New Developments III

[Sonic Youth]

What amazes me most about this is the number of people who wanted to know if they could change their vote after the fact, claiming that they expected the "remain" vote to win but wanted to make a statement with their vote. Did they think they were playing some kind of game?

That's probably not so far off, Magilla. Maybe not a game, but more of a benign statement. It was supposed to be an advisory referendum, and maybe a significant percentage - say ten percent - didn't think Great Britain would go through with such a drastic measure even if "Leave" won. Nor did they believe all the economists warnings that this would greatly harm the country. They have eggs and bangers on their faces now. I'm growing more and more convinced that they're not going to leave after all, and if so many people have buyer's remorse, all the better. If GB grows more reluctant to leave, maybe they'll be more reluctant to elect Boris Johnson and the French more reluctant to elect Le Pen, etc. This may be overly optimistic, but I hope I'm right.

I don't blame anyone for making worst-case scenarios, though. Everyone seems to be startled by what happened.

MIster Tee, since you singled out 1962-74, I thought you meant Sam Cooke.

[Big Magilla]

What amazes me most about this is the number of people who wanted to know if they could change their vote after the fact, claiming that they expected the "remain" vote to win but wanted to make a statement with their vote. Did they think they were playing some kind of game?

Will their moronic U.S. counterparts do the same by casting their votes for Trump?

[Greg]

Pablo Iglesias elected spanish prime minister

Iglesias strikes me as being an anti-Trump. I don't think he is an immigrant basher at all.

[Mister Tee]

a Civil Rights icon,

A few of these, actually.

a pop idol),

Ditto.

True, but in terms of shock value, only the first of each represented a true rip in the fabric of society.

I recognize that King wasn't technically the first, but I can only report that, at the time he was killed, Malcolm X wasn't viewed (in even most liberal circles) as a Civil Rights icon, but as a scary revolutionary: more Bobby Seale than Barack Obama. King's killing, on the other hand, led to massive national mourning (amid hatred, of course, from the racist element).

As for pop idol: I was in a class in late 1975 where Robert Altman was the guest. Someone asked him "At the end of Nashville, why did the guy shoot the singer rather than the politician?" Altman's answer was, listen to how you've framed the question: you've essentially normalized the shooting of a politician (something that a decade earlier had seemed to come from nowhere); it was only by making a singer the victim that a newer response was evoked.

I'd say Altman's thesis was proven a few years later, when John Lennon was shot. I don't know if I can convey to those not around just what a completely disorienting shock that was. When we first heard the news (incongruously, from Howard Cosell during Monday Night Football), everyone I knew got instantly on the phone to one another: it was a life event. The city was close to paralyzed for days; people looked at one another with grim faces, words not even being necessary (much like after September 11th). Yes, we've seen all too many similar killings in the years since...but that one will, to me and many of my age-group, the one that ushered in the era.

[mlrg]

2016 political road map:
Brexit
Pablo Iglesias elected spanish prime minister
Trump elected US president
zombie apocalypse

[Sonic Youth]

a Civil Rights icon,

A few of these, actually.

a pop idol),

Ditto.

[Greg]

Tech Bubble bursts. . . Housing Bubble bursts. Great Recession. . . Now Brexit and the collapse of the Pound Sterling. Global economic recession again. Trump.

I think these are all connected.

[Greg]

The great irony is that the massive destruction nations in the European Union have seen did not result from being in the Union itself, but, from adopting the Euro and abandoning their own currencies. Britain had the good sense to keep the Pound and not adopt the Euro, so, it had the least call to leave the Union.

[Mister Tee]

Global economic recession again.

Well, that assumes facts not yet in evidence.

As someone who's got a quarter-century on you, let me note the launch of Sputnik (and the ensuing space-race, culminating in the previously-unthinkable moon landing), the BUILDING of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis (as close as the world has come to global nuclear war), the Civil Rights movement (ongoing, of course, but blacks-living-under-Jim-Crow seemed permanent in 1962), the assassination of a president (and, later, his brother/presidential candidate, a Civil Rights icon, a pop idol), riots in America cities, a massively divisive Vietnam War, students killed on campus by National Guardsmen, the opening to China, the resignation of both a president and vice-president on criminal grounds -- the years 1962-1974 were among the most shockingly active in American/world history. (And those who preceded me by 25 years would no doubt make mention of World War II and the Holocaust. There's always history.)

The glib pundit argument of the day will be "Brexit = Trump, so watch out", based on old people/racism/economic discontent. This analogy leaves out the U.S.'s far more ethically diverse population (London was solidly pro-remain, and we've got dozens of Londons from coast to coast), and the fact that Britain has suffered far more economically than we have thanks to the austerity regime since the Great Recession. The fallout from this godawful decision is likely to make Americans less apt to jump off he cliff with Trump, since they'll see the chaos it brings England.

Cameron brought a lot of this on himself, so maybe you can say he deserves it. But his country and the world sure don't.

[OscarGuy]

Those who are older may feel differently, but I'm just astounded how much has happened in the mere 40 years I've been here. Challenger. Berlin Wall. Iraq War. Tech Bubble bursts. 9/11. Iraq War 2. Housing Bubble bursts. Great Recession. Countless Terrorist Attacks. Gay Marriage. Sandy Hook, San Bernadino, Orlando, etc. Now Brexit and the collapse of the Pound Sterling. Global economic recession again. Trump. I'm missing things in there too. Maybe each generation has a bountiful number of "moments," but it seems like we're living in a very strange and somewhat unprecedented time. Is this what it was like during the fall of the Roman Empire?

[Sonic Youth]

Now's a good time to start writing our memoirs.

[Okri]

Holy. Shit.

[OscarGuy]

Islamophobia and anti-immigration positions aren't a uniquely American thing...

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... ties1.html

[Heksagon]

It looks like someone forgot to tell the Italians that the new Pope has completely changed the Catholic Church. /s

[OscarGuy]

I guess not every European country is as progressive as some would want you to believe.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/30/europe/it ... index.html