Brexit Trumps Britain, Rio Lab Fails
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Vol. 5, No. 177
Brexit: It’s as if Donald Trump won the vote in Britain. Anger, nationalism, and fear of immigrants carried the vote to leave the European Union. The majority of Brits voted for change — any change — to throw off the yoke of international politicians and money managers. In Scotland for the opening of a new golf course, Trump echoed the message he’s been selling at home: “Basically they took back their country.”
Gary Younge wrote for The Guardian, “The pollsters were wrong; the currency traders were wrong; the pundits were confounded. People who did not feel they had been heard have not just spoken. Given a one-off chance to tell the world what they think of how they are governed they have screamed a piercing cry of alienation and desperation.”
It could mark the end of the freewheeling era of globalization in which the borders for both trade and immigration have been opened. Economic globalization has produced both winners and losers, and many of the votes in Britain for leaving the EU came from that country’s economic losers. Similar populist movements are on the rise in Austria, France, Germany and of course, the United States.
The ultimate global impact of Britain leaving the European Union is unknown, but the first was that world financial markets took a dive. The money people hate uncertainty. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 611 points, its biggest slide since last August. British stocks were off 3.2 percent, and European shares dropped 8.6 percent.
The fallout could continue for years. Scotland might call another vote for independence to stay in the EU. The two Irelands might consider re-uniting to also stay in the union. And Britain will have to begin negotiations with the EU on how to do business separate from it, rather than as a part of it.
Blame the Messenger: He’s not the first journalist to do so, but Neal Gabler writes for BillMoyers.com that the media are guilty of professional incompetence in covering and allowing the rise of Donald Trump.
“Long after he is gone from the scene,” Gabler says, “the Republican Party that engendered him, facilitated him, and now supports him — despite a severe case of buyer’s remorse — will no doubt still thrive, booting up for a future candidacy of Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan. And the media will still act as if Trump were an aberration, a departure from so-called ‘sensible’ conservatism. If so, it will be yet another act of media dereliction.”
Gabler goes on, “In fact, worse than dereliction, because the Republican Party, with its history of dog-whistle racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism, and gun addiction, salted now by incipient fascism, has been legitimized by the mainstream media for years. One could say that the GOP and MSM have operated in collusion to the great detriment of this country.”
Nation: At least 14 people died in powerful flash floods that swept through West Virginia after 9 inches of rain — Michael Phelps, who’s won more swimming medals than any Olympian, begins trials tomorrow to win spots in his fifth Olympics — A wildfire in Lake Isabella northeast of Bakersfield, Calif., has grown to 46 square miles and burned 100 homes and structures.
The Obit Page: Michael Herr, whose book “Dispatches” about Vietnam broke the mold of writing about war, has died at age 76.
Herr, who also wrote screenplays for the movies “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket,” was one of the leaders in the wave of “New Journalism” that brought literary flair to reporting. “Dispatches,” along with Tim O’Brien’s novel “The Things They Carried,” is considered essential reading about the Vietnam War.
Herr was unflinching in his description of the soldiers and the horrors. He used the language they used and described what they saw. In one passage, he wrote about soldiers, after enduring a two-day attack, shaking the trees to retrieve their comrades’ dog tags.
False Positive: Just weeks before the Olympics, the Rio de Janeiro laboratory that was supposed to handle drug testing has been suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency for failing to meet standards. The lab was previously suspended in 2013 and spent $60 million on improvements, some of which came from the government.
Mother of Dragons: With so much world consternation over the British exit from the European Union, HBO felt compelled to put out an announcement that its hit series Game of Thrones, which films in Northern Ireland, will not be affected. So maybe this whole Brexit thing isn’t so serious after all.
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