(I thought I’d stick this up while I work on other things in both RL and ether life since folks seem to want to talk about it. Feel free to add content, opinions at will. There’s a lot of dastardly stuff afoot, most especially via what RedKahina calls ‘the pseudo-left anti-fascist…fascists ’ , Zizek for one. She’s wild as all giddy-up.)
“Senior Labour sources say that a fresh election victory would give him the mandate to draft an even more ‘socialist’ policy programme, but more importantly would allow him to transform party democracy.”
https://twitter.com/Scriptonite/status/748220942678097922
(referencing this Feb. 2016 EC pdf document below)
https://twitter.com/Steve_Socialist/status/748743733948977157
‘EU maintains hard line toward UK over Brexit’, wsws.org, 30 June 2016
“Germany’s Social Democrats, who for days have been agitating for a rapid British exit, along with the strengthening of Europe’s military power, praised the hard line course. SPD chairman and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on the sidelines of a meeting of SPD leading politicians in Brussels: “Angela Merkel has made clear that there will be no informal negotiations with Britain and that we must quickly reach decisions. She had clearly ruled out the idea that one would, so to speak, show a bit of restraint.” [big snip]
“Merkel declared that the time had now come to act: “The world is in turmoil, the world will not wait on the European Union and we in the European Union must confront the consequences of instability, wars and crises in our neighbourhood and be ready to act.”
At the heart of the meeting on Wednesday was a paper titled, “EU global strategy on foreign and security policy,” by EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini. According to a report in the German daily Die Welt, the paper was drafted last year in close consultation with Germany’s defence ministry.
The paper presents a blueprint for the establishment of the EU as an aggressive military power capable of waging war independently of NATO in emergency situations and organising military interventions outside of Europe.
“As Europeans we must take greater responsibility for our security. We must be ready and able to deter, respond to, and protect ourselves against external threats. While NATO exists to defend its members—most of which are European—from external attack, Europeans must be better equipped, trained and organised to contribute decisively to such collective efforts, as well as to act autonomously if and when necessary,” the paper stated.”
The document makes it clear that the aim of the EU is not the defence of human rights, but rather the pursuit of its economic and geostrategic interests around the globe. The document states that these interests include: “an open and fair economic system, the need for global maritime growth and security, ensuring open and protected ocean and sea routes critical for trade and access to natural resources.”
Illuminating: ‘The anti-Corbyn coup and calls for a second referendum on Brexit; Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain)’, 1 July 2016 It begins with:
“The attempted putsch against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is being mounted by a right-wing cabal, working in intimate collusion with the security services in Britain and the United States. Its main propaganda organ is the Guardian newspaper. The aim is to overturn the result of the June 23 referendum and ensure British membership of the European Union (EU) through the election of a suitably refashioned Labour Party, or its incorporation into a coalition government.” It ends:
“The SEP urged an active boycott of the referendum because, in the absence of any significant force expressing a progressive opposition to the EU, a Leave vote could only strengthen the right wing. We warn now that efforts to overturn the result of the referendum not only spread dangerous illusions in the EU, but will strengthen far right forces by allowing them to pose as defenders of the “popular will” against “the elites.”
What is necessary is to advance a perspective that cuts across all attempts to dragoon workers behind rival sections of the capitalist class—based upon the development of a mass movement across Europe against austerity, militarism and war. Genuine European unity must come from below, not above—through the overthrow of the EU and all its constituent governments and establishing the United Socialist States of Europe.”
Yves Smith via the BBC (another mouthpiece for the Imperium): ‘Brexit: Huge Spanner in the Works – Negotiation of New UK Trade Deals Verboten Till Exit Complete’ It was heartening to see some of her commentariat push back, but most were roundly smacked by Yves.
Given the title, I was prepared to be knitting my eyebrows reading, especially as so many ‘Leftists’ including Occupy are looking for a new vote because: populist domino theory, and so on. Varoufakis as the far left’ split my sides. Anyway, Michael Hudson’s ‘US imperialism the BREXIT culprit’. But he has a higher vision than the Blairites winning, including the left-right convergence against austerity, out of NATO, etc., providing fire to the various actual leftish coalitions in Europe.
