[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[DSMatticus]

Brexit would have to go very badly and the damage would have to be fairly long-term for it to be worse than the austerity program. It's possible, but causing as much damage to the UK as the EU has caused to southern Europe would be more work on less leverage and, unlike savaging Greece, it's not clear anyone actually stands to make money off it. But no, Brexit does not have any direct, immediate effect on the economies of Southern Europe. It sets a precedent that members can bring to the bargaining table when the powers-that-be refuse to consider sanity. Even if it were never used, making it clear that the EU can go backwards puts a limit on the amount of suffering the institution can inflict upon individual members before the project implodes. Though I expect, given the extent of German intransigence, it would have to be used. A lot.

"Unity at all costs" cannot be Europe's motto, because Germany has decided that the costs are going to be very high and that you can write the checks out to their banks and manufacturers.

[hyzmarca]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-04/p ... es/7477548

So, the guy who was just elected President of the Philippines has an awesome tough on crime platform. Pay bonuses to cops based on the number of drug dealers that they kill.

[Stahlseele]

So . . are those known drug dealers we are talking about, or do cops who need money now venture out, get themselves some drugs from the asservates chamber, shoot a randumb thug and plant the drugs on him?

[Kaelik]

So . . are those known drug dealers we are talking about, or do cops who need money now venture out, get themselves some drugs from the asservates chamber, shoot a randumb thug and plant the drugs on him?

Based on my experience with the US criminal justice system, definitely the second one.

[tussock]

That whole shooting the drug dealers thing worked so well for Mexico, you can see why people would want to emulate it. Nothing like a tenfold increase in the murder rate to keep a conservative government in power.

[hyzmarca]

So . . are those known drug dealers we are talking about, or do cops who need money now venture out, get themselves some drugs from the asservates chamber, shoot a randumb thug and plant the drugs on him?

Apparently, they have different bounty levels depending on how high up the target was in the organization. With the top drug lords getting a $100,000 bounty, and it going down from there. I don't know about street level guys.


Anyway Philippine drug lords responded by putting a million dollar bounty on the President's head.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/789845/dru ... z4B5Wz4Yxe

[nockermensch]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-04/p ... es/7477548

So, the guy who was just elected President of the Philippines has an awesome tough on crime platform. Pay bonuses to cops based on the number of drug dealers that they kill.

I'm always amazed that people think "Death Squads" are ever a force for good. People think they're rooting for Marvel's Punisher, but in 100% of the cases I ever saw (sadly, a lot of them happen here), no matter how well intentioned the assassins initially are, they immediately devolve into being killers for hire.

It doesn't help that people with a hard-on for vigilantism are also the same people who think the street-level dealers are the main problem and ignore the wholesale drug suppliers (who, at least here, happen to have side-jobs like "Senator").

[Omegonthesane]

A British MP is dead, murdered by a right wing fanatic.

[Username17]

A British MP is dead, murdered by a right wing fanatic.

Note that she was a member of the Remain Campaign and the assassin was shouting "Britain First!" This is what the Leave Campaign is. This is what it has always been. Brexit is not about making a more just Europe. Brexit is not about reducing the power of corrupt banksters in Frankfurt.

Brexit is about British fascists wanting to stick it to immigrants and claiming that they can keep it from being an economic disaster with the power of fairy smiles and unicorn farts. Hurting people with Slavic names isn't an unfortunate side effect of advancing lofty goals, it's the entire fucking point!

The whole argument is that they are going to cut taxes and regulations on rich people and pay for it by cutting social services and infrastructure investment. It's just more fucking Reaganism. The only innovation is that this time the racism is completely out in the open. They aren't using coded phrases about "young bucks" and "welfare queens" and shit, they are just openly stating they are going to make sure all of the pain falls on Slavs, Arabs, Turks, and Iberians. The shell game is as it always is: to get angry white people to vote for fucking the poors on the grounds that they are only going to fuck poors who are also minorities.

It's a lie of course, it's always a lie. Because the fascists have no intention of stopping with cutting social services to minorities. They are coming for social services to poor white people too, because fucking obviously. And second, because there just isn't enough money to be saved in all the social services and infrastructure investments for minorities. They already receive substantially less than the majority population, and they are minorities. The claims of massive savings in welfare payments to brown people immigrants is and always has been and always will be a lie. It can't be anything else, because brown people immigrant welfare simply doesn't cost very much.

