Yes, I'll freely concede, there are at least a few pro-Bremain arguments which seem eminently plausible, even somewhat reasonable...
...yet in the final analysis - in my (un)esteemed view - there's only really one, when it all comes down to it...
And N.B. moreover, it's only just been advanced - far as this geographically way removed kiwi punter, and even media reportage (both here and on the omnipresent, omniscient BBC) is concerned -
by none other than, would you believe it...
...Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Yes, you heard me correct: the British politician of recent times in whom I've been most disappointed has nevertheless put his finger upon a concern that all folk of the (economic) Left anyhow doubtless share in common: the possibility that a Brexiting, supposedly 'friendless' and *thus newly Trump-friendly United Kingdom, will, to curry favour with a person **adept at the art of making deals, do whatever it takes to clinch/cinch that.
Yes, a Trumpesque free trade deal - providing Brexit, in some shape or form, is ultimately enacted - is now well and truly on the cards, for all manner of reasons, thus leading inevitably - it'd be awfully hard to argue (provided Trump himself remains in office) - to such a deal (and hence a Brexit) allowing for deeply diminished, woefully watered down environmental standards and/or workers' rights/labour laws...'stuff' that America has, under presidents as diverse and spread out as Abe Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin FDR and latterly LBJ - and even, truth be told, 'Tricky Dick' Nixon himself - upheld and/or championed or progressed...
In other words, all the stuff for which the once great nation of America was once so justly famous; things long since jettisoned as the market deregulations under 1980s' Reaganomics got well underway, especially under the likes of President Reagan's Treasury Secretary David Stockman and Economist Milton Friedman et al...-though Indiana Senator/Congressman (and one-time presidential hopeful, at least Bob Dole's running mate in 1996) ****David Kemp was in another class altogether.
Yes, there it is, in black and white: the one and only true dinkum argument I can come up with - that gives one a decent reason to pause and take in one's breath...before consenting holus-bolus to Brexit going full steam ahead, no ifs, buts or maybes considered...
This, I humbly and oh so respectfully submit, is the only real downside to any Brexit - and sadly, under a Johnson/Conservative Party Government, a really scary and even fairly feasible prospect even...but otherwise there are very few really good anti-Brexit arguments in my own humble opinion.
And yet, 'in the final analysis', there's also one - and only one - 'rejoinder' that I feel deals ably with this genuinely held misgiving and cause for due concern. It's the selfsame one that none other than JFK himself so ably laid down as a gauntlet-style challenge to critics of his own seemingly rash rush to judgment and even precipitous placement of the world upon not only a (major world) war footing - and that clearly of the most devastating variety, a nuclear one - with the then Soviet Union in those two *****almost back-to-back global crises, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Though some see his declaration that it would be "better [to be] dead than red (i.e. communist, or, more precisely, under communist subjugation, and therefore forced/coerced to be 'communist')" as the height, or rather depth, of utter folly, taking humanity to the verge of potential all-out nuclear war and thus the very real risk of Armageddon - and only in retrospect/with the benefit of hindsight quite acceptable, seeing as it never actually came to pass and thus the justified fear/dread/terror of humankind was effectively averted/quelled/quashed - ******let's shelve that question for the present.
My reason for citing the aforementioned? My own paraphrase for present purposes, my 'takeaway' to apply to the current scenario is this: there are some things in life more important than life itself.
No, I don't consider Brexit as such to be so all-important, so earth-shattering in its ramifications...
...except in what it signifies, which, as I see it anyhow, is this: the privilege and indeed right of every sovereign people upon this planet to ultimately govern their own affairs - free from the meddling interference of officious folk in white coats sitting in distant offices and stewing up all manner of schemes and things to keep them ever and always under their proverbial thumb...
...in other words, in perpetual obligation to and subservience under them, come what may...
The sort of stuff we're 'all' now so glad that the nations throughout Africa have *****broken free of...
*Seeing as the USA under President Trump is busily jockeying not only for favour with Prime Minister Boris Johnson but moreover for a special free trade deal with the UK - something obviously far more in the United Kingdom's interests than America's.
