Brexit appears to be a big win for the xenophobic, racist right.

The returns are still coming in, and there is much debate on who backed what and why, who said what to whom, and so on. But preliminary data tells us that the biggest forces behind the Brexit campaign, and the people crowing about it the loudest, with exceptions, are on the far right, and they used strong appeals to racism, xenophobia, even homophobia to get what they wanted. The available data also shows a huge generational divide, with younger Britons overwhelmingly supporting bremain, and older Britons going for brexit:

This Post Perfectly Explains Why Brexit Is So Devastating to the UK’s Youth

HOW AGES VOTED
(YouGov poll)
18-24: 75% Remain
25-49: 56% Remain
50-64: 44% Remain
65+: 39% Remain#EUref

— Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) June 23, 2016

Age breakdown on Brexit polls tells underlying story. Older generation voted for a future the younger don't want: pic.twitter.com/kMPECqQF6u

— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 24, 2016

Kevin Drum of Brexit Wins had this to say:

I don't have any personal axe to grind on Brexit. Except for one: I am sick and tired of watching folks like Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, and others appeal to the worst racial instincts of our species, only to be shushed by folks telling me that it's not really racism driving their popularity. It's economic angst. It's regular folks tired of being spurned by out-of-touch elites. It's a natural anxiety over rapid cultural change.

Maybe it's all those things. But at its core, it's the last stand of old people who have been frightened to death by cynical right-wing media empires and the demagogues who enable them—all of whom have based their appeals on racism as overt as anything we've seen in decades. It's loathsome beyond belief, and not something I thought I'd ever see in my lifetime. But that's where we are.

Gary Younge of the Guardian adds this:

Britain is no more sovereign today than it was yesterday. We will leave the EU but remain within the neoliberal system. Left to the mercy of the markets we are arguably now less capable of directing our affairs than we were. We are not independent. We are simply isolated . . .

And then he gets down to the nitty gritty:

When you dehumanise immigrants, using vile imagery and language, scapegoating them for a nation’s ills and targeting them as job-stealing interlopers, you stoke prejudice and foment hatred.

The chutzpah with which the Tory right – the very people who had pioneered austerity, damaging jobs, services and communities – blamed immigrants for the lack of resources was breathtaking. The mendacity with which a section of the press fanned those flames was nauseating. The pusillanimity of the remain campaign’s failure to counter these claims was indefensible.

Not everyone, or even most, of the people who voted leave were driven by racism. But the leave campaign imbued racists with a confidence they have not enjoyed for many decades and poured arsenic into the water supply of our national conversation.

In this atmosphere of racial animus and class contempt, political dislocation and electoral opportunism, the space for the arguments we need to have about immigration, democracy, and austerity simply did not exist. Our politics failed us. And since it is our politics only we can fix it.

From where I sit, across the Pond from the Brits, I see this as yet one more example of a disorganized and weakened left, unable to prevent the vicious rise and success of the racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant right. I see that failure primarily coming down to the center left's deal with the devil -- the devil being the right's own lust for austerity, neoliberalism and neoconservative. But most importantly, the devil's lust for capitalism itself, which a good bit of the left once rightfully rejected, while a much smaller portion of it does today.

To me, the absence of a vibrant anticapitalist left, one that offers a much better way for all human beings and the earth itself, a completely different way for people to support themselves, make their own way in the world, regain full autonomy, freedom and control over their own destinies, rather than being forever dependent upon crumbs from capitalists, or government, or charities of one sort or another -- this is where things have gone terribly off the rails. The only answer to the forever despicable, unconscionable ideology of the right is for the center left to end its deal with the devil, embrace its brothers and sisters further to its left, and together, become the champions of the people, truly, without hesitation, apology or regret.

In short, a unified, aggressive, fired up left needs to give everyone obvious and palpable, easily understood reasons not to succumb to right-wing con artists like Trump, Le Pen and Johnson. It needs to show that cooperative, democratic, egalitarian economies are light years better than capitalism, which is anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian to its core.

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detroitmechworks's picture

to vote against things like TPP, guns for everybody, expanding the PIC, the MIC, and lots of wars and handouts for the rich... they'd get far more votes.

Unfortunately, in the name of Pragmatism they sold out every one of their values, until the only people standing against corporate takeover of countries is the right wing assholes they despise.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Diomedes77's picture

Unfortunately, in the name of Pragmatism they sold out every one of their values, until the only people standing against corporate takeover of countries is the right wing assholes they despise.

I have yet to see right-wingers do anything whatsoever to block that corporate takeoever. In fact, the concept itself is classic right-wing economics and the logical outgrowth of capitalism itself. It's baked into the capitalist pie.

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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

detroitmechworks's picture

as Right wingers, I'd argue that point.

Of course, we're getting back into the Corporate Media's game of pretending there's two teams, when in actuality the teams are the 1% and everybody else.

Course, once again, the MSM's framing of this is Racists versus everybody logical and sane... jeez, where have we heard that one before. Can't wait till those voting against corporate slime are also derided as sexists, homophobic, islamophobic, and just plain evil. Oh wait...

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Diomedes77's picture

The left's version predates the right's by nearly two centuries, and the right's version is really an American invention, some would credit Milton Friedman as its godfather.

Good article on that: The True History of Libertarianism in America: A Phony Ideology to Promote a Corporate Agenda

Noam Chomsky is really good at breaking down the differences between left and right.