“So for the first time you’re having the real left wing in Europe talking about financial issues, not about political philosophy, or the fact that countries are not going to go to war again. Nobody ever believes that France, Germany, and other countries in Europe are going to go to military war again. There is a fear that the countries in Europe may go to war against Russia, pushed by NATO, pushed by adventurism of the U.S. stance towards Russia.
And so all of a sudden the eurozone that was supposed to be a bulwark of military peace has become belligerent, and even more so if Hillary would win in the United States. And there’s a feeling we do want peace. That means we have to withdraw from the eurozone. And essentially, withdrawing from Brussels means withdrawing from NATO and withdrawing from the United States.
So you could say that the vote to withdraw from Europe is, it’s really a vote of the British middle class, the working class, to withdraw from the U.S. neoliberalism that has been running Europe for the last ten years.”
café babylon 
Maybe it’s time for a reprise of Finian’s Rainbow, doncha think? (Not sure it’s going to make my point but the best article I’ve seen is from counterpunch and its author is in that part of the world.)
His name, Aiden O’Brien – and he’s a worker! (Say that without a skip in your step (I was going to say ‘skip in your shileighleh’ but I don’t know how to spell shileighleh – obviously.)
His post is entitled something like “Wales and England bring the Enlightenment” – I’ve put Wales first because I’m sure my Welsh grandfather is spinning delightedly in his grave, and I wanted to honour him. Honour him!
This is such a delightful article. I know, I know, folks don’t have time to read, so I’m giving you a few quotes, which is why I don’t have a link – got my little abacus filled up with the first one (don’t forget to read it in Irish brogue if you can):
****By voting for Brexit the English and Welsh have switched on the light. And, as usual, when the light suddenly conquers the dark the cracks become obvious and the cockroaches scatter. It’s a beautiful sight.
The speculators and the hoarders are running for cover. And their liberal apologists are blinded. At the same time their global gunmen feel naked. And what once felt like a palace now looks like a filthy dungeon. However it is a dungeon with a well marked exit.
It is an English and Welsh enlightenment rather than a British one because the British elite in London and their Celtic counterparts in Edinburgh and Belfast voted to remain in the dark.
The critics of Brexit think that switching on the light is an act of madness. It is far better in their eyes to see nothing and to continuously walk into the wars. . .*****
To continue:
****. . .Despite[the] liberal attempt to assassinate the working class character, despite the accusation of irrationalism, and indeed the racism directed at the English and Welsh workers; the vote for Brexit was an act of pure reason. . .****
And this one I truly love:
****. . . The facts have been piling up for all to see in recent years. Only an educated fool could miss them. . .****
I will add that the surge in applications for Labour Party membership is the highest it has EVER been. Considering that we outnumber them, I would say that push is coming to SHOVE.
Who knew the philosopher king was a worker? Pleasant dreams, Grandah; pleasant dreams!
(Okay Finian, move over for “How Green was My Valley.”)
hopefully application for Labor Party will undergo Hegelian sublimation into SEP membership toute suite! j/k. not going to offer any party line. but isn’t Corbyn like the Tom Daschle or Harry Reid of British politics? snoozefest.
“kingdoms are clay,” says anthony at the start of a. & cleopatra, more exactly, iron & clay, let none of us forget. public opinion is great when producing outcomes we (think we) favor. when otherwise, oh, the masses have been duped, it’s false consciousness, etc.
“we have faith in the British people,” sayeth Cameron. lol. only b/c you haven’t yet figured out how to eliminate them.
no doubt some in Europe weary of their military dependence on the US, expressed via NATO. would that they wearied of the military! i’m surprised the US isn’t pushing more publicly for the rearmament of Italy along w/Germany & Japan, the ww2 triple crown. They can be an Axis for Good this time! I foresee…NATO forces fighting w/EU forces! .megalulz.
just a reminder that realigning trade pacts, defensive alignments, etc., were flying fast & furious before ww1. and that this day, 100 years ago, was the bloodiest day, casualty-wise, ever in British history, 20,000 dead in one day at the start (!) of the Battle of the Somme.
http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2016/07/today-100-july-1-1916-day-of-downs-and.html
(this blog does a summary/commentary every day of NYT headlines from the day 100 years ago.)
Hmm, Jason, isn’t the EU NATO? Last I looked it was, and yes, all those bases and all, global spread, etc.; but maybe I’m not getting your point. I’d say yes, they are weary of military ‘obligations’, in spades – at least the Welsh and English. Are you not seeing that in this vote?
