Brexit

[BigV]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/i-am...uch-cool-slang

[Undertoad]

And yet, at the same time, we non-Britons are not of the culture, and so we are not aware of the nuances of it; I'm sure our thoughts on the topic are rather unsophisticated, compared to those who are in the middle of it and pay rent and use services etc.

[sexobon]

I bet they're all peeing a lot (all that tea).

[xoxoxoBruce]

But don't forget we on the outside can observe as rational adults, watching emotional children rant about wants, claiming they're needs.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And yet, at the same time, we non-Britons are not of the culture, and so we are not aware of the nuances of it; I'm sure our thoughts on the topic are rather unsophisticated, compared to those who are in the middle of it and pay rent and use services etc.

Except for all the Britons who Googled "What is the EU?" after the referendum's results were announced.

[sexobon]

I heard the EU is willing to forgive and forget, let bygones be bygones, and allow the British to stay; but, only if they remove the portrait of the Queen from British coins and currency and replace it with a depiction of the EU flag. Is everyone OK with that?

[monster]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Except for all the Britons who Googled "What is the EU?" after the referendum's results were announced.

snigger

[DanaC]

Good article here

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-gove-eu-liars

Johnson and Gove had every reason to celebrate. The referendum campaign showed the only arguments that matter now in England are on the right. With the Labour leadership absent without leave and the Liberal Democrats and Greens struggling to be heard, the debate was between David Cameron and George Osborne, defending the status quo, and the radical right, demanding its destruction. Johnson and Gove won a dizzying victory with the potential to change every aspect of national life, from workers’ rights to environmental protection.

Yet they gazed at the press with coffin-lid faces and wept over the prime minister they had destroyed. David Cameron was “brave and principled”, intoned Johnson. “A great prime minister”, muttered Gove. Like Goneril and Regan competing to offer false compliments to Lear, they covered the leader they had doomed with hypocritical praise. No one whoops at a funeral, especially not mourners who are glad to see the back of the deceased. But I saw something beyond hypocrisy in those frozen faces: the fear of journalists who have been found out.

The media do not damn themselves, so I am speaking out of turn when I say that if you think rule by professional politicians is bad wait until journalist politicians take over. Johnson and Gove are the worst journalist politicians you can imagine: pundits who have prospered by treating public life as a game. Here is how they play it. They grab media attention by blaring out a big, dramatic thought. An institution is failing? Close it. A public figure blunders? Sack him. They move from journalism to politics, but carry on as before. When presented with a bureaucratic EU that sends us too many immigrants, they say the answer is simple, as media answers must be. Leave. Now. Then all will be well.

Johnson and Gove carried with them a second feature of unscrupulous journalism: the contempt for practical questions. Never has a revolution in Britain’s position in the world been advocated with such carelessness. The Leave campaign has no plan. And that is not just because there was a shamefully under-explored division between the bulk of Brexit voters who wanted the strong welfare state and solid communities of their youth and the leaders of the campaign who wanted Britain to become an offshore tax haven. Vote Leave did not know how to resolve difficulties with Scotland, Ireland, the refugee camp at Calais, and a thousand other problems, and did not want to know either.

It responded to all who predicted the chaos now engulfing us like an unscrupulous pundit who knows that his living depends on shutting up the experts who gainsay him. For why put the pundit on air, why pay him a penny, if experts can show that everything he says is windy nonsense? The worst journalists, editors and broadcasters know their audiences want entertainment, not expertise. If you doubt me, ask when you last saw panellists on Question Time who knew what they were talking about.

Naturally, Michael Gove, former Times columnist, responded to the thousands of economists who warned he was taking an extraordinary risk with the sneer that will follow him to his grave: “People in this country have had enough of experts.” He’s being saying the same for years.

If sneers won’t work, the worst journalists lie. The Times fired Johnson for lying to its readers. Michael Howard fired Johnson for lying to him. When he’s cornered, Johnson accuses others of his own vices, as unscrupulous journalists always do. Those who question him are the true liars, he blusters, whose testimony cannot be trusted because, as he falsely said of the impeccably honest chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, they are “stooges”.

The Vote Leave campaign followed the tactics of the sleazy columnist to the letter. First, it came out with the big, bold solution: leave. Then it dismissed all who raised well-founded worries with “the country is sick of experts”. Then, like Johnson the journalist, it lied.

I am not going to be over-dainty about mendacity. Politicians, including Remain politicians lie, as do the rest of us. But not since Suez has the nation’s fate been decided by politicians who knowingly made a straight, shameless, incontrovertible lie the first plank of their campaign. Vote Leave assured the electorate it would reclaim a supposed £350m Brussels takes from us each week. They knew it was a lie. Between them, they promised to spend £111bn on the NHS, cuts to VAT and council tax, higher pensions, a better transport system and replacements for the EU subsidies to the arts, science, farmers and deprived regions. When boring experts said that, far from being rich, we would face a £40bn hole in our public finances, Vote Leave knew how to fight back. In Johnsonian fashion, it said that the truth tellers were corrupt liars in Brussels’ pocket.

[sexobon]

But so what? (rhetorical)

Lions never lose any sleep
over the opinions of sheep.

[Clodfobble]

Until they poison all the meat
And see they've nothing left to eat.

[xoxoxoBruce]

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Until they poison all the meat
And see they've nothing left to eat.

Sheep beget sheep
There's always fresh meat


Sheeple
Sheeple who beget sheeple
Are the unluckiest sheeple
in the world

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And yet, at the same time, we non-Britons are not of the culture, and so we are not aware of the nuances of it; I'm sure our thoughts on the topic are rather unsophisticated, compared to those who are in the middle of it and pay rent and use services etc.

Why did “influencers” get it wrong? Maybe because they’re in their own bubbles. They interact with themselves rather than with average people. What does this tell you about the current political debate here in America? - Robert Reich

[xoxoxoBruce]

A lot of the noise makers have convinced me they are "interacting with themselves".

[Griff]