EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Foreign or domestic?

Yes totally victims of xenophobia should reach out and bridge the gap with their oppressors. And they call me a cunt

Sure but Brexit voters caused loss of rights for us EU citizens here and Brits abroad.

They don't care mostly. Barely anybody said anything.

Now I do think media and politics play a big role in encouraging this, and many seem unaware of the origin of their feelings or thoughts. So they cannot distance themselves.

And how many voters pure denied problems cos that's just humans. "No my political party would never be that mean"

But often it comes down to moving on / forgiving on the part of the wronged party and the arseholery continues.

Maybe people are just pure ignorant but just ignoring hurt doesn't work I think. That's what is happening now "you got EUSS just move on"

Sure after years of passive agression for me and actual agression for others... See the problem?

Great to hear we now have free travel within New Zealand. Flights booked.

I mean I'm assuming because its such a great deal for the entire country.

Are we allowed to just run away to New Zealand? My mate did that pre-covid and it looks really nice.

My 2 year visa was ticking away after a quick trip to ride MTB in 2019 with plans to return for summer season 20/21...it has obviously since expired.

So I am very grateful to Boris n the guys.

You realise that was the joke, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSMmxyGeEb4

By who? Some rando on the street?

Little baby cheeses

I’m fluent in pausing to think of words

Hehe, I'm also currently learning a tricky language. I like this phrase, I'll have to pinch it.

Yeah? I guessed I’ve been privileged? Until now or naive to not see it.

Has it always been so open?

It has. My wife periodically worries about whether the kids look too Japanese or not, so that they avoid being abused as they grow up.

Shes received enough random abuse over the last 20 years to know its gonna happen.

I hope your kids are proud as shit of their heritage and all the things that make them who they are, thats what bothers me most... Kids.

Its a very humbling task but one that's so so rewarding, what are you learning?

Yes, actually getting to the stage of being able to communicate and almost sort of hold a simple conversation is rewarding!
Lithuanian.

No one is a cunt

Sorry, but this is just completely wrong.

Some people are definitely cunts, which we hope can be reformed through connection and exposure to humanising experiences with those they victimise, but many other cunts need further interventions in order to change their worldview. Sadly, some are too far gone to be fully rehabbed (see- cartel death squads).

Is anyone aware of an anti-hate triage system? That might help assign resources more effectively, but I’m wondering if that potentially means accepting that 1) not everyone can be helped to change, and 2) preventing foreseeable harmful impact on others/society is a higher value than individual freedom.

Edited but most points remain.

Friday night read on the double wammy of brexit and NZ trade deal on mussel farmers
https://twitter.com/JamesCrisp6/status/1451617760849633280

Post deleted - Never mind

When I was training to be a doctor someone asked me what I wanted to do and I said "paediatrician - because adults just smoke and drink themselves to death and it's all their fault, whereas the kids are innocent" (or something along those lines).
The response I got was this:
What about the 19 year old single mother of two kids who left school age 15 because she had her first child, now lives unsupported by her (ex)partner in a tiny little council flat on the 12th floor of a horrible estate, sees all the tobacco advertising when she goes out every day to take her kids to the nursery and sign on, and her 5 minutes of peace in the evening when the kids are crying is to step outside on the balcony and smoke a cigarette. Is it her fault (and her choice) to kill herself through smoking? Or is that something that society (and her poor upbringing and lack of education) has conditioned her into?

I'm a Brit living in France. I've not been able to see my family in the UK for the last 18+ months because I couldn't afford the travel (spending time in quarantine, the cost of the obligatory PCR tests etc). I am fully aware of the loss of rights and the xenophobia and racism that is going on.

I agree that ignoring hurt doesn't work. I'm not saying ignore it. I'm saying acknowledge it - which I think is what you're saying. But that doesn't mean calling people cunts, or playing blame games. I think it means trying to understand where the other people are coming from, what brought them to vote Brexit in the first place, what their hopes and fears are, and how they - we! - might overcome them (together). I'm against the 'divide and conquer' that is rife in society today. I'd like to (re)build bridges and figure out how we can all leave peacefully together.

