Farage tastes some sweet irony

[quilp]

How can you spot them?

Just don a pair of rose-tinted spectacles and fit a set of blinkers and they're as plain as day.

[woolley]

 

If you have to ask the question...

How can you spot them?

 

You never will. You have had too much aversion therapy.

[pongo]

 

How can you spot them?

Just don a pair of rose-tinted spectacles and fit a set of blinkers and they're as plain as day.

 

Straight question: Who are the elites? Are they working together in concert? Do they have a secret plan?

 

It seems exactly like conspiracy nonsense to me, this imaginary elite. But more than that it also seems deeply divisive and unpleasant - the idea that everyone is either ordinary people or else somehow connected to this intangible enemy.

[rmanx]

How Wooley and Quilip see themselves...

 

[woolley]

Oh no. There are plenty who can see it. Is that not what you are worried about when you say it's a sad time to be alive?

[rmanx]

Oh no. There are plenty who can see it. Is that not what you are worried about when you say it's a sad time to be alive?

 

I am worried about the fascist far (extreme) right gaining legitimacy under the guise of being "of the people" (where have we heard that before?).

 

You and Quilip with your imaginary "elites, liberal agendas and evil political correctness", claiming some insight into this seemingly obvious bogey man, sound like the paranoids who talk about the NWO and FEMA death camps.

[paswt]

How Wooley and Quilip see themselves...

 

Onlyhecansee.jpg

 

or more correctly how you see Woolley and Quilp (that is unless they are both your sock puppets).

[woolley]

[quilp]

Hilarious. There's a clue in that particular meme. Fucking sock puppets ruin this forum.

 

Fuckers.

[rmanx]

Ah now we are resorting to the "sock puppet diversion".

[paswt]

You started it sunshine , see post 82.

 

You are resorting to announcing how others see themselves.

 

Hope this helps

[rmanx]

You started it sunshine , see post 82.

 

You are resorting to announcing how others see themselves.

 

Hope this helps

 

Only people talking about sockpuppets is you and quilip.

 

Hope that helps...

[paswt]

 

You started it sunshine , see post 82.

 

You are resorting to announcing how others see themselves.

 

Hope this helps

 

Only people talking about sockpuppets is you and quilip.

 

Hope that helps...

 

 

 

Ah now we are resorting to the "sock puppet diversion".

Hope this helps

[quilp]

The term, 'elite' is a poor term. It is suggestive of a lot but definitively means little, it's merely a convenient and inadequate adjective but I'll use it here so as to keep the impression of opposing factions...

 

Over the past decade, elites broke the world, and were unrepentant about their failure. They created the conditions for the worst economic crisis in nearly a century and made sure that their elite friends at the top would scoop up the post-crisis gains, thereby stranding the vast majority of people.

 

They decided their project of globalisation and liberalisation mattered more than democracy. The Brexit vote is among the first tangible responses.

 

Yes, the victorious campaign to leave the EU won, on the basis of xenophobia and the demonisation of immigration. For anyone of a liberal-cosmopolitan bent, it's a shocking and terrible outcome.

 

But if you tell people you know what's best for them for years and years while their prospects wither and their lives are immiserated, at some point you should expect some sort of reaction. Practically all of the UK's elites-- including the leaders of both major political parties-- supported remaining in the EU, and couldn't convince enough of their citizens to go along. Democracy was the poison pill that halted the European project. And now, it's architects have a choice to make: admit there is nothing wrong with their abhorrent excuse for leadership and lose the rest of their continent, or change course and embrace the views of their citizens instead of ignoring them.

 

Consider how Europe acted after the 2008 crisis. They demanded balanced budgets and even surpluses from member countries that had no ability to both run and provide for their citizens. They viewed every appeal from those countries, assembled mostly in southern Europe, as a personal affront. They turned global recession into a morality play so they could scold the weak sisters of the Eurozone as lazy Bastards who deserved to suffer.

 

And they didn't just do this out of spite: they explicitly wanted to empower the multinational conglomerates at the expense of independent domestic producers. Last year's list of demands for the Greek economy from the 'troika' (the EU, European Central Bank and the IMF) had little to do with preventing corruption and furthering economic opportunity. They were mostly about breaking the power of the local publishing industry, journalists, olive oil makers, mom and pop retailers and so on. The goal was to make way for outside corporations and overthrow the internal political and social culture.

 

Now, you could ask what the UK has to do with all this as they weren't part of the Eurozone and didn't play a role in Northern European cruelty toward their southern neighbours. But they did follow the general belief in expansionary austerity; that you could cut your way to prosperity. For those who don't recall, this led to the brink of a triple-dip recession, and terrible growth numbers for years and years. Only when an election neared and David Cameron's Conservatives stopped the budget cutting did the economy come back to life. If this counts as a policy success, why not try repeatedly punching yourself in the face for a few minutes because after all it will feel great when you stop.

 

If the economy had returned to something resembling normalcy, why was the Leave campaign able to scapegoat immigrants, and onerous EU regulations, and win a majority? First of all there has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the EU in Britain for over 40 years, since the joining of the European Common Market in 1973. While places like Greece were culturally tied to the EU despite being pummelled by it, the UK always harboured dreams of breaking free and restoring their noble empire.

 

But you must pair that with the arrogance of the elites, both in London and Brussels, to the growing desperation in the countryside. The technocratic administration of policy in the EU is obtuse to the average Briton, or Italian, or French man. They viewed democracy the way most people view mosquito bites, as a nuisance rather than a collective voice worth listening to. Euroskepticism grew amid this neglect. For all the talk of burdensome migration, the Leave campaign did best in rural communities with few, if any, immigrants. These are the cities and towns that lost out from globalisation, where de-industrialization has wiped them out and left them flat. Anger at social stagnation played as much of a role as anger at faceless foreigners allegedly ruining British society.

 

The Remain campaign tried to tamp down this anger with lectures, talking down to the proles and bumpkins in the backwaters and explaining how they didn't know what was good for them.

 

This has been the pre-eminent rhetorical technique among globalisation/liberalisation enthusiasts for decades: that they would fix everything if only the public would listen! What they have fixed is a transition of wealth into financial centres and corporate coffers, and a denuding of societal character in favour of a global monoculture geared demonstrably to their advantage.

 

What Leave offers; allegedly a toxic stew of isolation and racism, isn't any good either. But when elites spend so long doing nothing for vast swathes of the population, they're willing to listen to anyone with a different idea. The immediate outcome after Brexit is unclear. The EU has two years to negotiate the terms of the UK's departure, and perhaps even longer. The real X-factor is how the EU's policy leadership responds. If they respond to Brexit by consolidating more control they'll have learned nothing from the yearning for people to free themselves from the yoke of unaccountable external rule, and the UK won't be the last to leave.

 

Nationalism can be ugly. But so can rule from a secret chamber abroad, for the benefit of corporations. The post-World War 2 social order has failed too many and people are desperate for an alternative. As much as the alleged toxicity of right-wing populism is driving this disruption, ultimately the blame must be laid at the feet of those who bundled the European project and failed so completely.

[rmanx]

 

 

You started it sunshine , see post 82.

 

You are resorting to announcing how others see themselves.

 

Hope this helps

 

Only people talking about sockpuppets is you and quilip.

 

Hope that helps...

 

 

 

Ah now we are resorting to the "sock puppet diversion".

Hope this helps

 

 

I didn't bring them up, I responded.

 

C-, must try harder.