Uncouth Reflections

Paleo Retiree writes:

I’ve been loving following the in-the-wake-of-Brexit debates. Interesting times, to put it mildly. Here are some of the essays, op-eds and articles that I’ve gotten the most out of.

• Was the EU formed in order to avoid another large European war? Was it really as simple as all that? No, says Ukip founder Alan Sked.
• No, says the respected financial journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
• No, says the leftie economist Michael Hudson.
• No, says loose cannon Paul Craig Roberts.
• A fiery rant by John Pilger.
• The excellent Andrew Bacevich writes what strikes me as a level-headed analysis.
• A view from Greece.
• Jonathan Cook takes a hilarious look at the Progressive reaction to Brexit.
• Matt Taibbi’s take is similar to Cook’s. “As a rule, people resent being saved from themselves,” he writes. “And if you think depriving people of their right to make mistakes makes sense, you probably never had respect for their right to make decisions at all.”
• Steve Sailer’s reaction isn’t so different either: “The near universal response of the punditry to a majority of Brits voting to leave the E.U. has been so enraged that the average voter must have begun by now to notice that their furious elites just plain don’t like them,” Steve writes.
• Add Glenn Greenwald to the chorus. “As their fundamental failures become more evident to all, these [political and media] elites have lost credibility, influence, and the ability to dictate outcomes,” he writes.
• Nassim (“The Black Swan”) Taleb thinks the EU is “doomed to fail” in any case.
• Interesting to see that Brexit is giving hope to some other European secession movements.
• Antidote to the craziness: a flight of four beers (an American IPA, a Euro IPA, a far-out sour, and a Porter from the Northwest), served up by this excellent bar. There’s little I like doing more than comparing and contrasting alcoholic beverages.