History doesn’t repeat, but it certainly does rhyme.
A word on Brexit, so I can later say I tried to raise the alarm.
In a nutshell, it’s a perfect storm of prejudice exploited by greed.
The UK is headed for a ‘no deal’ exit (it always has been). I expect the economy to crash, food riots and martial law.
The economy will take a massive hit that won’t be repaired for generations; there are literally hundreds of trade treaties to re-negotiate and the businesses are already leaving.
We will likely see a break-up of the two main parties, a possible Yugoslavia-like breakup of the UK as the dominoes continue to fall. Spain re-taking Gibraltar, maybe new conflict over the Falklands. As a nearby economy, Ireland will take a hit as well, and be lambasted for their temerity for not wanting to re-unite with the country that colonized it.
Brexit’s autarchy will hit hard and create a poor, embittered, nuclear-armed state on the borders of the Europe, blaming the ‘intransigent’ European Union for the damage it did to itself in a ‘monumental act of self-harm’.
Brexit Hot Take:
If you’re pro-trade and pro-business, maybe don’t leave the world’s largest trading bloc.
The end.
— Iran-Contra never went away (@john_weeks) January 12, 2019
Who benefits? Follow the money, follow the people who advocated most vigorously for this change, as well as their investments. There’s wealth to be made from crashing an economy. It’s the same people and the same program in the USA.
But as the world’s banker and most wealthy economy, the States are simply too rich to collapse quickly. That’s why it could throw away billions (the yearly economy of some countries) in a partisan political gesture, by having a government shutdown for one month. But that is the long-term agenda.
What worries me most is language, on both sides of the pond. You don’t have this sort hate speech openly without it being a precursor to deeds. Certainly right now with children in concentration camps, but also over years, decades.
Until the speech goes away, until society says it’s not acceptable, the crimes will continue. As a creator I’m for free speech. But free speech is not hate speech.
Postscript: Thanks to the EU, there’s been a two week extension from ‘Brexit Day’ (March 29) to ‘Exit Day’ (March 12). It seems the only mitigating factor in this is the EU’s desire to mitigate economic harm to its own markets. Expecting to see trucks backed up on the Dover-Calais crossing as one example that the crunch has hit.