My own take: I'm a libertarian socialist, or left-anarchist. This is basically "left-libertarianism." Our thing is to disperse all power, break up all concentrations of wealth, power and privilege in the public and private sectors. No more classes, especially not a ruling class.

Personally, I favor an all public economy, with the people owning the means of production, democratically. Not through proxies. No political parties. Literally, direct ownership. No more capitalism, whatsoever.

The right's vision of "libertarianism," however, doesn't deal with private concentrations of wealth. It's actually for it. It's actually for the accumulation of wealth, power and privilege, and only has a problem with "government" having those concentrations.

To me, this guarantees corporate control. It actually guarantees a radical increase in that control. And, as Chomsky points out, "private tyranny."

Again, the ideology of the right, including the libertarian right, has never, ever done anything to prevent corporate takeovers. That would go against their core principles of knee-capping public control over private enterprise.

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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

would do anything but cheer a blow to the huge bureaucratic, anti-democratic institution known as the EU. Look what they and their financial arm did to the Greeks when they tried to assert a little autonomy.

I spent some time this afternoon watching CNBC out of schadenfreude. Fuck this system and all who support it. Those who rely on it need to make other plans.

The Left is at a crossroads. They can either return to prioritizing the class concerns that unify the 99% or follow like lemmings in the identity politics used by neoliberals and neoconservatives alike to exploit and exacerbate clashes between races, genders, religions and sexual orientations.

Immigration in both the U.S. and Europe is not some socially benevolent policy designed to improve people's lives. It's a Capitalist tool to drive down wages, increase conflict within the working class and undermine support for social programs. In the U. S., it was enact trade policies that destroy lives like NAFTA has done to Central American farmers and foment wars that drive people to desperation because of the awful violence. Then employ a look-the-other-way border and employment policy that creates a large body of undocumented workers with no rights whose presence undermines labor laws and wages. The EU has been even more blatant. Let workers from very poor or politically collapsing countries work in higher wage countries without doing anything to support wages, unionization, etc. In fact, the EU bureaucrats are constantly demanding that high wage, high labor protection countries get rid of those policies.

When growing incomes and social welfare become priorities for all these countries, and that's combined with a ban on exploitative economic and diplomatic policies in the countries that are the source of immigration, then I'll believe in open borders, and even then, only if the open borders work for people going in all directions. When's the last time you heard American politicians demand that other countries, like Australia or Canada, open their borders to other than rich or very highly skilled Americans?

The route to libertarian socialism lies the way of smaller is better. So does the way to peace. Europe has been largely peaceful these past 70 years because no one country was large enough to wage war on the others. The U. S. neocons dream of a united Europe large enough to take on Russia. That's the U. S. strategic interest in all of this.

Many people of my Boomer generation grew up with the misapprehension that a "national" government, especially in the form of the Warren Court, is a force for good. That was an accident of history. The U. S. Supreme Court has almost always been what it was designed to be: an anti-democratic force of reaction. The same is true of the larger federal government in the U. S. Positive change has come from movements that were the target of those large State forces.

People are angry now. Things are very volatile around the globe. Relying on the same huge bureaucracies that have so oppressed people around the world for decades will do nothing but increase that anger. Local movements that are sometimes--but only sometimes--expressed electorally and achieve real, tangible results in people's lives are the way to move away from anger and toward constructive engagement and progress.

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Meteor Man's picture

Anger = Misdirected Aggression. Angry people are Sheeple, easily herded by misdirection. How many Tea Party or Trump supporters or Hillarybots understand Neoconservative and Neoliberal cons? Close to zero? (Plus or minus the standard .03 deviation from the mean)

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

mimi's picture

invention. But what do I know. Have fun with your Schadenfreude.

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Kropotkin is actually a libertarian communist but close enough for purposes of this discussion.

London, Chomsky and Bookchin are examples of American anarchists, but they are all later than the originators.

Anarchism was most developed and best utilized in Europe, especially in Catalonia in the Spanish Revolution. Orwell's wonderful Homage to Catalonia describes its power and beauty in action:

But it (the revolution) lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word "comrade" stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality.

Ah, the air of equality. How sweet that aroma must have been.

I can always access that quote because Kos hasn't seen fit to delete my old diaries even though he banned me:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/14/910225/-I-Am-a-Libertarian

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mimi's picture

I actually don't care for those old guys. Bakunin and Kropotkim, who cares about them? Chomsky to me is a socialist and what part of him is anarchist I have no clue and I don't care either. He sounds like a very democratic socialist to me. Anarchists are very nice reasonable people. I know they played a huge role in the US. I just don't know any and they seem to be part of your past and I haven't read about their history. So I pass.

Well, I think all those young people in England, who voted to remain they are very knowledgeable of what you have to tell them. Talk to them. May be they care. I doubt it.

Sorry, I am just not patient enough and also not willing to dig into those old political theories of old guys who lived who knows exactly when. (ok, I am just mad, because you suffocate the little people with your intelligent talk). I can't show off with something like it, but I don't let myself impress by that kind of talk either. My own emotional intelligence tells me that your points are theoretical points. Now I am sure I have exactly confirmed the prejudices you might have about authoritarian Germans. I am over that too. I don't care for that either.

I am full on Diomedes77 side, who explains very well, why the Brexit will not have any influence of strengthening the socialist and leftist movements that seem to have developed in Spain and Greece or any other European country (not strong at all) or other real social democratic leftist policies. It's a pipe dream on your side.