Supporting Brexit doesn't make you a cool kid. It doesn't make you a far sighted visionary. It makes you a Bernie or Bust fucking idiot voting for Trump because you think that sends some kind of message other than that you support Trump's insane and racist proposals. The Brexit campaign are the bad guys. The worst bad guys. There is no upside here.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Note that she was a member of the Remain Campaign and the assassin was shouting "Britain First!" This is what the Leave Campaign is. This is what it has always been. Brexit is not about making a more just Europe. Brexit is not about reducing the power of corrupt banksters in Frankfurt.

Just remember kids, Orlando shooting proves that all gay people and Muslims are murderers, because Frank informed us that one person who kills someone automatically means that all people who share a position or status with that person are wrong.

[Username17]

Note that she was a member of the Remain Campaign and the assassin was shouting "Britain First!" This is what the Leave Campaign is. This is what it has always been. Brexit is not about making a more just Europe. Brexit is not about reducing the power of corrupt banksters in Frankfurt.

Just remember kids, Orlando shooting proves that all gay people and Muslims are murderers, because Frank informed us that one person who kills someone automatically means that all people who share a position or status with that person are wrong.

Or alternately, that it's exactly like the South Carolina shooting. A racist, violent, hate filled movement that encourages and emboldens "lone wolf" terrorists.


This is Britain First.

Or do you have some bullshit point about how "Not all racists?"

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

The Leave campaign's nominal figureheads suspended their campaign supposedly out of respect for Jo Cox. However, Frank is right to condemn them for fostering the kind of rhetoric and attitudes that would drive someone to deliberately murder an MP from the Remain campaign who had shown symptoms of compassion for refugees.

[Kaelik]

Or alternately, that it's exactly like the South Carolina shooting. A racist, violent, hate filled movement that encourages and emboldens "lone wolf" terrorists.

...

Or do you have some bullshit point about how "Not all racists?"

-Username17

I know that your position is that all people who want to leave the EU are racists because some people who want to leave the EU are racists. But your position is also that all people who voted for Sanders are racists, so by the exact same "some=all" logic, the entire democratic party is racist.

We know that the first racist shooter is racist because he's racist, and we know this racist shooter is racist. We also know that wanting to start a race war is bad, not because a racist shot people, but because we already know that wanting to start a race war is bad. But nothing about "a racist believed the sky is blue" or "a racist wanted to leave the EU" proves that no one actually wants to reduce the power of German bankers, they really just want to kill minorities.

Certainly all the sexist democrats suddenly took up the cause of single payer healthcare when the other universal healthcare was being put forward by a woman, but it does not follow that no one really cares about single payer healthcare, and single payer healthcare is really about fucking women, and "the bad guys. The worst bad guys. There is no upside here."

[PhoneLobster]

I'll say what I said several pages ago when this infantile logical fallacy was last trotted out.

If your best fucking argument for remain that you keep falling back to is "Racists want Brexit!", it isn't good enough.

And I don't just mean it isn't good enough because it's an insult to the intelligence of anyone reading your posts, I mean it isn't good enough because it doesn't really have any significant traction with the British public.

This is the big problem the Remain factions have. They have no killer argument. No killer slogan. No rallying cry. No credible bogey man. And DEFINITELY no inspiring deserving EU to champion as a cause.

They might yet win the campaign but if so it will be sheer the fucking dumb luck of the Brexit campaign failing to put together significant momentum to overcome only the dull basic inertia against change, NOT because anyone has ever put together an intellectual or populist case for Remain.

[DSMatticus]

There is a (divided) left-wing Brexit movement whose supporters range from the UK equivalent of blue dogs to actual communists. The arguments you're most likely to hear from them are ones about the undemocratic nature of the EU and the spectacular failure of European austerity. They are a minority on the left, but they don't not exist, and you cannot declare them all racists through a game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Or rather, if you're going to, I'm just going to find something you and Hitler agree on and start calling you Frankfuhrerter - a dumb pun for a dumbass.

