Brexit Is Not Just Europe’s Problem. It Highlights A Crisis In Democracies Worldwide.

[Purveyor]

By Dan Balz June 27 at 4:30 PM
LONDON — Britain’s political system remained in turmoil Monday, virtually leaderless and with the two major parties divided internally. But the meltdown that has taken place in the days after voters decided to break the country’s ties with Europe is more than a British problem, reflecting an erosion in public confidence that afflicts democracies around the world.

Last Thursday’s Brexit vote cast a bright light on the degree to which the effects of globalization and the impact of immigration, along with decades of overpromises and under-delivery by political leaders, have undermined the ability of those officials to lead. This collapse of confidence has created what amounts to a crisis in governing for which there seems no easy or quick answer.

The debris here is clear. The Brexit vote claimed Prime Minister David Cameron as its first victim. Having called the referendum and led the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union, he announced his intention to resign the morning after the vote. The results also now threaten the standing of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faces a likely leadership election after seeing more than two dozen members of his leadership team resign in the past two days.

Alastair Darling, a former chancellor of the exchequer, outlined the extent of the crisis here during an interview with the BBC’s “Today” program on Monday. “There is no government. There is no opposition. The people who got us into this mess — they’ve gone to ground,” he said “How has the United Kingdom come to this position? We have taken this decision and have no plan for the future.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/will-brexit-change-the-behavior-of-politicians-in-britain-and-elsewhere/2016/06/27/f4317494-3c75-11e6-9e16-4cf01a41decb_story.html

[orwell]

1. In a Democracy it all begins and ends with the voters.

The politicians are symptoms, not causes of the growing failures of governments to serve the vast majority of people. By lapping up the decades long propaganda spewed forth by advertisers, political parties, religious institutions, media conglomerates, business interests, and other special interests, we view the world in simplistic terms that feed our own identity/narrative. We are addicted to fairy tales instead of facts.

In the Information Age where we have all the available data to make rational decisions that affect us and the world around us, we instead make decisions before we have the data, write missives that show more about who we are that what is actually happening. We choose not objectivity but instead this perverse tribal dance that whips us daily into an emotional frenzy. Just look at this site during the recent primary to watch it at work.

When you can predict the outcome of any Supreme Court case not by the facts of the case and stare decisis but by the composition of the court, there is no law, only fleeting opinion pieces written by hack partisans.

We only have ourselves to blame. We decry the "global corporations" while we eagerly lap up their products - oil, automobiles, cheap labor electronics, media celebrities, and faux-village hangouts such as Facebook and Twitter. How many multinationals does it take to produce the very communication devices we all use to post online about the "evil multinationals." It becomes our very own Ourobouros.

We have found the enemy...and it is us.

[fasttense]

2. If you are born into a world where you have to pay a corporation exorbitantly high prices for water.

Can you fault a person for paying for that water? Should we all die of dehydration because government and corporate power have conspired to create a monopoly and overcharge for a necessity?

In this expample the citizens need to fight back and stop the corporate/government monopoly from abusing them. But you do not expect them to stop drinking water.

[840high]

3. ...!100++++

Deaf politicians beware.

[orwell]

4. This seems a strawman argument.

Can you give me an example of what you are talking about?

I live in a county where water rates are exorbitantly high due to a fractured water delivery system that goes back to the 1800's. Nobody is going thirsty.

You need a better example.