Can't help it. May be I am out of the loop. Let's talk again in three to four years. Why getting in a dispute over it.

I have to leave it at that. Not my finest day today. Actually I am pretty shocked. I do not care for staying in the EU or getting out, all I believe is that it is not giving anyone what they actually want and need.

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Diomedes77's picture

Chomsky is against brexit. A fellow libertarian socialist, and a bit of a hero of mine, though I don't go in for that sort of thing. No gods, no masters, etc is my thing.

Varoufakis is also against brexit, another leftist.

Brexit won’t shield Britain from the horror of a disintegrating EU Yanis Varoufakis

I posted Chomsky video and a coupla links below, near the bottom of the thread.

Btw, I read your Dkos diary on the subject of left-libertarianism and it's good. It's also very close to my own political philosophy, and that has been influenced by the same people you mention -- among others.

I am a libertarian not like Rand or Paul but in the tradition of Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Zinn and Chomsky.

I follow in their path as well. Have you read Communal Luxury, by Kristin Ross? It's about the Paris Commune of 1871, and a brilliant (but too short) book on the topic, with all kinds of "further reading," concentrating on people like Kropotkin, Elisee Reclus and William Morris. As for your mention of Bookchin. I read The Dispossessed, by Le Guin, which is indirectly based on his writings. I am very much interested in his thought.

You jumped the gun, big time. There is room on libertarian socialist non-front front for people who support bremain, too. Or argue against brexit. We have our reasons, too. Perhaps the two biggest being we don't see brexit as doing anything to reduce inequality, hierarchies or the slightest move away from neoliberalism -- and the far right's rabid, racist and xenophobic lies in support of brexit. As many have correctly pointed out, Britain voted in its own austerity and its own neoliberalism. It wasn't forced to by Brussels. It has its own currency, and wasn't subject to the same kinds of pressures that beset Greece, for example -- or Spain or Portugal, etc.

It went for right-wing, Thatcherite governance on its own, now, prior to brexit. Again, Brussels didn't make it do this.

As for Greece. I was actually for their exit, and against them cutting a deal. I wanted Syriza to force great terms for Greece or leave. But Britain is not Greece. It wasn't being forced into austerity like Greece. It choose it on its own.

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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

I cannot see how anyone who's a libertarian socialist...
would do anything but cheer a blow to the huge bureaucratic, anti-democratic institution known as the EU.

Easy. They would be nervous of Brexit if they know they have little to no chance of being elected because of it and acheiving any more of their goals. Is the far-right good if they stop corporate control, but pursue a centrist, rather than leftist economic policies and develop and an authoritarianism which libertarians despise?

The EU was okay when the public sectors were large and the unions were powerful. This blocked all of the current problems from occurring as people had actual democratic control. Then the rural, white working class voted in Thatcher and other similar politicians are the socialists in the EU were replaced by liberals and conservatives. The mess that has resulted was inevitable along that route.

The same group that voted in Thatcher, who, in Britain have voted Conservative for hundreds of years are going to easily roll over and back the left.

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mimi's picture

I really heard the category "libertarian socialist" for the first time and it will take me to be a happy retiree to be able to get the historical education of all that is missing and read about it. Kind of hard to grasp for me. Socialism and Libertarianism to me are not really fitting together. Socialism is egalitarian and therefore not libertarian, or not?

So, I am a democratic socialist, I believe and hopefully a humanitarian.
Boy, I wished I had your kind of education and could rebut.

I still don't see if all of it has really a meaning when it comes to the current Brexit discussion and what it means for the future. So, I guess, I will post things that go against the "libertarian" soul of socialists and anarchists.

So, are there socialist anarchists or democratic anarchists ?

ok, peace, it's certainly not worth to fight over it. The general population in Europe and England wouldn't. They have to get along and make their living. A very humane thing for all of them.

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I got a diary banned on DKos 11 years ago because I used a pyramid to show the actual situation wasn't about left vs right, it was about the top 1% and the 99% on the bottom. Didn't use those exact percentages back then because that hadn't become the vogue, but the point remained the same. It was us at the bottom and them at the top.

To those of you who think that this election "outed" DKos, I have to chuckle. That place outed itself day one. It's just that most refused to wake up.

So glad that so many have finally woken up.

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Diomedes77's picture

discovering that some of it is hard-wired. Lefties are far more likely to be empathic, compassionate, think beyond themselves; far more likely to use reason and evidence to make decisions. The right is far more likely to act on fear, to be selfish, to lack empathy and compassion. Talking in aggregates here. Not individuals. There are obviously exceptions.

Yes, there is also a huge battle between the ruling class and everyone else. The thing is, the right has traditionally been in favor of, supportive of, or members of, that 1%, and has traditionally fought like the dickens to keep everyone else down.

The left has traditionally been the side of the aisle -- and I'm not talking about the Dems, I'm talking about the actual left -- the left has traditionally been the only side of the political aisle in support of, fighting for, working on behalf of the poor, the working poor, the non-rich. Or, as they're sometimes called today, the 99% . . . which I actually think is the wrong dividing line, but that's another story.

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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

of Calpundit infamy and an old cross-linking bud' of Kos is hardly a way to demonstrate your Lefty bona fides.

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Diomedes77's picture

So one can only quote from a special list? Never got that memo. Who drew up this list? That kind of thinking isn't left-anarchist in the slightest.