Set-subset relationships are not difficult, and I know you're just being a disingenuous cock about all this, but "there is racist support for leaving the EU" does not mean "all support for leaving the EU is racist." For example, the last time we talked about it, you agreed with a bunch of misogynists that Anita Sarkeesian's work was poorly-researched sex-negative bullshit. You fucking misogynist scumlord. How dare you?

[erik]

I thought it was "racists want brexit since it helps further racists goals and shits on poor people" (not that all those who want to leave are racist but that there are real racist effects of leaving and that is why racists want it). It isn't just that some bad people want it, it isn't just that popular support for those bad people emboldens murderers, it is that by giving them what they want there will be people harmed intentionally as a direct result.

The leave side needs to show that the harm for remaining and working to improve things from within is worse than the demonstrable harm from leaving. Frank has repeatedly said he wants to see what step 2 of the plan is where there is improvement since he is not convinced that step 1 of leaving is a net positive.

[PhoneLobster]

Frank has repeatedly said...

...nothing of meaningful content on the matter.

You think he is resorting (repeatedly) to "racists like it!" (and no your attempt to renegotiate that is NOT fucking working you twat) because hey, it's just the perfect cherry on top of his solid rational realistic argument for remain?

No, it's the desperate flailing about for anything cherry on top of the sinking ship cake of worthless waffle and plugging his ears refusing to acknowledge the unfortunate and unpredictable realities or anything that anyone else anywhere else says that makes him feel uncomfortable.

Case in point your continued one sided demands of "lalalala I can't hear your point 2!" bullshit.

This shooting is the best piece of luck the remain campaign has had so far because it MIGHT just give it some TINY but measurable traction with the electorate on the "But Racists Like it!" angle.

And that is fucking sad and NOT a sign of a solid winning argument.

[Kaelik]

I thought it was "racists want brexit since it helps further racists goals and shits on poor people" (not that all those who want to leave are racist but that there are real racist effects of leaving and that is why racists want it). It isn't just that some bad people want it, it isn't just that popular support for those bad people emboldens murderers, it is that by giving them what they want there will be people harmed intentionally as a direct result.

No it's "Brexit may possibly have real racist effects, depending on what happens over the next 2 years, and who's in charge, and what they do, and whether or not Germany decides that Brexit must have racist consequences, or whether the Tories throw minorities under the bus to get better trade deals or who the fuck knows."

Which I mean, yeah, if the Tories (or fascists) push through terrible policies, they can do racist things. But that remains true regardless of whether or not Brexit happens, any difference is just one of degrees, and is again, premised on them remaining in power for 2 years anyway.

But all of that is speculation, and has nothing to do with the people who both want Brexit and want to do not racist things after Brexit, who really exist, and do not magically become racists. Just like democrats who vote for (Nader? I don't know if the Greens are even running anyone) but democratic senators don't magically become racists when the House and Senate stay Republican and do racist things whether the president is Clinton or Trump. (But obviously, do less racist things with Clinton.)

[Omegonthesane]

Which I mean, yeah, if the Tories (or fascists) push through terrible policies, they can do racist things. But that remains true regardless of whether or not Brexit happens, any difference is just one of degrees, and is again, premised on them remaining in power for 2 years anyway.

Differences of degree can be pretty fucking important.

And the Tories are staying in power until 2020. Even if they are found to have fraudulently stolen a bunch of seats by wrongly accounting for local spending in their national spending budget and even if all of those stolen seats get by elections and even if the Tories play fair in those by elections and even if they lose their majority due to playing fair, and wow that was a run on sentence but the point is, I doubt there's going to be a bloc willing to perform a vote of no confidence to trigger another general election and thus have even a chance of ousting the Tories before 2020 no matter what happens.

[DSMatticus]

It isn't just that some bad people want it, it isn't just that popular support for those bad people emboldens murderers, it is that by giving them what they want there will be people harmed intentionally as a direct result.

Note that she was a member of the Remain Campaign and the assassin was shouting "Britain First!" This is what the Leave Campaign is. This is what it has always been.

