Labi Siffre - Into The Light

AVOIDANCE COPING

In 1948, given the biggest share
Of Marshall Aid
GB wasted it
Clinging to Empire
While Germany invested
In Industrial Modernisation.

North Sea oil revenue?
GB wasted it
On tax cuts
While Norway invested it
With a North Sea Oil Sovereign wealth fund
(Now the world's largest)
For its people
Who because of that
Are now more secure
Than ours.

In answer to
The 2007/2008 US-made crash?
GB chose austerity
And more austerity
(Top down? You must be joking!)

And none of this
None of this
None of this
Had a jot to do
With the EU

So, the wilfully ignorant
GB lashing out response is Brexit
After all
We beat the Germans
All On Our Own
In two world wars
(really? All on our own?)
Then beat 'em again
In the '66 world cup

For twenty years, thanks to Rupert Murdoch and other robber barons, Brits have been taught to hate the EU (for things it hasn't done) by The Sun, The Mail, The Express (newspapers) and their ilk; but isn't it really Germany we hate, for doing what GB should have done after WW2 but didn't? And is it perhaps that, still with the hubris of Empire, we hate mirrors even more than we hate the Germans?
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["Britain received more than a third more Marshall Aid than West Germany - $2.7 billion as against $1.7 billion. Britain pocketed the largest share of any European nation"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/hist…/british/modern/marshall_01.shtml]
*
["Had Thatcher been a truly visionary politician, she would have established a wealth fund for the oil windfall, not squandered it on tax cuts and current spending."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/thatcher-and-north-sea-oil-–-failure-invest-britain?fbclid=IwAR0OF5zyvez7FtEXx3gMmlssK-PnHbxaoqTxfruYmGjwQyozVaaUHmTGH0A]
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[In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything
After eight years of budget cutting, Britain is looking less like the rest of Europe and more like the United States, with a shrinking welfare state and spreading poverty.
[https://www.nytimes.com/…/…/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html]

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Brexit - Winners & Losers

For a start, it isn't a competition. We are not in the playground. We are supposed to be fighting to protect the vulnerable. We have a duty to do so. Those earning the average income circa £28,000 a year, or earning less or much less and those just getting by, according to the government's own estimation will be harmed by Brexit; any Brexit. No version of Brexit will leave us in a situation as beneficial as remaining in the EU. That, as far as I am concerned, is where the conversation starts.

 

As for "get over the referendum vote”, "be optimistic" and "see a glass that is half full”: in this age in which water wars, violent conflicts over water, are already raging: I see a glass that is half full for those who can afford to pay for it and a glass that is much less full for those who cannot. I also see a glass that is overflowing for Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Iain Duncan Smith, Nigel Farage, Viscount Rothermere, The Barclay Brothers and Rupert Murdoch. The robber barons inciting this one sided self-harming UK insanity will glide through Brexit their fortunes enhanced. Large numbers of those who voted for Brexit will be very very much less fortunate. The fight against Brexit is a fight for the wellbeing of Leavers and Remainers alike because the aforementioned “not wealthy” are, “all in it together” … and in the case of Brexit, the “it” stinks.

 

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BREXIT - "TRADE IS IMPORTANT, BUT … "

(UK Foreign Sec J Hunt BBC Radio4 the “Today” program 15/4/19).

 

That "but" is appropriate if you are attempting to conceal "The Brexit Dividend” the effect of reduced national wealth that Brexit will bring to those British People already not wealthy, to the NHS, social care, policing, the price of affordable justice, schools, security and adequately paid jobs.

 

Don't be fooled by promises of how easy it will be, how optimism will overcome all problems. This is real life not an uplifting heart-warming movie. Brexit means 2008 financial crash austerity will be followed by Brexit austerity.

 

Except for our competitors and enemies (Putin’s Russia, China and the circling vultures of Donald Trump’s USA) nations pursuing global economic stability want the UK to “Remain". Our enemies and competitors realise that when no longer a member of the EU (the world's largest Trading Bloc) the UK will be weaker. We will certainly be at the mercy of and much easier prey for US demands to lower our standards and economic defences in any “Free” Trade Deal negotiation. On top of that we'll be more vulnerable to demands for access from China, Saudi-Arabia and India in exchange for what our government of the day will describe as … "favourable deals" ... (favourable to who?).

