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.

...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...

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

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.

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.