There is room to have a nuanced argument about which option is, in the long run, more harmful. When we tried to have that debate, a lot of Frank's contributions were hilarious and stupid (like rambling about blockades of the UK and quibbling about irrelevant minutiae of tuberculosis treatment in order to avoid admitting the obvious effects of austerity on publicly-funded healthcare systems, which he obviously understands but goddamn would that be inconvenient to acknowledge, right?), and he never really engaged with any of the arguments anyone else posed (even when those arguments were posed by quoting Frank from years past). Frank's core argument is that it's not clear how things are supposed to get better outside the EU, but that argument cuts both ways - how the fuck are things supposed to get better under the EU? Economic insanity enjoys the support of 80% of the German Bundestag, and the EU genuinely is resistant enough to Democratic mandates that the iron wall of German intransigence will not be easily toppled. We may very well be dead (whether of old age or World War 3, whatever) before the "unity any cost" faction achieves any significant reform whatsoever, largely because arguing from the position "unity at any cost" gives you zero fucking leverage. "If you won't give us change, then we'll just have to give you the status quo!"

But Frank's latest post is not a part of that nuanced argument. It's literally just "this is a violent racist who is pro-Brexit, so Brexit is all about violent racism." And I can't help but note that that's a hilarious argument coming from someone who at least partially agreed with misogynists on at least three different feminist topics that have come up here (Elevatorgate, Gamergate, Feminist Frequency, also I am so sick of the word gate ending up on everything). Of course, he "agreed" with them for different reasons using different arguments, which is... exactly the fucking point. Frank's commentary on this topic has been one giant downward spiral. There's a position - somewhere way back there - that's mostly rational. For example, Krugman finally offered his opinion on the issue, and you can find the meat of both of our arguments there. He ultimately decided "remain" was the better choice, with the deciding factor appearing to be the prediction that Brexit would empower the far-right, not disarm it. But if you step back and ask "why would it do that?", it's because the left never tried to make the case for exit, leaving racist shitstains with an almost total monopoly on the position - a problem which is compounded by continuing to support remain! The only way to get a leftist-friendly exit is for leftists to advocate exit.

[Username17]

Frank has repeatedly said he wants to see what step 2 of the plan is where there is improvement since he is not convinced that step 1 of leaving is a net positive.

And I'm still waiting for a Step 2. And I'm going to keep waiting, because get this: There is no Step 2!

While there are people who style themselves leftists who support Brexit for whatever stupid reason, these people are no different than the people who style themselves leftists and intend to vote for Trump over Hillary in November. Maybe they have a stupid theory about catastrophism driving positive change, maybe they just have a juvenile idea about sticking it to the man. I don't actually give a shit, because those ideas are all dumb and the people who have them are dumb. If you vote for Trump you are voting to make the world worse. Whatever noble motives or future vision you think you have, what you're actually doing is throwing gasoline on the fire of peoples' lives.

Back in the real world, progress is progress and the opposite of that is... not. You make the world better by making the world better. And sometimes that's frustrating and sometimes you fail and sometimes there are setbacks, and that's tough shit! Life isn't fair. You don't win all the time, even when you're right. Fucking deal with it. Throwing a tantrum and giving victories to evil men does not help. It just makes future progress that much harder.

The Brexit vote is not some airy hypothetical. It's a real proposal put on the table by real people with real intended and stated effects. It's not some mild unwinding of international agreements that an be negotiated in a calm and reasoned manner to get better deals. It's a fucking catastrophe. As it was always intended to be. It's a 2 year timer on Britain's international agreements and guarantees to its own foreign born residents vanishing in a puff of smoke. It's demanding that the country negotiate deals covering issues that they've spent the last fifty years hashing out in only two. With the entirely self-imposed ultimatum that failing to get that done in time turns the entire country into a North Korea style pariah state for no fucking reason.

It's a transparent attempt to create a self imposed catastrophe to ram through a bunch of conservative bullshit that will hurt the economy and ruin the lives of real people in the real world. Millions of real people. And that's if there isn't any push-back by the other countries, which there almost certainly will be.

Do you honestly think that Latvia is just going to stand there with their dick in their hand while the UK tries to play Slovenia to a sinking Yugoslavia? If they succeeded at that, Latvia would probably end up being Herzegovina in that metaphor (and Russia would get to be Serbia). Hell, do you think they'll thank the UK and ask for an even yuuuuger more beautiful trade deal after the UK dumps an extra two hundred thousand newly unemployed people on their social safety net? Of course not! The Leave Campaign's claim that they can get everything they want out of trade while shitting on all of their neighbors and clamping down on their own foreign born populations is fucking absurd.