Or am I a dreamer? Maybe yes, but I'd like to think that there's a better world we can make together. Call me a cunt if you want, my shoulders are broad and my skin thick, I'll love you anyway.

Is it her fault (and her choice) to kill herself through smoking? Or is that something that society (and her poor upbringing and lack of education) has conditioned her into?

Why is it one or the other?

Being sympathetic to the wider forces that shape people doesn't negate personal responsibility.

Johnson's first male role model was a philanderer which no doubt impacted his ability to sustain monogamous relationships. Boarding at a relatively young age at Ashdown House and then Eton, particularly in the era he did, no doubt impacted his ability to develop empathy.

Does that evaporate all of his personal responsibility in those areas?

Now I’m going to have Imagine playing in my head all day

I have never called anybody names etc. I think a lot of stereotyping is also not helpful.

Sure, for many Brexit was a hope of a better life and they weren't seeing the issues.

I've talked to people who believed the NHS slogan and one felt sorry for me.

I just think it can't just come from one side all the time. There is little acknowledgement of the hurt.

That's just me though, others are trying to befriend brexiters.
Others will not even talk to them due to the hurt.

A lot of it is the old saying that you can't reason people out if things they didn't reason themselves into.

But now we are all in the shit and I'm not patient or forgiving enough to go bridge building right now. Too many shitty views that I know come from the papers but not there yet.

It's my life that's screwed with not theirs. (Though it seems that now the project fear is truly starting, can't say I'm pleased to see rising food prices with so much poverty...)

I hope you can see your family again soon. The pandemic sucks.

Looks like we may have another Brexit cliffhanger around the NI protocol: The writers keep relying on the same tired plot elements ;)

Sorry @JWestland, I didn't mean to imply you were calling me (or anyone else) names.

Yes, we are all in the shit :-( Lots of shitty views but I'd probably blame a lot more on social rather than traditional media - the stories (I'd like to call them "truths") coming out this week about facebook and twitter have "hidden" right wing agendas encoded in their algorithms are very very scary even if completely expected. Edward Snowden's autobiography Permanent Record is a pretty interesting read on the topic (I highly recommend it as it's a pretty good read in any case), as is Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (but that's a lot more dense and harder to read).

Still, we're not going to be able to tackle rising food prices, transport difficulties, rising energy prices (and consequent loss of heating etc) unless we get together and try to do something about it as a group. Divided we fall - and that just feeds the uber-capitalists who are sucking us dry and makes them stronger. The "me, me, me" individualism culture that we're breeding in the UK (and elsewhere, of course) is designed to create inequality, to pit us against each other. Unless we can overcome that, we've not a hope in a million.

And inequality is devastating (including for the rich actually - they have shorter life spans, worse health outcomes and less happiness when they live in unequal societies. Plus worse outcomes on many other indicators too). There's lots of research to show this is true. The following article has some explanation:

• https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/sep/09/inequality-is-it-rising-and-can-we-reverse-it
  
  

The UK has one of the highest levels of inequality in Europe:

• https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk
  
  

Even the UK government says there is marked inequality in the country - of course they don't say it quite like that: they say, "The areas where people have the highest income are not always those that contribute the most to the economy."

• https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1370/index.html
  
  

I'm sure you know most of that stuff anyway, but I hope that the links and ideas might be useful for others too.

I also agree that the NI protocol is turning into another cliffhanger - just another way of keeping us all divided.

PS, final point, I don't think that Labour are (necessarily) the answer. I think the issues are bigger than party politics, what we really need to do is to build grass roots alliances. As I said before, I dream ;-)

@hugo7 you're right, it's not one or the other, it's a spectrum. But education surely plays a big role here: Johnson had some of "the best" (at least, the most expensive) education in the world, whereas the character in the story I described had virtually none. We can only know and have the opportunity to learn from what we are taught, if we aren't taught skills about how to interpret lessons from the wider world around us then we quite simply won't do that and will instead believe what we absorb from advertising and media. So I would say Johnson has a lot of responsibility, whereas the character I described has very little.