Some really good news, David Cameron resigns after vote to exit EU!
Met English guy the other day here in Kruger National Park in South Africa who told of traveling around as a young man in Germany with a mate tabling the promotion of the benefits of formation of EU. He said the friend he had tabled with was coming to the park, but now was a supporter of UK leaving the EU.
Jakkalbessie and I have been traveling since mid April and only read headlines on Google News about the vote in UK on whether to stay or go. Saw occasional FB posts as well.
Then tonight, after another amazing day with ANOTHER rare Black Rhino sighting (3rd this month, truly unheard of.) read that Cameron planned to resign.
The Guardian
David Cameron resigns after UK votes to leave European Union
PM announces resignation following victory for leave supporters after divisive referendum campaign
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/david-cameron-resigns-af...
The prime minister campaigned hard in the divisive referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU, appearing at hundreds of public events up and down the country to argue that Brexit would be an act of “economic self-harm”.
But a frustrated electorate used the poll to reject the status quo and, as the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, described it, “stick two fingers up” at Britain’s politicians.
“I was absolutely clear about my belief that Britain is stronger, safer and better off inside the EU. I made clear the referendum was about this, and this alone, not the future of any single politician, including myself.
“But the British people made a different decision to take a different path. As such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,” Cameron said.
After Barack Obama he is among my least favorite of western leaders. I can't tell you how happy am to see him go.
Will the vote to leave the EU usher in a worldwide revolt against global capitalism? The EU agreements, like NAFTA, left many of it's promises unfulfilled, with the major benefits going to the very richest.
Would that Obama would accept the failures of the policies HE campaigned for and resign.
Would that we would have the chance to prohibit TPP....
Namaste.
Comments
Amen to all you say.... Good On Britain to Leave!
After watching how the EU SCREWED Greece without batting an eyelid, I felt nothing but disgust. They revealed who and what they were. They didn't give a flying eff for the 99% and were just interested like locusts to harvest what they could for the bellys of the 1%.
Good on the Brits for poking in the eye of the EU and the global corporations who seek to control the world governments.
Sure it will take adjustments, and some losses. But this is not a time for incrementalism.... (paging 'her highness'...) this is a time for revolution.
Sea Turtle
I love your comment, SeaTurtle.
You are spot on. I feel the same way. The world is in flux. We are living in interesting times.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Yes, Sea Turtle, after reading ghonsit's posts and Evening Blues
highlights on Greece, I became convinced that the EU should fall and countries revert to taking care of their people. No guarantee that this will happen, but the EU just turns them all into an easier to manage veal pen for profiting the 1%.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Thing is, breaking up the union won't break up capitalism.
It doesn't care about borders, anyway. Capital gets to ignore them. People don't. Moving to a few more, smaller nations, with the likelihood that they will be governed by the newly empowered far right, isn't going to do anything to hurt the 1%.
So there are all kinds of trade offs with this change, from the beneficial to the catastrophic.
Overall, the EU is likely to be far better when it comes to immigrants and refugees than any breakaway country which elects far-right leadership -- which has become a trend. They'll win their elections because of their hardened stance on those immigrants and refugees. It's not a "win" for the exiled poor. At least not on balance.
In short, reconfiguring capitalist hegemony into (seemingly) smaller pieces of capitalist hegemony doesn't do anything to end that hegemony, etc.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
-- Albert Camus
THANK YOU!
This is what I couldn't put into words previously, and what has been bothering me about this mess the whole time. Thanks so much!
I miss Colorado.
True corporate internationalism at work...
No concern for the people at all.
Attacks on the idea of national sovereignty as racist, or as tribalism or other 'negatives' /smearing/shaming language never bother to explain why the idealism of these huge bureaucracies on paper never work out in positive practice where the people are concerned.
It's about what is convenient for the people who are in control, and who regulates them? No one. and that's how they like it. They'd prefer people acquiesce, but now they're going to have to figure out how to bring these 'awful voters' back under heel and show them who controls what.
Ugh...
Boris Johnson is likely to be much worse.
He's probably going to take over for the center-right Cameron, as a far-right PM.
Not a good trade.
It's similar to our situation here. A choice between the center-right Dems, and the far-right GOP.
I can't stand the right, period. Never could stomach anything about their ideology. It's all "bollocks," as they say in Britain. But the center-right is preferable to the far-right. I know it's more complicated that that, but boiled down . . . . that's basically the deal.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
-- Albert Camus
Preferable to whom?
" But the center-right is preferable to the far-right. I know it's more complicated that that, but boiled down . . . . that's basically the deal. "
Uhm, most of us have left that type of support for incrementalism behind some time ago. Apparently it still works for you. You would do well to give more detail to your argument?
The old paradigms have failed us repeatedly over the last 30 years, here, in the UK and many other parts of the world.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
You're making a lot of assumptions.
Which seems to be quite common around here. As is jumping to conclusions.
No, "incrementalism" isn't okay with me. I'm actually in favor of the complete overthrow of the capitalist system, non-violently, democratically, and now. Have been for decades. I want it replaced by left-anarchist, fully democratic, egalitarian cooperatives, federated, as per the ideals of the Paris Commune of 1871, updated for 2016.
(Great book on the subject: Communal Luxury, by Kristin Ross)
There is a huge difference between "preferring" something and "supporting" it. I would prefer a toothache to losing all of my teeth, but I don't "support" the toothache. And there is no necessary connection between that preference and the concept of "incrementalism." None.
Try again.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
-- Albert Camus
Its hitting the fan in Britain.
Scottland is calling for another independence vote, and Northern Ireland is making more then a few overtures as well.
6 more EU nations are calling for exits referendums of their own. The predictable is happening, the EU of unwinding and falling apart.
If more strong currency nations drop out, the value of the Euro will drop like a rock, and likely force Germany and France to exit the Eurozone, Then finely Greece might get the inflationary relief that they desperately need, and or finely exit themselves.
I can't help but feel happy about this.
I'm truly sorry for all the upheaval that's coming, and I'm also sorry the EU had to be run by neoliberal economic policies in the first place, since I don't think it was a bad idea for Europe to have open borders where jobs/trade is concerned (REAL trade, not "free trade") and to loosely operate as a unit (like the original idea of our statehood).
The problem with the EU seems to be in their economic controls over the EU countries. Maybe it would have been a good thing if only the open borders part had been implemented, but the singular currency hadn't - although I'm sure there are reasons why that would not have worked, such as different currency valuations leading to problems with trade. I freely admit I don't know enough about this subject to know if another way was possible in setting up the EU.
But anytime TPTB are thwarted, I can't help but be happy.
The problem is the relative order in which this happened.
I favor complete autonomy for as many peoples as possible, getting rid of as many arbitrary borders and forced groupings as is humanly doable. Here, too. America is waaay too big and obviously ungovernable. We probably should be ten-plus different "nations," at least -- if we have to retain those fictions at all. Nation-states are fictions.
But going from various large unions to independent, smaller nations is almost always extremely painful. For poor countries, especially. For poor people within those poor countries, far more so. Stronger nations like Germany will do much better than poorer nations like Portugal, Spain and Greece.
That said, it was probably inevitable. It's just normally a lot easier and less disruptive to go from small nations to large unions than the reverse.
On a side note: I'm all for Irish independence, for the entire island.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
-- Albert Camus