So it's not just that it's a morally reprobate "Shock Doctrine" style attempt to ram through horrible things that the British public would never accept and the European Convention of Human Rights wouldn't even allow - it's that on top of that it's going to be a disaster of epic proportions even on its own terms. Leftists who support any part of this farce are the worst caricatures of Bernie Bros who support Trump for whatever bullshit reasons.

Brexit is Trumpism. It's exactly Trumpism. From calling immigrants rapists to blaming the failures of conservative economic policies on being "cheated" by foreign governments to claiming that they'll be able to negotiate yuuuge glorious trade deals after they build the wall. If you give that anything less than full throated condemnation you are a traitor or a fool.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

I actually have a Step 2. Pay off Greece's Debt.

Step 1: Leave the EU.
Step 2: Pay off Greece's debt on the condition that the give up the Euro and switch to the British pound.
Step 3: Lure Greece and other economically weak EU countries into leaving the EU and joining an alternative UK-led economic union with the pound sterling as the standard currency and the Bank of England as the central bank.

I don't think that Britain would actually do this, but if I was the Queen and just overthrew Parliament and took absolute power, it's what I'd do.

[Koumei]

The only way to get a leftist-friendly exit is for leftists to advocate exit.

Yes, and the time for that was five years ago, before UKIP became the heralds for the movement who basically get to dictate the terms, before Brexit was taken over by racists, and arguably, before Austria changed direction and gave some hope for other countries doing the same while staying as part of the EU.

Now that last one hasn't played out fully, and I'm not going to bank on it because there's plenty of time for it to go to shit, but a few years ago I wouldn't have thought it possible - Austria was becoming more right wing, with the accompanying rise in really weird and horrible crimes.

And for the first two points, they basically have played out. If you get a Left Brexit Coalition formed overnight, you're still basically joining UKIP's movement. Despite disagreeing on basically every point other than "The EU isn't working and we want out, ideally followed by the dissolution of the whole thing". That's what the media narrative will be, that's how people will view it. Because they were first to form a big anti-EU party that threatened local elections and shook the basic parties up.

So unless you have a time machine, you probably need to go back to the drawing board and look at something that does not involve more people saying "We agree with one of the major points of UKIP". Maybe try a "We hate conservative shitstains that ruin European countries" party and see if you can FORGE THE NARRATIVE.

[Kaelik]

It's really too bad that Hitler had socialized medicine, because now the left is forever foreclosed from ever supporting that position without joining Hitler, and that's why we can never try.

I'm not saying the left should get behind a Brexit, because as I said before, I don't see a Brexit doing anything for Britain. But if the Right gets behind the Spexit? Fuck that is not a good name, but anyway, if the right gets behind a spanish exit, it isn't time to say "oh well, fuck it, they got there first" it's time to say "how do we make it clear that our exit is different than theirs, and important for these reasons."

[Mechalich]

I get the sense that the perspective of the left is to 'Repeal and Replace,' to borrow a phrase, the EU. The right-wing UKIP position is just to repeal the EU entirely. So beyond the differences in reasoning and ideology, the ultimate end goals are vastly different.

My sense of what the left ought to do is to develop a comprehensive plan of what EU 2.0 (or whatever) would look like and then try to sell that. At the same time, develop some plausible political mechanism wherein countries could vote to withdraw into the new system, and thereby remain in the EU until some critical mass of countries had all voted to seamlessly transition to the new system. If you did that, you might even be able to co-opt the right wing into symbolically supporting exit to the new system votes. Including some real immigration reform into the new compact would help a lot.

So it makes sense for the left in the UK to vote remain right now, in this specific instance, but it really does need to forge ahead with developing a new plan. I mean really, even if Remain wins, it's not going to win by a lot (unless the polls are way off), and the Tories aren't going to be able to fix the conditions leading to this in the same way that Trump, if elected, doesn't have any policy plans to fix the problems leading to Trumpism. Another vote, at some point in the future, is highly likely if not inevitable. There needs to be a leftist-friendly plan, or at least a 'we hashed it out with UKIP as to what we're willing to stomach' plan for when that happens.