Oh, you think fragmentation breeds bellicosity? I guess because I come from a very fragmented group of islands way down yonder, I don’t see that problem. Empire’s a bit like the Olympic Games: nobody wants it any longer, nobody sane, that is. These are very different times. In fact, bellicosity comes with globalism and corporatocracy these days. How many millions of innocents have we destroyed. . . Peace – what’s that?
We are living reductio ad absurdum. (How’s that for enlightenment?)
large overlap of EU/NATO. does britain’s brexit vote involve leaving NATO? no, it don’t. leaving NATO is far, far more important than the EU, which is why it’ll never, ever be on a ballot. imho.
i don’t know if fragmentation breeds bellicosity. the globalized economy is a fact. rewriting some trade laws as brexit *might* do doesn’t change that fact. as expression of discontent, i’m all for brexit, for whatever my little “spitwads from the cheap seats” in this theater means. who wouldn’t be except some Eton-bred poncy tosh? pragmatically, well, we’ll have to see won’t we? i know, that’s a major cop out.
on a break i’d clicked into RT and found this hilarity: ‘Breedlove’s war: Emails show ex-NATO general plotting US conflict with Russia’, which caused me to remember that i hadn’t checked with wikileaks for a couple days. apologies to all, but i’d also forgotten that the chilcot report is due out on july 6, which a number of folks have advanced as one of the big reasons for the corbyn putsch, as he’d called out blair as a liar over his large part in the iraqi war and wanted out of nato. he’d also done so again recently.
craig murray’s rec’ing this book by peter osborne instead because: whitewash potential.
#chilcot on twitter has spawned some both funny and creepy art
dunno what folks will make of the breedlove stuff; his replacement is similarly inclined, as are the masters of war for clinton.
i tho’t it was on moon of a. but i couldn’t find it: re corbyn’s oustering & the upcoming chilcott report. tony blair is the bill clinton clone ain’t he?
i have no idea what’s up w/this garbage now, but i’m sure you have some left over regurgititis from the vomitorium of 2008:
http://faith.yale.edu/legacy-projects/legacy-projects/faith-globalization/faith-globalization
love that url btw. couldn’t they have stuck his stupid ass in some dreary foreign policy lecture hall? nope. cutting edge of “faif” & “bidnez,” selling to the natives beads wrapped in the foreskin of Christ. well, i guess this kind of crap meant more to me back when i had tenuous connections to an I.ntra-V.enous league school. still funny. perfect NGO/R2P gobble-dee gook coated in Ad Age jeebusy talk. please Lard, is there a gibbet in store for Blair? i don’t think corbyn’s up to it.
yeah, it’s been out there; i’d just forgotten to mention it, and hadn’t remembered the report is “due” so soon.
ha! on blair and volf and faith globalization! do you reckon these folks believe their own hype or what? herr volf at calvin college: funded by none other than bigPharma eli lily (so many anti-depressants, SSRIs). you can also find ‘spiritual capitalism’, one of whose proponents is the resurrected john perkins of economic hitman fame, i forget some of the other Bigs.
i was about to say ‘no, jesus’s foreskin is on our bathroom wall’, but crikey: it’s adam’s foreskin, idjit wd. by way of a sweet tapestry of michaelangelo’s ‘the birth of adam’. art-loving wd daughter said: ‘look at his dick!’ (ain’t she precious?)
clone? well, he was ‘bush’s poodle’, but spiritual clone? dunno. Labour party members are sometimes thatcherites, though. corbyn as harry reid? uhhh, i don’t think so. we’ll see; there are a hella lot of hoops to go through, and of course the big money’s on ‘ain’t gonna be no breakaway’.
thanks for the finian’s rainbow, juliania; a hella lot of fun
O/T, except for the bidness/corporate speak. just reeks of the language of clinton/blair, wharton biz school six sigma ninjas of best practices for the drone killing program.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/02/pers-j02.html
The report, drafted by the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), was accompanied by an executive order reaffirming that the US president has the unquestionable right to order the state murder of anyone in any part of the world, while claiming a commitment to “promote best practices that reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties.”
The words “best practices,” drawn from the dry lexicon of corporate management, recur three times in the US president’s executive order….