**It was a real piece of serendipity chancing to pick up (at our local, ongoing public library booksale) a copy of Dim Wit: The funniest, stupidest things ever said just around (a couple months prior to) American Presidential Election 2016. With photoshopped cover pics of two people, including (then London Mayor) Boris Johnson, it comprised amongst its innumerable treasures the following quote - perfectly summing up the entire Brexit situation - with which most readers would be sure to concur; from none other than 'the Deal-Maker', ***Donald J Trump himself:
Deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other.
Sure, as clear as daylight and obvious as the proverbial. But it says it all, doesn't it? What else could one possibly, conceivably add?
***To balance things up (politically 'partisanwise'), however, Dim Wits also includes the following entry: 'I misspoke. Hillary Clinton, on claiming that she was under sniper fire in Bosnia.'
****As I detail in a belated obituary to him posted on Nuff Said a couple years back.
*****Coinciding pretty closely with the permanent move of my own parents from the US to God's Own.
******Though, suffice to say, readers would be relieved to know that this selfsame aforementioned perspective is actually my own, and here 'articulated' without reference to anyone else's I've ever come across...-no, I'm as far as they come from being a precipitate warmonger as you're likely to find.
*******Though sadly many if not the vast majority have long since entered into a ********type of slavery/ subjugation even worse than ye ole *********colonialism aka the Brits/Dutch/Portuguese/ French/Spanish (et al).
********From my general knowledge of life on the continent from the 1980s on; but also prior to this (in the first few decades post-independence throughout Africa), especially as carefully and thoughtfully chronicled in Brother Andrew's (and Charles Paul Conn's) Battle for Africa.
*********A topical matter at present in view of the 250th anniversary 'celebrations'-commemorations- 'commiserations'! - of good ole Captain James Cook's arrival upon our hallowed shores. And note well my own discussion thereof (still to be fully posted) but scribbled out (as is my wont) way back when (i.e several months ago) vis-a-vis the situation re-appertaining in Zimbabwe at present (and elsewhere throughout that ever fraught African continent) in view of the seemingly never-ending 'dissing' of the British in regards to their colonial enterprise of previous centuries...
To Be Continued Once Again...
...yet in the final analysis - in my (un)esteemed view - there's only really one, when it all comes down to it...
And N.B. moreover, it's only just been advanced - far as this geographically way removed kiwi punter, and even media reportage (both here and on the omnipresent, omniscient BBC) is concerned -
by none other than, would you believe it...
...Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Yes, you heard me correct: the British politician of recent times in whom I've been most disappointed has nevertheless put his finger upon a concern that all folk of the (economic) Left anyhow doubtless share in common: the possibility that a Brexiting, supposedly 'friendless' and *thus newly Trump-friendly United Kingdom, will, to curry favour with a person **adept at the art of making deals, do whatever it takes to clinch/cinch that.
Yes, a Trumpesque free trade deal - providing Brexit, in some shape or form, is ultimately enacted - is now well and truly on the cards, for all manner of reasons, thus leading inevitably - it'd be awfully hard to argue (provided Trump himself remains in office) - to such a deal (and hence a Brexit) allowing for deeply diminished, woefully watered down environmental standards and/or workers' rights/labour laws...'stuff' that America has, under presidents as diverse and spread out as Abe Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin FDR and latterly LBJ - and even, truth be told, 'Tricky Dick' Nixon himself - upheld and/or championed or progressed...
In other words, all the stuff for which the once great nation of America was once so justly famous; things long since jettisoned as the market deregulations under 1980s' Reaganomics got well underway, especially under the likes of President Reagan's Treasury Secretary David Stockman and Economist Milton Friedman et al...-though Indiana Senator/Congressman (and one-time presidential hopeful, at least Bob Dole's running mate in 1996) ****David Kemp was in another class altogether.
Yes, there it is, in black and white: the one and only true dinkum argument I can come up with - that gives one a decent reason to pause and take in one's breath...before consenting holus-bolus to Brexit going full steam ahead, no ifs, buts or maybes considered...
This, I humbly and oh so respectfully submit, is the only real downside to any Brexit - and sadly, under a Johnson/Conservative Party Government, a really scary and even fairly feasible prospect even...but otherwise there are very few really good anti-Brexit arguments in my own humble opinion.
