By William K. Black
July 5, 2016 Bloomington, MN
NYT Editorial Decrying BREXIT – Part 7
The NYT editorialized against the BREXIT vote, just in case the six columns it printed attacking the vote might not make it clear where the editorial board stood. The editorial explained what it saw as the basis for the vote.
It was a cry of anger and frustration from more than half the country against those who wield power, wealth and privilege, both in their own government and in Brussels, and against global forces in a world that they felt was squeezing them out.
Note that this explanation is so general that it is impossible to know whether the editorial board agrees with the majority’s analysis or what the elites did wrong. The editorial board does not treat the BREXIT majority’s policy views as worthy of presentation or analysis. Instead, the editorial board moves on to demonstrate its failure to understand the EU financial crisis and austerity.
The British vote strikes at a time when Europe’s institutions and unity are being tested to the limit by the Greek debt crisis and the waves of refugees pouring in from the Middle East and North Africa. Even though Britain never acceded to the E.U.’s open borders or single currency, it has been a leader of Western Europe, a bastion of democratic values, economic probity and military reliability.
The eurozone is not still suffering Great Depression levels of unemployment in Italy and Spain because of Greece, much less Greece’s “debt crisis.” Even the IMF admits that Greece’s excessive debt burden can and should be eliminated by EU action. The EU refuses to end Greece’s “debt crisis” even though doing so would be a “win-win” for Greek and EU citizens. EU elites are prolonging the Greek crisis in order to destroy Greek resistance to “labor reform” and force Greece to sell off its “crown jewels” to the elites, generally from wealthier EU nations. The eurozone remains in financial crisis because of the self-inflicted wound of economically illiterate austerity. “Britain,” under both the Tories and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s “New Labour” was a strong proponent of austerity – the opposite of “economic probity.”
Conclusion
The seven-column assault that the NYT launched against those that dared to vote for BREXIT had occasional admissions about reality. The editorial board admitted its great fear about what the pro-BREXIT vote represented: “It was a cry of anger and frustration from more than half the country against those who wield power, wealth and privilege….” Yes, and it was prompted in large part by the reality that those “who wield power, wealth and privilege” do so for the rational purpose of rigging the system to greatly increase the odds that they and their kids will end up with still greater power, wealth and privilege at the expense of the 99.999 percent. The dominant elites’ rigging of the system simultaneously shrinks the pie in the West and grabs an enormous share of the shrinking pie for the interests of the .001 percent. The NYT’s great fear is that the public is beginning to understand this and peacefully fight back at the ballot box. The public’s demand for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law to the Wall Street and City of London elites – stripping away their ability to “wield power, wealth and privilege” to rig the system against the public – is their nightmare scenario.
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