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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

Meteor Man's picture

Pay a visit to the site still trying to give the Democratic Party a backbone: http://www.backbonecampaign.org

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

The professional left in this country is just a bunch of sell outs. Have to vote for Hillary - can't let big bad Trump win. Boo, hoo - we don't have 60 votes and have to keep our powder dry. Bernie opened a can of worms (I hope), and it can't go back.

The right in England said enough is enough and blew it the fuck up. They win.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Borkrom's picture

but I do not want you to get mad at me Smile You summed it up perfectly that is what I am thinking and feeling. They blew they system up and they won- because they fought! Time to join the fight, hold people accountable and do what is right, but fight for your beliefs!!!

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Diomedes77's picture

What exactly is that fight supposed to be about?

Because the far right in Britain couldn't care less about things like poverty, inequality, corporate control. It couldn't care less about neck-breaking hierarchies and the wealth and privilege of the 1%. Other than its desire to have that power, privilege and wealth, as the right has always done, for as long as we've thought about right and left:

Protect power and privilege. Protect hierarchies. Suppress rebellions of "the little people" who want their fair share.

Again, the fight for whom and what?

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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

We're all we have, we're all we need.

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you believe the right, or people usually associated with the right, aren't as mad as we are about the 99% left behind. They have become a force in conservative parties, despite liberals' efforts to dismiss their (the typical conservative) economic concerns and their dislike for their own establishment. They got kicked in the teeth economically as much as the left.

You're so focused on identity issues, that you can't hear what these people are saying.

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dfarrah

Diomedes77's picture

Second, the right has traditionally been just fine with the 99% being left behind -- though again, that percentage isn't helpful. It's too high, because it includes the professional class who are also quite privileged. A more revealing split is probably something like the 1% versus the bottom 80%, give or take.

Anyway, the right's focus has always been on the ruling class and the desire to work for it, support it, protect it, and someday be a master, too.

Yes, they got kicked in the teeth as much as anyone else. But they turn to a totally different kind of "solution," and see a totally different "enemy."

In America, that's been everything from liberals, to feminists, to gay people, to unions, to government, to black and brown people and so on. Immigrants, refugees, etc. etc. They refuse to look up at the people really pissing on them:

Capitalists and the capitalist system. That is the root of everyone's problems.

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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

arguing like a lesser-of-two-evils Democrat.

Anarchists don't argue that way. Anarchists don't believe in the electoral system much less subjugating one's beliefs to the choices presented by a corrupt system.

It's absolutely true that Capitalism is the problem, but that will never be addressed by voting for the lesser-of-two-evils. It will never be addressed by voting.

People who hate this system are potential allies. Some might be irreconcilable enemies because of their entrenched fascist ideology, but many are just angry and inarticulate and ill-informed. That's something that presents a challenge to us because their membership in the 99% should make them our comrades.

Those who are servants of the 1% but spout all the right words about identity issues from abortion to bathroom rules to the need for racial diversity at the top are not potential allies. They will always serve the one who butters their bread.

The essential questions for us to ask are:

1) How do you survive? Do you assist in the oppression of the 99%?

2) Where do you come from? Are you a person of economic privilege from birth?

3) What are your priorities? Is your primary focus the elimination of class privilege?

Bernie's campaign has demonstrated that we are in the midst of a great realignment. Both existing parties play identity politics games to prevent this, but it's apparent that their efforts have been in vain.

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Diomedes77's picture

Don't you fucking dare try to tell me what I believe in, or that I don't "argue like an anarchist." You don't have a clue about me, or what I stand for, so don't project your bullshit paranoia on me. Save it for kids who don't know better.

I don't vote "lesser of two evils." I don't ask others to. I don't vote Dem or Republican. I vote Green or Socialist when they're on the ballot. Or I stay home. I also don't fetishize the vote itself, because agitation outside of the system is far more important, IMO. Leftist agitation outside the system is far more effective, and it's the biggest reason for the beneficial gains we do have, going back more than a century, at least.

Also: As a left-anarchist, I also have to live in this world. I also have to negotiate my way through the world as it is. What I want and what exists are wildly different. But I can't ignore that reality. I can't ignore the fact of capitalist hegemony, and how this impacts everything. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with "voting for the lesser of two evils," and it's actually really stupid to assume that it does.

What I want is the complete and utter annihilation of capitalism, to be replaced with left-anarchist, egalitarian, fully democratic local communities/economies, federated. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Along the lines hoped for with the Paris Commune of 1871, updated to 2016.

That goes waaaay beyond anything Sanders has called for, when it comes to the elimination of class privilege. I want to eliminate classes, period.

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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

conservatives are as angry over their establishment as we are. They are as angry over the bank bailouts and the decline of wages as we are. And my conservative family in Texas is also angry about the oil spills and corporate welfare.

Liberals really need to listen to these people -their interests align with ours more than you think, and they aren't all driven by racism.

The dem leadership blew a huge opportunity to realign the parties. Well, they didn't really blow it, because they don't care for the regular people any more than the conservative leaders do.

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dfarrah

Shahryar's picture

I was solidly in favor of Grexit, in favor of Brexit and I'm pretty far left. The more you or anyone insists this is a far right result the more I tune out. It's using an attack on some of the Leave supporters as its own argument.

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Diomedes77's picture

I'm not saying there aren't lefties who made good cases for brexit. There were. I'm not saying there aren't lefties who heeded those arguments. There were.

