Unqualified and Uncensored
Eh, sounds like a good enough opening header, doncha think?
I is smaht
I'm generally not the sort of person that stays on top of news. Really, only the big things crack though my radar, and even then I'm usually not interested in digging much deeper.
That said, I have totally been eating up all of the news coming out about the Brexit (that word sounds like a really unappealing pastry...).
Oh, and I am definitely not a reliable news source. I'm just some guy on a laptop and an overblown ego who wants to get his two cents out there about something that, in all actuality, is none of his damn business.
Except it kind of is...
Everything about the Brexit is fascinating to me
I don't even know where to begin, there are so many aspects to the referendum and the potential consequences that it's hard for me to pick a place to narrow in from. Probably the reason I find this situation "fascinating" rather than "tragic" is likely because it is all very distant from me and it's like watching a slow motion train-derailing from the safety of my own snug chair.
Lookit that chair. That chair snug as hell.
Oooooooh Nnniiiiiiggggeeellll...
Seen here looking FABULOUS
I guess a good place to start is with the bastards that got this whole ball rolling, UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), a far-right organization whose main goal has been secession from the EU for decades. This party has been led by one Nigel Farage, a name that manages to be both overwhelmingly British-sounding and overwhelmingly French-sounding at the same time.
The man has been celebrating the "leave" vote victory for the last few days. Pretty understandable given the fact it has literally been his life's goal to leave the EU, but the man is so ridiculously tone-deaf and willing to skew facts to suit that agenda I want to sit him down and force him to go though the persuasive writing classes I had to take in fourth grade.
Him and his cronies have been so flagrantly willing to use twisted versions of the facts about how leaving the EU would be wonderful for the British economy that it makes me wonder how on Earth anybody ever took them seriously. Then I look at picture of Donald Trump and it all makes sense and I bash my head on the table.
The cat in the background and I feel the same
The rise of hyper-irrational far right organizations steeped in xenophobia seems to be reaching a saturation point. With the highly disturbing neo-nazi parties gaining ground in other parts of Europe, such as Greece, the not-so-subtle anti-Syrian rhetoric of UKIP, and the distressing pandemic-like spread of Trump's Mexican-bashing, it makes it hard to have hope that people can get over their differences and just... fucking… you know… accept each other and shit.
I know the EU can be a bureaucratic nightmare, but come on.
Economics can be fun!
Immediately after the votes were tallied, the Pound plummeted and the Euro plummeted. The Bank of England is having to do some weird stabilization shit for the near future and it is having adverse affects on the world economy. It is projected that it could take a decade for the UK to stabilize.
Fond memories of ONE OF THE GREATEST PLAYS I'VE EVER SEEN
AND IT WAS IN LONDON
UGH, SUCH A GREAT PLACE
I love London, so the idea of it being cheaper to travel there sounds quite appealing, but frankly, I'd rather have a stable economy. Bad things happen when the economy isn't well behaved. Bad. Things.
It does remain to be seen whether or not the ramifications will be long lasting; it could be the case that this current drop is a case of panic and it will all be sorted out soon.
That said, in my humble, uneducated opinion, I think this is quite a blow to the UK and the EU. There is talk of holding a second referendum, which would be interesting. That brings us to...
I may actually be more informed than people in the UK
Which is… frustrating really.
What I mean by that is how there was a really hilarious/sad article floating around about the most Googled searches in England after the referendum had passed. They were all related to the referendum, some of which were asking what the EU even was. It hurts.
I also saw another post talking about how a not insubstantial number of people voted "leave" because they didn't expect it to pass and wanted to protest the EU. That has to go down as perhaps one of the dumbest things I have ever heard, and living in SoCal, I hear some dumb shit.
A lot of people have been asking for a "redo" because they felt uninformed or lied to about the effects of leaving the EU. That Pound drop… das ist nicht gut.
But what I find really interesting is Scotland
Because Scotland voted to stay in the EU. If you recall, they had their own independence referendum a while back in regards to the UK; they voted to stay in.
What the UK flag would look like minus Scotland
BUT - because the majority of Scots voted to stay in the EU, that means there could be another independence referendum on the table to secede from the UK. It's kind of fascinating, again because I am so far removed from this, that I could potentially watch the splintering of major European powers during my lifetime. The consequences of that, that would be something to witness. From a distance. Not up close; god, I feel bad for anyone in the UK (that didn't vote to leave). Or Europe for that matter.
A couple more tidbits
David Cameron is stepping down as Prime Minister. That move is straight up unthinkable in America, perhaps because Prime Minister is not the same thing as President even though we equate the two posts for simplicity's sake.
There is very clearly a generational divide on this issue with the majority of younger people having voted "remain" and the majority of older people voting "leave".
The UK has always had an odd relationship with the EU. They aren't on the Euro for one; they have been very much a "half-in" entity. And to that, there are a number of EU countries (primarily the French, naturally) going "good riddance," being sick with the UK's above it all attitude.
The United States has long had a very close relationship with the UK; when the US wanted to influence the EU, they did so the the UK and when the EU wanted to influence the US, they too did so through the UK. So many two letter acronyms.
What a mess, glad to not be a part of it.
*remembers current political climate of America*
Oh, right.
Moral of the story: Everything sucks, progress is a wonderful illusion, people are dumb.