The new policy, according to a White House release, is designed to “develop a sustainable legal and policy architecture to guide our counterterrorism activities going forward,” and to “institutionalize and enhance best practices regarding US counterterrorism operations and other US operations involving the use of force…”
whooosh; when i’d seen your comment in email, i went to fetch the bureau’s count that had come in via email yesterday. i’m sad to say i hadn’t known of ‘reprieve’, and how crazy is it that any coverage i saw of the phony count never spoke of sir war crimes EO.
van auken calls it O’s signature issue; i’ have added ‘pre-emptive war’, as well. in the finance sector, i’d have also mentioned ‘deferred prosecutions’; that continues to be a dilly.
“best practices”: i hadn’t known that it was corporate-speak, as the first time i saw it used liberally was in reference to police-speak.
meanwhile, i did track this down, save for opening the Lords’ report pdf; wonder if it’s just another elite con?
““MPs in Westminster are not the only lawmakers who can thwart Brexit. According to a report by the House of Lords, the UK’s devolved legislatures in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland must also be consulted before EU laws can be annulled. Given that voters in both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, lawmakers in both countries’ assemblies would feel entitled to veto the process of leaving the EU. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party has already said that “of course” she would ask lawmakers to refuse to give their “legislative consent” to Brexit. In theory, this veto power could be revoked by the UK parliament. But doing so would certainly spark outrage, fuelling lingering tensions in Northern Ireland and feeding the pro-independence camp in Scotland.”
also, jerome roos (roar mag) wrote a crazy (imo) essay for telesur that makes it sound as though most of the Leave votes were xenophobic farages and trumpistas. but in his list of what corbyn stands for is still: leave nato, and No Trident.
but oh! the msm is collectively as giddy as a schoogurl over the thousands who protested Leave in london!!! (of course londone was 79% remain…)
oh, and the rapper you’d mentioned up yonder (or somewhere): i get the snottiness on display, but i hadn’t ever heard his name.
not sure what bill van auken means. sure droning people is hideous, but so is US policy in e.g., yemen.
nicola sturgeon? i smell something fishy! sorry, that was awful. what do the scottish & irish know or think that the brits don’t? can’t speak for scotland, but i’m pretty sure ireland has gotten a royal buggering from the masters of finance, one of whose vehicles is the EU. do they view the EU as maybe a counterweight to their traditionally colonial subordination to England?
i had neve heard of that rapper from baltimore, either. presumably a local guy.
tomorrow, and thanks miz sturgeon, fer all the fishes. i may have some answer to scotland, i’m not sure. knackered. g’ night. ireland: unification? sinn fein, as well? too much for neophytes, yes?
“Adam Tomkins, leading constitutional law expert and newly elected Conservative MSP, made the point that Sturgeon’s words should be interpreted carefully, given that there was a huge difference between withholding consent and having a veto.
“Holyrood has no power to block Brexit. It is not clear that a legislative consent motion would be triggered by Brexit, but withholding consent is not the same as having the power to block. The Scottish parliament does not hold the legal power to block [the UK exiting the EU].”
miz caviar seems to believe that Remaining is key to scotland’s economic health; she mentions “currency” here and there. but she says that being forced outta the EU must trigger a vote for independence. meaning: i can’t answer your last question. ;-)
shhhh: no one knows the us and proxies are waging war in yemen…. and of course the ttp and tafta are what O wants to be his signature issues, revolving doors, mammoth speaking fees and all that rot. bush drone first!!! (maybe even clinton in somalia; i forget.)
i checked with emptywheel on the cia drone count: she never mentioned his EO to put the force of law into his assassination squadrons. odd, no?
Yves is champing at the bit to enable a reversal. Yesterday’s post was almost gleeful in the manner in which she threw obstacles in the way of anything remotely resembling an orderly Brexit. A final comment on the thread tried to restore some integrity to the conversation and was immediately attacked by his or her betters. I was as usual late to the party, but I posted the following:
“juliania
July 2, 2016 at 5:09 pm
No one is getting misty-eyed, though if anyone is, it is those who set obstacles in the way of the Brexit which has been voted for in a majority referendum. This was not, as Greece’s Oxi vote was, shrouded in the mysteries of what really was being voted for – this was plain and simple and it made sense.