I'm just saying that, on balance, this was pushed hardest by the far right, and I gave reasons, as have many other writers in recent days.

Beyond that, when I talk about the import of racism, xenophobia, etc. etc. etc. . . . if this doesn't fit you, and from what I've read, it definitely doesn't, then why should you take the point personally?

It's not directed at you. It doesn't fit you. But it does fit many of the leaders pushing for Brexit.

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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

mimi's picture

You may consider to give the European left trust and more freedom to fear the European right. I consider them different from American left and American right. The motivations and cultural roots of right-wingers in Europe and Eastern Europe may just be different from US right-wingers/racists.

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Granma's picture

Was part of this vote? Lots of British people must have sympathized and still do with the Greek people. Sometimes people have their own reasons for how they vote that have no relationship to what is being pushed by the media or PTB.

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mimi's picture

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mimi's picture

my doubts about the influence of the treatment of Greece by the EU and Germany.
Brexit: The story of an island apart

By the end of my time based in Brussels I was convinced that I had understood the key difference. To many in the UK being part of the EU was a hard-headed economic relationship, about free markets, selling and buying stuff. It was a sort of second best, a consolation prize after the loss of empire, but not one that had a similar place in patriots' hearts.

But for nearly all the other countries it was a refuge. It was a home they were constructing as a bulwark against history, against horror.

Germany was fleeing its role in spreading death and destruction to every corner of the continents, fleeing its own political ambitions.

France was running away from defeat and occupation, from humiliation and powerlessness.

So were many other countries. Greece, Portugal and Spain found refuge - in an imagined future - from the real past of right-wing dictatorships.

The countries of the East were replacing communist tyranny with a new attempt to create peace and democracy.
...
But it is undoubtedly true the UK's immigration debate and the Greek crisis are so heated because people don't feel the same connection, the same (often limited) desire to help people from other European nations, as they do those they define as their own.

That, not red tape or some ill-defined responsiveness, is the EU's central problem. It will have to start recognizing it and wrestling with it rather than resenting it and ignoring it, if it wants to survive.

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Diomedes77's picture

people. They won primarily by stoking white resentment against black and brown refugees, immigrants and the poor from around the world. And this didn't work for the vast majority of young Brits. It was primarily the old folks, the "get off my lawn!!" crowd that carried the day.

The right couldn't care less about corporate control or inequality or anything Sanders has ever talked about. Quite the opposite. The right has always loved inequality and hierarchy, and views it all as "natural." It's the left, traditionally, that has fought against oppression of the many by the few. It's the left, traditionally that has sought to break down the barriers of privilege, wealth and power, so the many can rule themselves, instead of being ruled by the few.

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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

riverlover's picture

You cannot find any what we call right-wing that are not absolutists about capitalism in all its mercenary glory? Some people I know swing most definitely towards right wing, but are somewhat subsisting on the grey market. Like buy junk and resell stuff. I guess that smells libertarian. But in Europe it could be right-wing or Romany?

If I could handle psychically having no base, I could see going gypsy. Romany.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Ken in MN's picture

...the first being your claim that right wing voters don't care about inequality or corporate control. That is flat-out false. Sure, a lot of particularly nasty and vocal racists were in favor of leaving the EU for particularly nasty reasons, just as a lot of particularly nasty and vocal racists are backing Trump for particularly nasty reasons. But a lot, maybe even a majority, of Leave and Trump supporters feel just as hosed by the Neoliberal Economic Order as do Liberal supporters of Bernie Sanders and recently-ascendant Corbyn Labourites. I know this is purely anecdotal, but NONE of the Trump supporters I personally know are racist. And MANY of the Republican'ts I personally know are Sanders supporters. The elephant (and the donkey) in the room is that Neoliberalism is a failure. "Free" trade, fewer regulations, the dismantling of the social safety net and corporate exploitation of cheap, overseas labor DID NOT bring about the shared prosperity that was promised by the Neoliberal leaders of both Conservative and Liberal Parties the world over. People of all political persuasions are waking up to that bitter reality. That some politicians have taken advantage of that to whip up nationalism and xenophobia for their own political gain is a symptom of Brexit, not the cause.

Second, the Left sold us out back in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was elected president, so they've hardly, as you stated, "fought against oppression of the many by the few," nor have they actually done anything to, "break down the barriers of privilege, wealth and power, so the many can rule themselves, instead of being ruled by the few," (beyond mere lip service every two years at election time) for a very, very long time; hence, the rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn (who, ironically, was a supporter of the Stay campaign, shades of Elizabeth Warren in that move, IMO.)

So, is racism and xenophobia a large factor in the Leave vote and support for Trump? Absofuckinglutely! But is a symptom of something much greater, that being the failure of Neoliberalism at creating broad prosperity, as promised by it's adherents.

Finally, look at who was supporting the Stay campaign: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Citibank, among others, and US and UK politicians like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Major and Tony Blair. It's a veritable cast of the world's worst Neoliberal economic villains, the world's elite of the the elite and their political puppets. Can anyone doubt why they would use the specter of racism and xenophobia as a means to scare people into voting against their own self-interest?

As far as old folks yelling at the kids to get off of their lawns, far too many of those old folks lost their lawns, and the houses upon which they sat, to the fetid fruits of Thatcherism...

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I want my two dollars!

hester's picture

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Don't believe everything you think.

Diomedes77's picture

the same thing.

So when someone says "the left sold them out with Carter," a more accurate description of that is the center or the center right did. Carter was a centrist. Clinton and Obama governed/have governed from the center-right.

