then again I would disagree on the grounds that we were evolving socially.. to say we were "bankrupt" morally is slightly disingenuous. At the turn of the 20th century we were starting to pull things together, though perhaps more on paper rather than in action, but the point is we were until WW1 turned everything upside down.

We're not bankrupt morally, yet. But remaining in the EU would see us give up more of our sovereignty and right to self-determination. All that does is further the moral decline by taking away our right to exercise our own power.
 
ss said:
We're not bankrupt morally, yet.
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Critics of UK/US et al unilaterral (and covert) military actions in various parts of the globe this century alone would most likely contest that assetion.

The UK has denied the soveriegn rights of a number of nation states in recent - and not so recent - times.
How much "power" do you need "to exercise"?
The British Empire will never regain her global supremacy - she is a relic of history, and at this point - nostalgia and tradition.
We're living in a fast changing world; one in which countries such as the UK are essentially dwarfed by many of the British Empire's former Colonies.
British Nationalism seems like a stubbornly quaint form of nostalgia to me.
 
At its very heart,the EU is undemocratic. The nature of the EU breaks the basic right of every person to hold those that make laws and raise taxes accountable through elections. I'll never understand the drive to larger more distant inter-governments. The basic European democratic nation state is wholly accountable to its electorate. Keeping most public services local leads to greater accountability, accessibility and options.
One would think history isn't littered with the shadows of tyrannical governments the blind faith the average progressive puts into a future of larger, more distant government and international bodies.
 
I was very firmly in until recently. Now I wonder if a better Socialist States of Europe couldn't be built. Also deals with Turkey that let them choose who enters the EU coupled with the ongoing fast track for their disgusting, autocratic, theocratic, authoritariajn state deeply trouble me.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 1"]TITLE I

[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 1"]DIGNITY[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 1"] TITLE II
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 1"]FREEDOMS[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 1"] TITLE III
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 1"]EQUALITY[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 1"] TITLE IV
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 1"]SOLIDARITY[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 1"] TITLE V
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 1"]CITIZENS' RIGHTS[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 1"] TITLE VI
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 1"]JUSTICE[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
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?
Which if these applies to Erdogan?
 
^^ Yep, for me the whole Turkey joining the EU is the scariest issue at the moment. And the hypocrisy with fighting IS, while NATO members are actively supporting them has me wondering how the fuck can people be so stupid/ignorant.
 
quiet roar said:
has me wondering how the fuck can people be so stupid/ignorant.
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When polled, about 60% of Brits don't know who the prime minister is. The same proportion don't know what a general election is. Only around 2-5% of people are aware of major news stories on a regular basis. The ignorance is willing, and runs deep...
 
As long as people can have their pints and football, most don't care. It's the same problem here in Australia.
 
malakaix said:
As long as people can have their pints and football, most don't care. It's the same problem here in Australia.
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Not to attack you personally, but having had to listen to that type of sentiment from my father for many years it really pisses me off. People with money and more "sophisticated" tastes are just as selfish as the "simple" citizen who indulges in his instincts freely, only the simple man will probably admit honestly he is so.. the rich man will lie and try to obfuscate his selfishness (and/or ignorance) using words.
 
-=SS=- said:
Not to attack you personally, but having had to listen to that type of sentiment from my father for many years it really pisses me off. People with money and more "sophisticated" tastes are just as selfish as the "simple" citizen who indulges in his instincts freely, only the simple man will probably admit honestly he is so.. the rich man will lie and try to obfuscate his selfishness (and/or ignorance) using words.
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Hence, why education is important, and why your blatantly, willful ignorance is somewhat of a charade in itself.

Not to attack you personally you poor simple soul you 8(
 
spacejunk said:
Bread and circuses.
It's been going on for thousands of years mate.
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QFT.

There is nothing wrong with it at all so long as the bread and circuses are distributed properly, and there isn't a certain class of people with absolutely no chance of achieving societal benefits. A lot of people are better off tuning in and turning off IMO.

What can one be other than a cynic in this world where mediocrity is striven for?
 
-=SS=- said:
Not to attack you personally, but having had to listen to that type of sentiment from my father for many years it really pisses me off. People with money and more "sophisticated" tastes are just as selfish as the "simple" citizen who indulges in his instincts freely, only the simple man will probably admit honestly he is so.. the rich man will lie and try to obfuscate his selfishness (and/or ignorance) using words.
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I agree. I wasn't implying a certain demographic by that sentence although I can see how it might be interpreted like that. I simply mean that people, rich or poor.. as long as they have their immediate wants and needs met have little to no interest in the wider and complex issues.

And that ignorance can lead to controversial legislation been pushed through, I'm still amazed there was almost zero opposition to the Data Retention laws they passed here in parliament last year.
 
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