In Brexit Britain the elites will run amok

[TubbersUK]

In Brexit Britain the elites will run amok

A week on from the referendum that was going to take back democracy from the elites, and we still don’t know exactly who will be taking back democracy for us. But it will be one representative of the elites or another. At the moment, it looks like Michael Gove or Theresa May will be their political face. Unless someone else in the Tory party offers them a better deal between now and September.

The elites have already been reassured that there will be public money to squander on disentangling Britain from international consensus and getting the elites the trade deals that they want.

Conservative promises to step away from the deficit obsession are about this, not ending austerity.

Instead, we will be continuing as we have been for decades, pandering to the elites we’re supposed to be escaping. The elites decide how much they are prepared to contribute in tax towards the social and physical infrastructure they operate in. They’d rather do it privately, bleeding interest for their chiselling loans out of the public sector. They will always have free movement for themselves, and the threat that they will make use of it. It’s so easy for them to get their way.

They will always manage to bring in cheap staff from abroad, when and if they want it, safe in the knowledge that it’s the cheap staff, not them, who will bear the brunt of the anger of the people they refuse to employ because they want fair wages and decent conditions. People will learn the hard way how much Nigel Farage cares about their lives, how much Rupert Murdoch frets about their poor pay.

These men want ordinary people to be angry, because angry people make errors of judgment, blaming each other instead of the elites that plunder ideas about equality, fairness, freedom and democracy for their own ends. Britain. You voted for this. Now, once again, get ready to be told that There Is No Alternative.........................................


No one can predict what sort of outcome might emerge from his capricious gamble, and it doesn’t look like we’ll even get to vote again until all of that is done and dusted. Europe doesn’t crush our democracy. It protects what’s left of it. Now that protection is gone and our limited, gestural, dysfunctional democracy is all we have.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/01/brexit-britain-elites-run-amok

[Scootaloo]

1. I will argue one point...

These men want ordinary people to be angry, because angry people make errors of judgment

Anger is a motivator. Anger gets shit done. Every bit of social progress we've seen comes from someone getting angry about something, and getting other people angry about it, until there's enough people to move for change. Anger releases adrenaline, offering a boost of surprisingly clear snap thought. Your heart pumps harder, your breathing picks up, feeding more oxygen to your brain. Anger is a gift, as one person used to have in their sig line.

Rage on the other hand, is a damaging emotion. You might think f it as anger without outlet, or anger deferred time and again. Sadly as a society the "western World" makes anger a social sin, forcing it to be tamped down, compacted and concentrated until it forms rage. Rage has all the adrenaline but none of the clarity, and is best described as a violent form of confusion. In a rage,, you lash out, you look for any solution to what makes you angry, even if you're not sure what it is you're angry about ("EVERYTHING!" as my mother used to yell)

Demagogues hate anger but love rage. They whip people's anger up, but give it no direction, no productive, useful outlet - until the demagogue points out something to lash out at.

[TubbersUK]

2. Nicely put :)

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Massive K & R. Thanks for posting.

Too true:

People will learn the hard way how much Nigel Farage cares about their lives, how much Rupert Murdoch frets about their poor pay.

Agree with Scootaloo below, change the word "angry" to "enraged":

These men want ordinary people to be angry, because angry people make errors of judgment, blaming each other instead of the elites that plunder ideas about equality, fairness, freedom and democracy for their own ends.

[unblock]

4. brexit will mean far less than most fear, i suspect.

yes, there's a massive administrative hassle in renegotiating a huge number of trade topics.

but in the end, they need the eu as a vital trade partner, so the resulting agreements will be very similar to the eu agreements themselves.

that may be a gain for a few businesses who want to sell thing that are forbidden in the eu locally or to america, say, but i don't see that as a huge win, enough to balance the cost of shifting one bureaucracy for a remarkably similar but different bureaucracy.

and as noted, i don't see immigration changing much. at a minimum, those already in the uk will likely be grandfathered in, and employers will always have a way to bring in cheaper labor.

[Denzil_DC]

6. That may well be true.

But it means the UK will have much less, if not no, say in how the EU is run.

So "the elites" that run the UK will have a handy scapegoat (plural if the perceived problems of immigration/movement of labour/inevitable globalization are pinned on outgroups in the form of real people) - even more than now - for the consequences of what they'd want to do anyway.

[Ghost Dog]

5. Accurate, thanks. But I should point out this infringes DU rules:

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[TubbersUK]

7. Apologies

I'll be more more careful in future.