As for Trump supporters. You may not know any racists among them, but we've had umpteen surveys that prove majorities are. Majorities favor keeping Muslims out of the country, shutting down mosques, and strong pluralities have said that we never should have freed the slaves. A strong majority of Trump supporters also believes that "reverse racism" is a far bigger problem than "racism." Pluralities of Trump supporters also want to ban gay people and think it's a good thing to fly the Confederate flag.

This is from their own mouths. Not a guess about their beliefs. They were asked. They told us. We should take them at their word.

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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

Diomedes77's picture

They saw her as the answer to policies like those Sanders now supports, which they hated and still do.

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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

are the professional center - the so-called liberal elites. The backed the Republicans' campaign against universal healthcare back in the 1950s. The elites have fooled Americans into thinking these guys are "left" simply accuse they aren't conservative.

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Borkrom's picture

You can make fun of them or call them names, but the right wing assholes fight for their beliefs- I respect them for this spirit. They have opinions (which in most cases are crazy or out there), but they fight tooth and nail for them. Until a true left wing party (not the democrats or even the current Green party- they are soft) gets established then we are in for more of this type of behavior. I do not care of the demographics or potential voters the left may have, until they freaking stand and fight then nothing will get done. Our forefathers/mothers, freaking stood up and fought- right to vote, unions, breaking up of the monopolies, the creation of natural park systems, civil rights, voting rights, etc. Until we get off our assess for what we want then these assholes will Trump (pun intended) everything.

As I stated previously, to me this vote is good because it shows if people wake up and fight for what they believe in, no matter who is against you (elite, establishments, media, polls) you can win. Lets use this model for us.

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in Europe there ARE true left-wing parties - some who are well-funded and well-established, but the people

still

prefer to back the far-right. The young people back the left, but they are outnumbered by the older folks who are still victims of the red scare.

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Roger Fox's picture

News at 9.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

Ken in MN's picture

...certainly said the UK should leave if the TTIP was signed...

UK Should Consider Brexit If EU Signs TTIP, Suggests Labour Economics Adviser Joseph Stiglitz

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I want my two dollars!

Roger Fox's picture

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

The left hasn't sold out to the degree that the US has. New Labour was overwhelmingly defeated last year.

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mimi's picture

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and seemed content with a phony nationalism at the expense of international working class solidarity. This opened space for the fascists to control the leave vote on their terms.

I disagree with Younge, I usually do, because the room now exists for a revitalized Labour Party - if indeed it is - to attack the neoliberal agenda and dismantle it. The left can play the nationalist game to this extent and win with it.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Diomedes77's picture

But, in recent years, has a sweeping right-wing victory ever led to a revitalized left? I can't remember that happening. Mostly, it seems that right-wing victories engender more selling out by the center-left, a "disciplining" of sorts of their previous positions . . . basically to the point where the center-left becomes the center, and then the center-right.

Hollande in France seems to be moving the socialists to the right, for instance, and socialists have traditionally been to the left of center-left. This appears to be in flux now.

I hope you are correct, and that people like Corbyn can reshape the debate and mount a vibrant challenge to the hegemony of the center-right. But I have my doubts.

Again, hope you are correct.

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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

Hollande doesn't move to the right because he's concerned about the strength of the National Front. He moves to the right because he, like the Democrats in America, are bought off. And when he and the American Democrats move right, the workers look for some place that doesn't try to sell the the bullshit that everything is AOK with neoliberalism and austerity.

People have the silly idea that Republicans moved so far to the right that Democrats had no choice but to move in that direction. The truth is that Democrats--especially with Clinton--moved so far to the right that Republicans had little choice to move to the crazy to maintain some market share.

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In the USA they managed to use mass confusion and trickery to undermine the traditional bases of the Dem party. In Europe there there was more and vocal opposition. New Labour took longer to come in the UK and as the US rejected Sanders (that is if the vote wasn't fudged) while New Labour was canned in a landslide last year.

And I doubt Hollande had been bought off - he supported policies to the left of Sanders - 18 euros/hour, 75% tax on the 1%, unions more powerful than than in Scandinavia, etc. and he brought back the Socialist party to power after consecutive losses. Then elite UK businessmen put him on the bad list and bailed on him and the EU and Merkel tried to force austerity on France. The economy was floundering and it became difficult for him to sell left-leaning policies because the media had already convinced people that the left-leaning policies were entirely to blame.

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that it will play out that way.

The French Socialist Party has, since Mitterrand(and probably before), been OK with capitalism as long as there are state controls on its rapacity. When Mitterrand was elected, and I hope I am recalling this correctly, the debate within the French Communist Party(15+% of the vote) was whether or not to join the government. Georges Marchais(sp?) finally agreed and this Euro-communist party was given 4 cabinet positions. Before too long, Mitterrand was cutting back on the portfolios of these Ministers until the CP was forced from the government. In my view, the French Socialist Party has never been a capital "S" party and trains its ire at those to their left more than those to their right.

I think that there are very sound arguments for a nation to put the EU experiment behind them and free themselves from the neoliberal hammerlock that has been imposed.

A related point: The purpose of the EU was to promote a united prosperous Europe and prevent war. There hasn't been a European shooting war so that's a big plus. There has been an economic war with some nations reporting unemployment over 20%. If I were a citizen of Greece or Portugal or Ireland or Spain I was object to being characterized as being on Europe's periphery. The people were told all Europe was in it together - a neoliberal big lie.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Shahryar's picture

once I figured out that the establishment uses shame as a tool it became easy to recognize and easy to dismiss.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

And I uprated his comment too!