And yet, 'in the final analysis', there's also one - and only one - 'rejoinder' that I feel deals ably with this genuinely held misgiving and cause for due concern. It's the selfsame one that none other than JFK himself so ably laid down as a gauntlet-style challenge to critics of his own seemingly rash rush to judgment and even precipitous placement of the world upon not only a (major world) war footing - and that clearly of the most devastating variety, a nuclear one - with the then Soviet Union in those two *****almost back-to-back global crises, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Though some see his declaration that it would be "better [to be] dead than red (i.e. communist, or, more precisely, under communist subjugation, and therefore forced/coerced to be 'communist')" as the height, or rather depth, of utter folly, taking humanity to the verge of potential all-out nuclear war and thus the very real risk of Armageddon - and only in retrospect/with the benefit of hindsight quite acceptable, seeing as it never actually came to pass and thus the justified fear/dread/terror of humankind was effectively averted/quelled/quashed - ******let's shelve that question for the present.
My reason for citing the aforementioned? My own paraphrase for present purposes, my 'takeaway' to apply to the current scenario is this: there are some things in life more important than life itself.
No, I don't consider Brexit as such to be so all-important, so earth-shattering in its ramifications...
...except in what it signifies, which, as I see it anyhow, is this: the privilege and indeed right of every sovereign people upon this planet to ultimately govern their own affairs - free from the meddling interference of officious folk in white coats sitting in distant offices and stewing up all manner of schemes and things to keep them ever and always under their proverbial thumb...
...in other words, in perpetual obligation to and subservience under them, come what may...
The sort of stuff we're 'all' now so glad that the nations throughout Africa have *****broken free of...
*Seeing as the USA under President Trump is busily jockeying not only for favour with Prime Minister Boris Johnson but moreover for a special free trade deal with the UK - something obviously far more in the United Kingdom's interests than America's.
**It was a real piece of serendipity chancing to pick up (at our local, ongoing public library booksale) a copy of Dim Wit: The funniest, stupidest things ever said just around (a couple months prior to) American Presidential Election 2016. With photoshopped cover pics of two people, including (then London Mayor) Boris Johnson, it comprised amongst its innumerable treasures the following quote - perfectly summing up the entire Brexit situation - with which most readers would be sure to concur; from none other than 'the Deal-Maker', ***Donald J Trump himself:
Deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other.
Sure, as clear as daylight and obvious as the proverbial. But it says it all, doesn't it? What else could one possibly, conceivably add?
***To balance things up (politically 'partisanwise'), however, Dim Wits also includes the following entry: 'I misspoke. Hillary Clinton, on claiming that she was under sniper fire in Bosnia.'
****As I detail in a belated obituary to him posted on Nuff Said a couple years back.
*****Coinciding pretty closely with the permanent move of my own parents from the US to God's Own.
******Though, suffice to say, readers would be relieved to know that this selfsame aforementioned perspective is actually my own, and here 'articulated' without reference to anyone else's I've ever come across...-no, I'm as far as they come from being a precipitate warmonger as you're likely to find.
*******Though sadly many if not the vast majority have long since entered into a ********type of slavery/ subjugation even worse than ye ole *********colonialism aka the Brits/Dutch/Portuguese/ French/Spanish (et al).
********From my general knowledge of life on the continent from the 1980s on; but also prior to this (in the first few decades post-independence throughout Africa), especially as carefully and thoughtfully chronicled in Brother Andrew's (and Charles Paul Conn's) Battle for Africa.
*********A topical matter at present in view of the 250th anniversary 'celebrations'-commemorations- 'commiserations'! - of good ole Captain James Cook's arrival upon our hallowed shores. And note well my own discussion thereof (still to be fully posted) but scribbled out (as is my wont) way back when (i.e several months ago) vis-a-vis the situation re-appertaining in Zimbabwe at present (and elsewhere throughout that ever fraught African continent) in view of the seemingly never-ending 'dissing' of the British in regards to their colonial enterprise of previous centuries...
To Be Continued Once Again...
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