It strikes me that those obstacles appear very similar to what would be presented by a corporation to a client wishing to, say, remove him or herself from an onerous agreement to pay for the combination of telephone and computer service, because said client no longer can afford to keep both. Hypothetically speaking, said corporation then tells client Oh, sorry – your phone bill will be hiked if you do this.
Is that situation ethical? The client is nearly broke, without funds. He/she can afford the phone service, at the original fee that was in place before the add-on computer service. And the client has remained with the corporation the required amount of time to give said corporation plenty of profitable years in the relationship.
I agree with epistrophy above. There are ethical matters to consider here, as there were in the travesty that occurred in Greece. If something is not right, it is not right, contract or by-laws or prevarications notwithstanding.
The only way forward is for Brexit to be accomplished with minimal objection and with compassion. The people can take no more of this, and they shouldn’t have to.”
I realize my points will fall upon deaf ears among those who care in the high circles of finance, and among those who profit therefrom, even if only to a small degree. I guess I have finally understood what David Graeber’s “Debt” was all about. We are all, know it or not, drinking the financial Kool-Aide that barter, trade is what economics is all about, and that is the way it has always been, will always be. Graeber insists, and he is so correct, that personal obligations came first, and will always come first. Whether you are a politician, a corporate financier, or just the little old lady on the street. It’s all about relationships and you cannot have a lasting relationship with money.
bless your heart juliania. how fine you could refer to graber’s ”debt’ to boot as i’ve only read excerpts. dunno of course, which of her posts or guest posts, but one in which i’d read comments made me ACK!: who the fook cares about the WTO? this is naked capitalism? or just a global capitalistic tweak?
all i can figure is that most folks are buying the over-arching media schtick that ONLY the right-wing uber-nationalists underpinned the Leave vote. i, for one, am glad michael hudson sees the difference, even after championing (mebbe still, the failed, compromised syriza.) i can’t begin to note how many op-eds i’ve read to that effect, including the Occupy newsletter, and so many rec’d readings from the popular resistance newsletter over the past few days. cannot both ‘right’ and ‘left wings’ unite on a few issues like EU/IMF austerity issues for the rabble classes? of course they can; what comes next is what matters, no? the future will come, and the US will be held hostage to a lot of this, gawd save the queen,.
I don’t think brexit will survive this newest of political onslaughts, given that England, by an of itself, survive America’s “brown” Democracy or the multiculturalism espoused by America’s “majority minority.” Subsequently, the “old” England or the latest vintage of self-governance, will have relegated itself to the dust bin or bingo hall, and where no one wins anything of consequence.
And my from my Indigenous perspective, the role-playing found in the fatuous Rhetoric of ‘fascist’ or ‘anti-fascist” just means that Multiculturalism has no attached rhetorical flourish, or so it seems to me.
And because I believe in Multiculturalism, am I now an ascendant to these label?
the big money right now is on #brexit not happening, but it’s like saying to the rabble in the cheap seats: ‘shut up, no one listens to you anyway, ever’ (h/t: graeber). as far as ‘fascists or not’, lemme go grab a tweet i’d seen recently by one of my fave maxists:
i read a piece at the guardian by an author whose written a book on blair and bush lies to decimate iraq , believe it or not, for key things to look for in the chilcot report (due out wed.) that will determine how far he pulled his punches.
if it’s clear that blair should go to the hague, it might actually cause parliament to trigger article 50, but it’s a very long shot, isn’t it? but of course the ‘old UK’ was another ugly empire….
Coming back here, thanks to a link furnished by commenter at nakedcapitalism – more Graeber, and in the Guardian no less (has something like 3,000 plus comments):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/05/political-establishment-momentum-jeremy-corbyn
Lovely commentary, in my opinion.
dunno who decided what content gets into ‘comment is free’, but yes, they’ve had posts by graeber before. i’d thought once my newish piece timed out a bit to feature it (he’d retweeted praise for it at least three times, lol):
and two from hudson at trnn, one of which i have confused w/ one that was like one at counterpunch…that i can’t find now, blaming the military (mebbe they changed the title later?)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16612
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16654
graeber’s twitter is fun,w/ so many scathing comments about #chickenCoup
and one commenter under his fine essay said that this was deleted when they published it; hard to read though: