(Part 2) Best products from r/brexit

His new book just came out last week, I imagine he is a bit busy with it right now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/March-Lemmings-Brexit-Performance-2016-2019/dp/0571357024

Thanks for this, ByGollie. Fascinating and informed article, which confirmed many of my thoughts on Brexit and the other current european political developments. It is worth noting that at a time when most of europe refused to have anything to do with Hitler prior to the second world war it was primarily wealthy american businessmen who were investing in Germany.

And to anybody who wants to prattle on about Godwin's law, my advice would be to shut-up and spend some time reading a history book.

https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-American-Friends-Reichs-Supporters/dp/1250148952

https://www.globalresearch.ca/profits-ber-alles-american-corporations-and-hitler/4607

WWII

regarding when it comes to world war II we seem to be violently agreeing.

'Britain standing alone' says little about those that contributed from countries that had fallen. Poland, France, The good people of Germany, etc, etc. I read the article that sent, there was nothing that I had a problem with it.

I am not talking about British exceptionalism. But. After the fall of France, Britain had an extraordinary choice to make. To negotiate a settlement with Nazis.. or to take the course it took.

The people of France, Poland, Ireland, The Empire countries, the world, that stood with Britain are absolutely, without any doubt in my mind, heroes and it would be unforgivable to not recognize that.

If you think the phrase "Britain stands alone" does that, then it sincerely pains me that you think that.

My first proper encounter with World War II as a serious subject was the World At War documentary series. It is still the best (popular) telling of that story in my mind, with the best interviews from people who were there and at the right age to remember it. It was always pretty emphatic about the contribution from many countries. I recommend it .https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-War-Complete-Blu-ray/dp/B01JGQ0724/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=world+at+war&qid=1565954746&s=gateway&sr=8-1

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Common Phrases / Lazy Thinking.

common phrases are not necessarily a sign of lazy thinking or leading to an accepted (un)truth. For example, I use the phrase 'sunrise' and yet I believe the world goes round the sun. Wittgenstein said most problems of philosophy are problems with language. I will take it we have a problem of definitions of phrases rather than a differing view of history. I do not agree that I have given 'massive disrespect'. sorry.

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EU

If you feel that the economic success of your country is a gift of the EU's you should stick with it.

If you think that it's all up and there won't be another Euro crisis.. and then another than stick with it.

It a good thing fine, but inject some falsifiability. When are you not so sure it's a good thing?.

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Tell me.. "The EU is on the wrong path when X happens"

X could be (and would be for me)

"when there is one finance minister in Europe that controls your currency"

"when the EU tell you there is one corporation tax, and you must change yours"

"when all of Ireland's law is absorbed in the acquis communiautaire"

"when you are told that no competency areas can ever be taken back"

"when your sales tax in your country goes to the EU and contributions goes up from 1.3% EU's budget"

"When you have to contribute to the EU Army"

"When the European flag must be flown higher than the Irish Flag"

No, you don't. You just need a media ecosystem which spreads the message. It's about destroying the public discourse.

https://www.amazon.de/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610394550

Nope... these are treaties with third countries. This is the sole problem of the UK.

>when the USSR broke up, some agreements fell, new ones were put in place.

That is actually a good comparison. I thought a bit about it. I'm not sure, you are aware how the deep the transformation was there. It was worse than the IMF crisis in the 70'ies and probably only comparable to the Great depression. That is how the demand for unfettered sovereignty plays out today.

https://www.amazon.de/Secondhand-Time-Soviets-Svetlana-Alexievich/dp/0399588825

>And when did democracy of any kind become a meme?

Brexiters made it a meme. Referenda are not necessarily the best way to exert democracy. They are more a phenomenon of a decadent state. You can take Napoleon III.'s rise to power, the rise of the Nazis, women's suffrage in Switzerland (not before the 90'ies), or the Gracchians who were the last nail into the coffin of the antique Roman Republic before it fell into a civil war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy


>The UK and EU are parting ways, because they have different wants, aims and aspirations.

Yes. The problem is that the means of a sole nation state aren't sufficient to support the aspirations of the Brexiters. And still after two damn years, they aren't even able to formulate the problems, tradeoffs and hardships which lay down the road.

Brexit = Death of the Technocrats
Michael Krieger | Jun 24, 2016

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.– J. R. R. Tolkien

What transpired last night in the United Kingdom represented one of the most extraordinarily expressions of democracy of my lifetime.

When faced with an event of such monumental significance, it’s difficult to pick any particular direction for a post like this.

I have so many thoughts running through my mind and so many angles I could potentially address, it is simply impossible to do them all justice.

As such, I’ve decided to focus on one very meaningful implication of Brexit: death of the technocrats.

To start, I want to dive into one of the more interesting controversies from the weeks leading up to the vote.

What I’m referring to is the statement made by Vote Leave’s Michael Grove regarding “experts.”

From the Telegraph(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/06/eu-referendum-who-needs-experts-when-weve-got-michael-gove/):

On Friday night, during an interview on Sky News about the EU, Faisal Islam challenged the Justice Secretary to name a single independent economic authority that thought Brexit was a good idea. Mr Gove’s response was defiant.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/03/how-did-michael-gove-cope-with-the-sky-news-audience-and-faisal/]

“I’m glad these organizations aren’t on my side,” he said.

“I think people in this country have had enough of experts.”

Mr Islam spluttered incredulously.

People in this country, he repeated, “have had enough of experts?”

Mr Gove stood his ground.

Yes, he said, people in this country had had enough of experts “saying that they know what is best”.

Mr Gove had “faith in the British people”.

The so-called experts, clearly, did not.

For his words, Mr. Gove was attacked relentlessly.

He was lectured about his dangerous language and scolded for its supposed anti-intellectualism.

The “very smart people” issuing these condemnations did so in their typical self-satisfied, smug manner.

Nonetheless, Michael Gove was absolutely correct in his assessment, and in this post I will detail precisely why.

First of all, what is an “expert?”

From what I can gather this term is bestows upon someone with an advanced degree who has successfully maneuvered him or herself into a position of prominence within government, a think tank or academia.

As someone who worked on Wall Street for a decade, I was constantly surrounded by people with advanced degrees from the most prestigious institutions.

I also know that your degree means absolutely nothing the moment you walk in that door for the first day of work.

You enter a place filled with people who have battling it out for years if not decades in their profession of choice, and the only thing that matters now is performance.

If you don’t perform you’re gone, and nobody’s gonna care about the long string of letters next to your name.

The world of politics, government and central banking famously and problematically does not work this way.

Look around you at all the discredited “thought leaders” who continue to be paraded around on television, and who still advise Presidents and Prime Ministers the world over.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis no changing of the guard was permitted.

Sure we were given a fresh face with Barack Obama, but his advisers didn’t change.

He immediately hired both Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, and that’s the moment I knew he was a gigantic fraud.

To summarize, the exact same people who ruined the world bailed themselves out, avoided all accountability and continue to call the shots.

These are the men and women we know as “the experts.”

The point isn’t to say that having an advanced degree in a particular field of study doesn’t make an individual especially useful to society. It does.

The issue here is accountability.

If you want to go around calling yourself an expert and demanding that your views be implemented across a given civilization, you had better do a good job.

If you do a poor job, you should be immediately replaced with someone who has a different perspective.

After all, there are plenty of experts out there to choose from.

Unfortunately, our societies tend to get stuck with egomaniacal, incompetent, but politically savvy experts who never go away.

They can blow up the world a million times over and still somehow survive to call the shots.

This is the main reason the world is in the state it’s in, and it’s the reason reactionary forces are rising across the globe.

The Brexit vote in itself proves the point.

Sure, David Cameron has announced his intention to resign, but where are the the resignations of EU technocrats?

If anyone was discredited by this vote it’s the leadership of the EU, but they aren’t going anywhere.

Why?

Because they’re experts, and experts stay around forever.

Like Larry Summers, bank executives and neocon war mongers, these people never suffer the consequences of their actions and thus remain free to run around endlessly destroying the world from their unassailable perches of power.

That’s the point.

Being an expert does not make you infallible.

Your credentials should certainly offer you a seat at the policy making table, but from that moment on you had better demonstrate performance.

It’s the same way with a corporate job.

The resume gets you in the door, but your production day in and day out keeps you in the seat.

The status quo doesn’t see things this way.

To the status quo technocrat, this is a lifelong position.

They consider themselves to be the wise indispensable elders required to steer the world in the right direction irrespective of any and all calamities they cause along the way.

Unfortunately for us, history shows us that the biggest disasters happen precisely when you combine such expert arrogance with unbridled power.

One of the best modern examples of this relates to the tale of the 1990’s mega hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM).

A story that was perfectly captured in the excellent book by Roger Lowenstein, When Genius Failed.(https://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259)

The leadership of LTCM was hailed as the best of the best from the beginning and expectations were high.

It’s principals consisted of not only Wall Street veterans but also several former university professors, including two Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Yet, what transpired after only five years in operation was one of the most spectacular failures of modern times.

A train wreck so large and so completely out of control, it required a Federal Reserve led bailout.

What happened with LTCM is happening right now across the political and economic spheres in virtually all nations.

You have a collection of self-assured, arrogant “experts” running the world into the ground with their policies.

As I said earlier, I have no problem with experts.

I have a problem when experts are permitted to operate with zero accountability.

The EU represents such technocratic immunity better than any other in the Western world.

The British people recognized that they couldn’t remove these technocrats from power from within (something proven once and for all by the fact no EU leaders have resigned), so they decided to leave.

I commend that choice and I think the sooner the status quo is disposed of, the greater the likelihood for a positive long-term outcome.

As I warned last year in my post, A Message to Europe – Prepare for Nationalism(https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/11/14/a-message-to-europe-prepare-for-nationalism/):

Actions have consequences, and people can only be pushed so far before they snap.

I believe the Paris terror attacks will be a major catalyst that will ultimately usher in nationalist type governments in many parts of Europe, culminating in an end of the EU as we know it and a return to true nation-states.

Although I think a return to regional government and democracy is what Europeans need and deserve, the way in which it will come about, and the types of governments we could see emerge, are unlikely to be particularly enlightened or democratic after the dust has settled.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims of these horrific events, but the Paris attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum.

The people of Europe have already become increasingly resentful against the EU, something which is not debatable at this point.

This accurate perception of an undemocratic, technocratic Brussels-led EU dictatorship was further solidified earlier this year after the Greek people went to the polls and voted for one thing, only to be instructed that their vote doesn’t actually matter.

Actions have consequences, and we’ve now witnessed the first of these consequences.

The “experts” have warned us of the disaster to befall Great Britain should it Brexit.

Well we now have front row seats from which to observe the outcome of the UK versus large economies that remain in the euro such as France, Spain and Italy in the years ahead.

As usual, I suspect the experts will be wrong.

More: http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/06/24/brexit-death-of-the-technocrats/