John Oliver on Brexit: the EU is the least-worst option, and racists support Leave

[GilbertWham]

Looks like it, yeah. Fucking morons

[renke]

Düsseldorf is heavily affected by the dying of the coal and steel industry, so you should feel at home - it’s like everywhere in England outside of London : P

[Aloisius]

What I don’t understand is why the British are so sure the EU is going to give them a free trade deal if they leave. That would be insanity. They would risk other members trying to do the same thing.

No, Brussels is going to offer a minor compromise that they could stand to offer to the rest of the EU and if Britain doesn’t take it, they’ll have to say GTFO and make an example of them.

[renke]

A new deal will be probably like the EFTA - access to the EU market is granted, but the four freedoms (movement of goods, capital, services and persons) have to be accepted.

A Swiss referendum in 2014 added an immigration limit to the constitution, the government has to implement this until 2017. The EU is very unhappy, it does not look extremly promising for the bilateral treaties. The negotiations were stopped until the British referendum, and will be restarted in the next few weeks - let’s see.

[Snowlark]

[quote=“Mindysan33, post:124, topic:80100”][quote=“Wanderfound, post:120, topic:80100”]
Think we can gather enough Boingers to organise a one-way trip to Antarctica?
[/quote]

You think the penguins want us there?
[/quote]

[renke]

MAKE ANTARCTICA COLD AGAIN

[anon73430903]

Oxford is more like London. At least it was, we will see if the Mini factory is still here in five years time.

[Moerae1]

My original comment was an opinion. Your reply to me was nothing but you getting your dander up. I don’t care that you want to replay it differently

My original comment

@Moerae1

Yes so much easier to believe the majority that voted are racist, bigots. Those xenophobic, simpleton, working class fools just don’t know what’s good for them, if only they would let the elites handle everything, all would just be peachy keen.

This is your first response to me getting your panties all in twist by making over generalizations and being insulting. Classic!

@nemomen

Given the consensus among experts that this was a terrible, terrible idea, the already forming economic crisis and current implosion of the pound, I think it’s safe to say the people who voted Leave didn’t know what’s good for them, so what exactly are you trying to say? That the morons who made a shockingly ignorant, and foolish choice for reasons that were regularly expressed in racist and xenophobic terms should be given the benefit of the doubt that they were just nice, tolerant morons, rather than xenophobic, racist morons? That foolish people with ugly, stupid, dangerous ideas should be treated more politely? Is it just that it’s too soon to judge the racist, xenophobic vitriol dripping from UKIP and the Brexit supporters?

[anon68952647]

@Moerae1

me getting your panties all in twist

couldn’t have characterized you better myself.

[Moerae1]

hahaha good one…maybe you do have a sense of humor

[Snowlark]

I don’t have enough likes for this one. Well done.

[anon50609448]

@nemomen

So rather than listen to the experts, let’s listen to the racist demagogues. They’ve always had very reliable analyses.

But that’s the problem. The “experts” are corporatists with a track record of failing the people. I’m not saying that we should listen to racist demagogues, but it sure makes sense to me that a lot of people do. If someone says, “If economists are against it, that sounds like a reason I should be for it,” then, lacking any other evidence, I’d say that makes sense.

I actually think that was a huge problem with the “Remain” campaign. I don’t know what it was like to be in Britain for the past few months, but what I saw abroad relied too much on the economic prognostications of people that we all know are worse than random number generators. Anyone who told you there wouldn’t be short term pain from leaving was delusional, but how much pain, how short the short term is, and what will happen in the long term isn’t something some economist can hack out on a calculator.

If David Cameron wanted to convince people that society was better if we worked together and cared about one another, then maybe he should have started by leaving the party of Margaret Thatcher.

[nemomen]

@anon50609448

The “experts” are corporatists with a track record of failing the people.

I think the problem was more that the experts were effectively all painted as corporatists with a track record of failing the people, despite the fact that while those people were included, there were quite a few other voices who were not neoliberal stooges making the same point that this was a shockingly bad idea. The Brexit proponents won the propaganda war by skipping over facts and running on a mix of hostility to immigrants, hostility to the powers that be, nativism, and the other usual suspects in right-wing identity politics, pushing a Big Lie about how wonderful the results of an EU exit would be without ever engaging with the wonky things opponents brought up, while the opponents did too wonky a job of pointing out the downsides and didn’t find a way to get through to the Brexiters on an emotional level that was able to resonate. It was an id vs super-ego battle. id wasn’t interested in ideas, but impulse, and it won.

[anon50609448]

@nemomen

I think the problem was more that the experts were effectively all painted as corporatists with a track record of failing the people, despite the fact that while those people were included, there were quite a few other voices who were not neoliberal stooges making the same point that this was a shockingly bad idea.

Well, I think the neo-liberals have been playing the game of equating all “experts” into one group for many years. Since many of their policies are objectively harmful to the majority of people, they needed to discredit actual facts, knowledge and expertise. So it’s framed as just another part of politics, each side has their own experts, and as a non-expert you are just supposed to listen to one side or the other.

I’m not saying I know what should have been done differently, but it’s pretty obvious that actual professionals and actual experts failed to distinguish themselves from the hacks. I remember when Moody’s downgraded Ontario’s credit rating. It made headlines. The stories didn’t even say something like, “Moody’s is known for playing a significant role in the 2008 financial collapse through a fraud scheme by which they set ratings to suit paying clients rather than setting based on the viability of investments.” It was like running a headline about a great new investment scheme from Bernie Madoff without any mention of his last one.

I think the Brexit was a mistake, and it’s going to be one of those revolutions that replaces the old guard with a new-and-worse guard. But it is a bit of a revolution, and as much as it was driven by lies and racism, those things were able to gain traction because people found the present conditions intolerable, and were looking for some kind of change.

[nemomen]

I think you might be giving the Brexit supporters too much credit. They’re a right-wing movement, and like all such movements are driven by anti-intellectualism. This was a massive failure of leadership by Cameron and the Tories first and foremost, and the blame lies squarely there, regardless of other contributing factors. Cameron put a problem up for a referendum that requires a level of analysis and research far beyond the capacity of most voters, and the Brexiters appealed to lingering misplaced resentment and heaps of sophistry. There was no way to win by argument any more than you’ll persuade a serious Trump supporter because they’re aren’t coming from a place where facts or reason matter. It was something that should never ever have been put up to a referendum in the first place and the opponents of Brexit were put in a nightmare scenario of trying to explain a complex policy proposition to a bunch anti-intellectuals who just wanted to lash out at the powers that be, while supporters were in a much stronger position of being able to lie, appeal to base emotions, and fan the flames of anger.

[anon50609448]

@nemomen

I think you might be giving the Brexit supporters too much credit. They’re a right-wing movement, and like all such movements are driven by anti-intellectualism.

But if that’s actually half the country, then what are we saying, Democracy simply doesn’t work?

[nemomen]

Yes, direct democracy definitely doesn’t work. California’s still suffering from damage from propositions put up to the popular vote, and overall they’ve done far more bad than good. There’s a good reason countries go with democratic republics and not direct democracies, which is that we don’t have any way to have an educated and informed populace that will be up on the details of policy positions and their implications. This is unfortunate, and democratic republics have their own sets of problems, but they’re still less bad than asking the masses to decide on issues they’re not only uninformed about but which they don’t have the time, interest, or general capacity to understand.