 

Brexit will also weaken the EU and Western Europe, again making Russia and China and the USA stronger, again making us weaker in influence and economically. Brexit is in the best interests of our competitors and enemies. Collectively, the UK made an EU referendum mistake. The fault will be our collective lack of courage to admit that mistake and collectively rectify that error.

 

Don't be fooled by promises of how we will win and survive as we won and survived the second world war. Our parents and grandparents won WW2 as part of a multi-nation, multi-culture, multi-ethnic, multi-colour, multi-language enterprise. We wisely subsumed our individual sovereignties into a force able to endure setbacks and achieve victory. No one did it alone. No one does it alone. Then as now it is vital to realise we're better together.

 

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Brexit Self-Harm Writ Large

Theresa May says, "No government could give a blank cheque to commit to an outcome without knowing what it is.”
That is exactly what she and her government did on the 29th of March 2017 when they invoked Article 50.

UK citizens must fight, democratically, to revoke Article 50.

It is Parliament's duty to protect citizens, especially the vulnerable, not to slavishly kowtow to their whimsical view that the EU is responsible for our problems of austerity and serious shortage of resources (cash) leading to the 5th or currently 6th richest nation having a health and social care system not fit for purpose, a seriously depleted police force and a council cashflow inability to fill potholes.

Our problems of austerity and our serious shortage of resources (cash) were caused by the relaxation of USA & UK banking rules by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; yes, history has a very very very long reach. These relaxations led to roulette bank practices which in turn lead to the 2008 crash, from which we and other nations are still recovering and because of which, UK governments CHOSE austerity. None of this is due to the EU.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47689415

Incidentally: Under European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/38/EC, EU member states can repatriate EU nationals after three months if they have not found a job or do not have the means to support themselves.
Unlike other EU member states, the UK does not use this directive. Why not?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/31/britain-take-back-control-immigration-eu-directive-brexit?

 

 

THE BASIS OF BIGOTRY

How dare you be different from me

How dare you not look, talk, think,

Feel

As I do

How dare you constantly suggest

As you do by being other

That I

What I think

What I feel

What I am

Is wrong

 

How dare you suggest

As you do by being other

That I am not the standard

By which all should be judged

How dare you

As you do by being other

Make me feel uneasy

Insecure

“Uncomfortable”

 

I will hurt you for your insult

Of not being like me

I will punish you for this affront

I will righteously condemn you for your crime

Of existing

As “other”:

How dare you be different from me

How DARE you be DIFFERENT from me

 

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Brexit: No, They Don't Need Us As Much As We Need Them.

When leaving a club, don't expect club rules to be changed to benefit you at the expense of remaining members.

 

Expect your debts and commitments to be pursued, in full.

 

Statements that your creditors can "go whistle" won't encourage your creditors to trust you.

 

It should come as no surprise to adults that the more powerful in a negotiation use that power advantage, as we have a history of doing (e.g. in the slave trade and the Commonwealth, the proceeds of both of which we continue to benefit from through the infrastructure advantage resources from both gave us).

 

Without the UK, the EU will remain the second largest economy in the world.

 

As a nation, rather than "taking back control" we have chosen to be supplicants. Post Brexit, we will be weakened by no longer being part of the second largest economy in the world. America, China, India etc will take advantage of that weakness in any trade deal negotiations, including those with the World Trade Organisation.

 

Since the referendum, we have learned more about the complexities and dangers of Brexit. To ignore what we have learned, and continue to learn, would be to betray "the will of the people". Our sovereign legal system of government, Parliamentary Democracy, demands that our supreme legal authority, Parliament, not the government, has the final say.

 

"Zombie Ideas About Brexit That Refuse To Die"

The Children Of Brex Get It

And so in this the children
Wiser than their parents see
Their future blocked
By their elders' fears

The children denied a voice
By gerrymanderers offering scapegoats and
A good old days that cannot come;
That river they promise ... has moved on

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Statement Of The Obvious re: Brexit

A Statement Of The Obvious that we British, in our collective arrogance and wilful ignorance, seem incapable of grasping:

The rules of a club I join then wish to leave are made by the club not by me.

re Brexit: "Just a polite reminder to British exceptionalists that our only decision will be whether to accept or reject whatever the EU27 offer us." ~ Seb Dance UK MEP

In our collective defence, the Single Market and Customs Union (and so much more required for an informed referendum vote) were rarely (never?) mentioned by the instigator, PM David Cameron, nor by "The Brexit 5", Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan-Smith, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and their Brexiteer fellows.
Quick, someone call a statistician. Sorry, we can't ... they're experts!

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