Wednesday 6 February 2019

Donald Tusk gets wrist slapped for truth telling

European Council President Donald Tusk has spoken of a "special place in hell" for "those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely".

He was speaking after talks with Irish leader Leo Varadkar in Brussels.

Brexit-backing MPs reacted with anger to the comments, accusing Mr Tusk of "arrogance".

Downing Street said it was a question for Mr Tusk "whether he considers the use of that kind of language helpful".

Beeb.

4 comments:

  1. Imbeciles like your baseballcapped friend should finally learn that "capitalism/socialism" is just a false dichotomy.

    Perhaps a week in a re-education camp in Sweden could enlighten them a bit: how it combines a near 100 % free market economy with what is probably the most advanced welfare state in the world.

    It appears the Swedes can walk and chew gum at the same time! Not so this numptie from 'Campus Reform'... brains still fried from too much cold war anti-communist agitprop.

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  2. Please. The welfare state is dead in an "open borders" economies. Even the Swede are having to face up to this reality.

    Time to take Zizek's advice from "Addressing the Impossible": Which, then, are the taboos to be broken in imagining a future outside the constraints of the existing order? There are (at least) three. First, one should dismiss not only the two main forms of twentieth-century state socialism (the social democratic welfare state and the Stalinist party dictatorship) but also the very standard by means of which the radical Left usually measures the failure of the first two: the libertarian vision of communism as association, multitude, councils, and anti-representational direct democracy based on citizen’s permanent engagement. The second taboo to be broken concerns the problem of resentment. One should totally reject the predominant optimistic view according to which in communism envy will be left behind as a remainder of capitalist competition, to be replaced by solidary collaboration and pleasure in other’s pleasures. The third taboo concerns democracy. When Badiou claims that democracy is our fetish, this statement is to be taken literally – in the precise Freudian sense – not just in the vague sense that we elevate democracy into our untouchable Absolute. ‘Democracy’ is the last thing we see before confronting the ‘lack’ constitutive of the social field, the fact that ‘there is no class relationship’, the trauma of social antagonism. It is as if, when confronted with the reality of domination and exploitation, of brutal social struggles, we can always add: yes, but we have democracy which gives us hope to resolve or at least regulate struggles, preventing their destructive explosion.

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    Replies
    1. The welfare state is dead in an "open borders" economies.

      Nah.

      I should perhaps not have chosen Sweden, as it is subject to endless scrutiny by American Cons trying to prove how disastrous immigration is and how welfare states aren’t tenable.

      But the immigrant crisis that started in 2005 (to 2017) was truly force majeur and did put the welfare system under pressure. Immigration levels have now sharply dropped since 2019.

      So the system isn’t ‘dead’ but it need fixing. But even the new populist parties that arose during the refugee crisis won’t be in favour of dismantling the welfare state. Tweaking yes, abolishing no…

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