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successful communication, the question "Did Vayle understand?" satisfies exactly one human being on the planet, and that were that one human being just a tad wiser, not even that one?

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Would it surprise you to learn that IDGAF what your opinion is?

But for an alternate response you get to play "Let's make a deal". You can see what's behind Curtain Number 1 and 2 already...

Curtain Number 1: Bless Your Heart

Curtain Number 2: Whatever

...Or you can choose what's behind curtain number 3

Curtain Number 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuUqpZgHiEE

Have a great day!

And again, Bless your heart!

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function is to avoid socially explosive conflict in the context of unavoidable physical encounters.

in the context of perfectly avoidable virtual encounters, however, it's a smug affectation that functions (in the mind of its employer) as an excuse for inexcusably offensive discourse whose actual motivation is simple vanity.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

What? You don't support Tom's daughter in Iraq? Shame on you!

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0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Diomedes77's picture

want you to do. Instantly dismiss criticism as only coming from the "Establishment." And that these fabulously powerful and wealthy folks who make up the majority of right-wing leadership, aren't somehow themselves "the Establishment."

That the Establishment is attacking them, therefore, in some strange "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of judo, we anti-establishment folks should support the racist, xenophobic, misogynistic right -- apparently without accepting that they are just that.

Sorry, but I can't go there, as a card-carrying member of the anti-establishment, going back decades.

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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

Shahryar's picture

when the establishment accuses Bernie Sanders of being a racist with an African American problem, when we're told we have to embrace superdelegates or we're racists, when we have to support Hillary Clinton or we're disenfranchising the South, when Brits are told that wanting the neoliberals who have moved to crush Greece are xenophobic....well, a pattern emerges. The more it's used, the less effective it is in influencing people. It is a device designed to appeal to people's better nature, not by reason but by intimidation and shaming.

And you're doing that here, by suggesting...no, saying that anyone is supporting the "racist, xenophobic, misogynistic right". Are you saying that Brits voted to leave because they hate women? That's in your statement. The only reason, I believe, you added it is because it villifies people even more and therefore would make any good liberal embarrassed to have voted the way some of them did.

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mimi's picture

democrats. No one has used typical US establishment democratic party racial or sexism cards to trash a social democrat in France or Germany ever like the US democrats did with Sanders. I don't know much about Britains social democrats and labor party politicians, so I have to pass on that, but in mainland Europe, nobody would have been successful to bash a social democrat with crap that happened here. Sorry for being that blunt.

You can't compare the two sides.

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WoodsDweller's picture

and I like ice cream too. Oh no! I must be a racist! Oh, wait, they just like vanilla. I'm a big fan of chocolate. Phew! Ducked that bullet.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

And you're doing that here, by suggesting...no, saying that anyone is supporting the "racist, xenophobic, misogynistic right". Are you saying that Brits voted to leave because they hate women? That's in your statement. The only reason, I believe, you added it is because it vilifies people even more and therefore would make any good liberal embarrassed to have voted the way some of them did.

But if as a result of this people elect the far-right and very few or the left's goals are accomplished with everything else going far in the opposite direction. People think that because Europe is turning against austerity, the left should obviouly benefit. the radical left has gained, but not nearly as much as the radical right. Instead of a definitive end of austerity and neoliberalism and a dramatic improvement in human rights, we could get a bit less austerity/neoliberalism and the erosion of human rights. Diomedes isn't saying that that progressives who voted for exit are villians; he's simply questioning if they will get much of what they want out of this.

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Roger Fox's picture

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

Roger Fox's picture

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

policy is going to help more people, why should I care if a racist also happens to like the particular policy?

I generally support policies that help the most people, and I wouldn't let the fact that a racist also likes the policy keep me from supporting it.

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dfarrah

supports that policy for all the wrong reasons and all his other policies are totally abhorrent to you.

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lunachickie's picture

I submit you're making something black and white that absolutely isn't.

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Bollox Ref's picture

if she was alive.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Some random quotes:

It can't possibly be normal reaction to the disastrous policies of the EU, it has to be racism./sarc

...nor is it racist to be a sovereign thinking nation with controlled borders.

"This threatens western civilization" is codespeak for "this threatens the globalist elite's plans

Some really thought Obama could sway the referendum, that globalism is popular in Europe, and that ALL Europeans are as stupid and self-destructive as Democrats are.

Technically, Obama did sway the referendum. Some friends were telling me about how his comments really pissed a lot of people off and several of those friends voted to leave.

But of course, the corporate media is upset with the decision, and of course, the corporate media and others fall into the same old emotioanlistic knee-jerking and bedwetting patterns of accusing hatred, and racism, and xenophobia. It can only be that and nothing else. More absolutist explanations dismissing any other reasons because it does not fit the narrative they want.

Telling the 52 percent of voters in Britain that they are bigots definitely isn't the way to start a conversation, but really, when people accuse racism in this manner, they aren't interested in having an actual conversation to begin with.

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riverlover's picture

who voted for Bernie (and got counted) that they are misogynists, idiots and morons. Same labels keep popping up.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

...but so many of those labels have been used so often, they're like the punchline to a bad joke so cringeworthy that no one wants to hear it anymore.

