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3 comments

[–] das_american 2 points (+2|-0) Edited

I'll believe it when I see it. The people saying Britain will be a disaster are the same people who just keep "being wrong" about everything. Because they're sensationalist liars.

[–] [Deleted] 0 points (+1|-1) Edited

People you disagree with?

[–] das_american 2 points (+2|-0)

Of course I disagree with them. Don't you disagree with dishonest people?

Let's break down the article just a little bit.

Part of me wants to smash it all up. I want to see the British bubble burst: the imperial nostalgia, the groundless belief in the inherent greatness of this nation; the casual dishonesty of those who govern us; the xenophobia; the intolerance; the denial; the complacency. I want those who have caused the coming disaster to own it, so that nobody ever believes them again. No-deal Brexit? Bring it on.

Sounds like the guy really loves his country and wants it to do well. Definitely not a child throwing a temper tantrum because he didn't get his way or anything.

It will be the poor who get hurt, first and worst. The rich leavers demanding the hardest of possible Brexits, with their offshore accounts, homes abroad and lavish pensions, will be all right. I remember the eerie silence of the City of London. While the bosses of companies producing goods and tangible services write anxious letters to the papers, the financial sector has stayed largely shtum. Shorting sterling is just the first of its possible gains.

Very common propaganda tactic here. Quick unspecific statement about something bad that's gonna happen, and then straight to a long rant about the boogieman of this story. This is not someone with an honest opinion, this is someone with an agenda. He's trying to shape your world view to support that agenda.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, caused by the International Monetary Fund’s insistence that countries removed their capital controls, began with an attack by foreign speculators on Thailand’s baht. As currencies tanked and nations raised their interest rates, indebted companies went down like flies. Foreign corporations, particularly from the US, swept in and bought the most lucrative assets for a fraction of their value. Though the causes are different, it’s not hard to see something similar happening here.

"The causes are different" because it's completely unrelated and not analogous at all. Notice how he doesn't say how it's similar. The reader is just meant to assume that it is.

But this is not the end of it. A no-deal Brexit might offer the regulatory vacuum the Brextremists fantasise about.

Now they're "Brextremists"... that's cute.

The public protections people have fought so hard for, that we obtained only through British membership of the EU – preventing water companies from pouring raw sewage into our rivers, power stations from spraying acid rain across the land, chemical companies from contaminating our food – are suddenly at risk.

Here. This is why they need the EU to tell them how to run their country. Without someone else telling them what to do, they are at risk of making the wrong decisions. That's the actual argument here.

In theory there are safeguards. The environment department has been frantically trying to fill the regulatory chasm. It has published more statutory instruments than any other ministry and has drafted an environment bill with plans for a watchdog to hold the government to account. But a series of massive questions remain, and none of them have easy answers.

What questions? See, he keeps doing that. Very unspecific about what supposed disaster is coming. Nothing but vague fear mongering.

The rest of the article is nothing but boring complaints about the government and other those evil rich people. Some of these fears are being addressed but not fast enough, or more vague fearmongering, boring boring boring until the end at this part:

A combination of economic rupture, sudden shifts in ownership, an urgent desire to strike new trade deals and a possible regulatory abyss presents a golden opportunity for disaster capitalism. Our first task is to see it coming. Our second is to stop it.

Just in case you didn't know where the evil is the author has helpfully used scary adjectives to make them more apparent. "Rupture", "sudden", "urgent", "abyss"... Followed by a call to arms and the agenda laid out in terms the most simpleton idiot can understand.

Propaganda. All of it.