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Saturday 25 June 2016

¡Basta ya, Brussels! British voters give EU corporate slavestate the shaft

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch


"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

— Thomas Paine
British voters delivered a savage deathblow to the EU corporate superstate on Thursday sending global markets tumbling and forcing Prime Minister David Cameron to announce his resignation. The narrow victory, which caught the prognosticators by surprise, is the strongest sign yet that working people across the continent are awakening to economic and political disaster that has been created in the name of European integration. Not only has the EU failed to live up to its promise of lifting all boats and widening prosperity, it has also transformed the region into a low-growth, high unemployment charnel house where bankers and their corporate allies siphon off the wealth of the weaker states to enrich high-flying speculators and voracious bondholders. And while the referendum's outcome will surely be challenged in the months to come, it represents a critical turning point in the public's attitude towards a thoroughly reactionary and odious institution that is solely responsible for the abysmal state of the economy, the progressive erosion of living standards, and steady rise of right wing extremism. Here's a short clip from Raul Ilargi Meijer explaining what Brexit really means:

"Nobody seems to understand it's not about Cameron or Nigel Farage, or Michael Gove vs Boris Johnson, it's about voting for or against the EU, for or against Juncker and Tusk and five other unelected presidents having a say in one's life.

And that's not all either. It's about voting to leave, or remain in, a Union that is already dead and preserved only in a zombie state. Brexit is just one vote and many more will inevitably follow. Brexit is not the first, Grexit had that 'honor' last year. Later this month, elections in Italy and Spain have the potential to turn into preliminary Italix and Spexit votes. And then there will be more.

The reason why these things are taking place, and will be, going forward, is that the economies of all these countries are fast deteriorating. The sole reason why people have accepted the rule of Brussels coming from far away over their daily lives, is the promise that it would make those lives better and more comfortable. That promise has been shattered. The EU has made things worse for most Europeans, not improved them. And when seen in that light, why should people agree to continue to be told what to do by those who've made them poorer? There's no democratic model in which that remotely makes sense. There are only undemocratic models left....

An economy in decline means the end of centralization and the end of existing political power structures. This is inevitable." ("Murder, Lifeboats, an Iceberg and an Orchestra", Automatic Earth)
The Brexit referendum represents a fundamental rejection of austerity for working people and subsidies (QE) for the markets. It is an indictment of the destructive policies that have thrust a broad swathe of southern Europe into a permanent depression while bankers in Paris and Berlin make out like bandits. Even now the loathsome European Central Bank continues to run up massive debts (ECB-QE is $80 billion per month) just to line the pockets of corporate CEOs who offload their toxic bonds with the clear intention of using the money to buyback their own shares further enriching themselves and their swinish shareholders at the expense of ordinary investors. This Ponzi-rip off is what passes as economic policy in the EU. Brexit threatens put an end to this huckster's swindle. Here's a little more background from the World Socialist Web Site: 


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