The people have lost respect for the masters, and yet the masters still use the same old insults and think it's going to get people to fall in line with their opinions. All they have is doubling down on the same things they always do…more shame, more guilt. They've become one trick phonies...

In many ways, this is the left using shame and guilt the way religion uses 'original sin'. If you don't feel guilty and shamed by what they tell you to feel guilty and shameful about, you're a bad bad person who does not get it.

Frak that noise.

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Diomedes77's picture

Thing is, not everything goes back to the way Sanders was treated by the Dems and the Media, etc. etc.

It's not always about him, or just one more sign of the same thing. It's actually possible to be against xenophobia, racism, misogyny, etc. etc. . . . and be against these things from the position of the anti-establishment left, the anti-elitist left, which has been my own "home" for decades. It's actually quite possible to call out all these things, to be ferociously against the right and everything it stands for, and not to be somehow equivalent to what happened to Sanders.

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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

riverlover's picture

And for me, I call it "flying under the radar". Stealth is good, at times. Cloak of Invisibility as well.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Kevin Drum: "I don't have any personal axe to grind on Brexit. Except for one: I am sick and tired of watching folks like Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, and others appeal to the worst racial instincts of our species, only to be shushed by folks telling me that it's not really racism driving their popularity. It's economic angst."

Economic Angst? You mean like in post-war Germany when the Nazi's took power?

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Diomedes77's picture

The loudest screamers for Brexit were on the far right, and they utilized more than a few tools used by nazis and fascists -- also a right-wing ideology. Like scapegoating black and brown people, especially refugees and immigrants.

Economic angst is real and based on reality. But the right offers no answers, being, of course, the main proponent of austerity, neoliberalism and the capitalist system which causes all of that economic angst in the first place. Brexit doesn't either.

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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

Shahryar's picture

you know what I'm saying. Just because people who we disagree with 90% of the time are for something it does NOT make any specific thing wrong simply because they're for it.

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Diomedes77's picture

I don't see it doing any of the things some are saying it will do. Like "break the back of corporate control" or "end corporate takeover of countries," etc. etc.

I think some people are getting a bit carried away about the likely repercussions.

Yes, the EU pushes austerity. But there is no indication that Britain outside the EU will change that, especially if Boris Johnson takes control, one of the chief proponents of leaving. The right in Britain simply doesn't have the same agenda as we on the left do. It's not interested in the same changes. It actually is fine with rampant inequality and so on. It's actually fine with the 1% ruling all.

I think some people are projecting their own dreams onto an ideology that rejects them outright

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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

riverlover's picture

that Britain leave quickly (quietly?). But Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Remain. So Great Britain, or what is left of it, may now break apart. Finally.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Diomedes77's picture

Scotland may separate to go back to the EU. Northern Ireland may do the same.

One possibly great thing about this is there. At least in my eyes. I love the idea of the entire island being Ireland. That's one of those silver linings, rays of sunshine for me.

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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

And then ... and then ... they restore the Stuarts to the throne!?!?!

These are strange times indeed.

Fundamentally, I agree with your analysis of Brexit. Some of the people voted for it out of xenophobia. Some voted for it as a rejection of austerity. Some had other reasons. The big problem is that those who were attempting to reject austerity have done no such thing. Pre-EU Britain was the Britain of Margaret Thatcher -- it was an austerian paradise, from which the rest of Europe eventually took its cues. Folks have forgotten which was the dog and which the tail.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

You narrowed the focus to just 20 years, knowing full well the UK has been in the EU all that time. Before it was, there were Uk governments that were not into austerity.

If you didn't know that, what is your authority to be talking about evidence, since you don't know what the history is.

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ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the UK had belonged to the EU's predecessor, the EEC, for 20 years.

Regardless, for 14 years prior to ratification of Maastricht in 1993, the UK had groaned under the destructive austerianism of Margaret Thatcher (1979 - 1990) and her slightly less austerian successor, John Major.

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0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Roger Fox's picture

Could not employ Keynesian deficit spending to create jobs? EU members can't pass a budget with a deficit. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

Shahryar's picture

both are economic boons to corporations, overriding individual countries' laws.

Would love to hear an explanation of the differences.

(edited for clarity...I hope)

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Roger Fox's picture

The TTIP is a US UK trade deal.

I assume you can take it from here on in?

I do have a small essay coming up at 9:30.

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FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.

support it for human rights and agreements and free movement. They're mostly opposed to the TPP.

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is to point out that yet one more part of the the neoliberals "One World Order" that daddy Bush pushed down our throats just fell apart. Along with the failure of "trickle down" economics, pretty much everything the Republicans have been pushing has been a failure.

The proof is in the EU's failure: right wing policies fail.

Might as well look for the silver lining.

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Nothing can ever get better with people trapped in lesser evil thinking. Just because elites had a xenophobic out campaign doesn't mean the Eu was anything worth saving, or that people who voted against it were xenophobes. I admit I prefer ripping my bandaids off quickly rather than slowly. That is why I am not a kossack or a neoliberal diversity troll. The Eu is a catastrophe, by any measure. If the Uk had stayed. the next Labour government would have been forced to govern as Conservatives, like Syriza were. Now they can govern as real lefties, and oppose austerity in reality rather than in their dreams.

Joe Cox didn't deserve to die, but she was a blairists to the core and had many views lefties wouldn't sign on to, irregardless of how she died. She was a big supporter of both the Syrian and Libyian misadventures for one thing.,

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