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As Vance 'lectures' Europe on free speech, it is good to be reminded that the United States ranks 55 (!) on the World Press Freedom Index.
The top 10 countries are ALL in Europe.
#FBPE @claesdevreese Ah, but, the gammon response would surely be to claim that whoever drew up that list was a woke conspiracy so the list itself is fake news.
Here in America, all criticism from foreign sources is considered dismissible as envy. Indeed, a lot of my neighbors see such criticism as actually flattering.
Worth noting their details are a bit aged. It says, "The US government continues to pursue the extradition of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who remains in detention in the United Kingdom." He's in Australia, having pleaded guilty with sentence of time served.
@Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese Envy of what? The guns? The lack of health care? The lack of holidays? And that was before Trump. Which did they have in mind that we should envy, I wonder.
@TimWardCam the opening of The Newsroom is still valid. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WxdaU9AsnU
@Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese
@mt @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese Hang on ... I've only just realised ...
If MAGA gammons think that America is already the best country in the world, then it's already "great", no?
So why does it need to be made great again?
@TimWardCam @mt @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese depends if you're measuring its greatness against all those communist countries in Europe (unbeatable) or against a made up version of America from roughly the 50s where racism was ok but minorities liked it and sexism was ok but women were happier at home anyway, and mediocre white men got all the plum jobs and mostly just drank and smoked at the office while their secretary typed their letters.
@TimWardCam @mt @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese of course Britain has a version of this which is why we had to vote to "take our country back". Turns out it's very difficult to make your country "back" into a thing it never was, though
@Flisty @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese
I watched Brexit fairly closely (as much as one can, from over here). I think hearing the phrase "repatriation of power" is when I realized the United States has no monopoly on shameless right-wing bullshit.
Say, how has that worked out? Is there a general mood in the UK about whether or not Brexit was a good idea? Or is it all now just in the past?
@Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese Very much still a present, unhealed wound. A lot of visceral anger from many (eg me - why was my kids' citizenship taken away because the BBC bookers haven't got enough imagination to get anyone on except Farage, and our prime ministers don't know the difference between binding vs advisory referenda?!). There's been a flurry of 5 year anniversary polls and they pretty much universally support a closer relationship. eg https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on
@Flisty @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese
Wow, that's a great resource you linked to, thanks!
It's amazing to me that Brexit passed, except that I have come to learn the power of internet propaganda. If I lived in Europe and had the option to travel freely between countries there, I'd never stop riding the rails. Giving that up for some vague notion of reclaiming local autonomy no one ever really lost?
Sad that it happened. Maybe it can be fixed.
@Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese my personal (well not that personal, look at everything Carole Cadwalladr found) theory is that Putin's interference here was a test run for his interference in the US. Certainly in both cases it's had convenient outcomes for Russia, weakening the institutions that have historically kept him in check.
@Flisty @Professor_Stevens @mt @claesdevreese It is disappointing that the US didn't learn from the UK's fuck-up, yes.
@TimWardCam @Professor_Stevens @mt @claesdevreese I think people learned. Just the "wrong" people. Bush/Gore should have highlighted the dangers of having partisan people in charge of state elections, but ever since then instead of fixing that problem the state orgs seem to have been growing more and more partisan and more willing to purge thousands of voters from rolls without reason. And then there's using computers to vote and to count the votes ... I'm very glad we're luddites here.
@TimWardCam @Flisty @mt @claesdevreese
Remember what I keep telling you: Americans don't LEARN from anyone else. To us, foreign fuck-ups happen because foreigners fuck up
@Professor_Stevens @Flisty @TimWardCam @claesdevreese
What surprised me most, is that basically, it was a quite close referendum (48-52% without looking it up), where the "leave" wasn't plan at all, no-one knew what it was supposed to be.
Instead of saying "too close too call, we're divided, we'll create alternative possible plans and vote on that first", they juts went ahead ... resulting in multiple PMs and lots of idiocy.
@mt @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese yep. And it was only an advisory referendum. If it had been a legally binding one the electoral commission would have required a more carefully worded question and a high margin for it to pass. On top of that I think the numbers who would have gone for the "hard Brexit" completely outside all EU treaties is minuscule. Most people would have been happy with "we negotiated and you can have blue passports and curved bananas" tbh
@Professor_Stevens @Flisty @mt @claesdevreese One theory is that Putin managed to persuade some really really dim people that "Ending Freedom Of Movement For Good" would mean that *they* couldn't come here but *we* would still be able to go there.
An alternative view has been expressed by some of Putin's #brexshitters saying "I don't want to live/work/love in any of those countries so I don't see why anyone else should be allowed to".
@TimWardCam @Professor_Stevens @mt @claesdevreese the "Breaking Point" poster is unforgivable. Worse than the bus lie I think.
@Flisty @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese
Would you elaborate on those a bit? I don't get the references.
@Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese this is a pretty good summary of most of the lies told in the campaign. You can see the MAGA parallels in all of it: toxic exceptionalism combined with the idea of "waste" and fearmongering xenophobia. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/final-say-brexit-referendum-lies-boris-johnson-leave-campaign-remain-a8466751.html The "Breaking Point" poster was produced by Nigel Farage (naturally) and was a picture of Syrian refugees queuing at the Turkish border. So, point 4 in that article but also specifically featuring brown faces.
@Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese tell a lie, it was taken on the Slovenian border. Still beyond awful.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-48244663 If we had a Guantanamo Farage would be trying to send migrants there. We've had the Rwanda policy instead, of course.
@Professor_Stevens @Flisty @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese the internet was part of it but the main issue was a large section of the media had spent the last 2 decades blaming europe for ever issue real and imaginary, while most of the rest of the media decide this was "reasonable concerns" to be debated on panel shows etc
the internet did help amplify this a bit, but mostly it came from the conventional media and politicians
@dreadfulscribbler @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese yes, Boris Johnson's 'European correspondent' years. The EU was a very convenient scapegoat for anything Westminster wanted (or didn't want) to do.
@Flisty @dreadfulscribbler @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese
same here in NL, members of the largest government party voted "for" things in Brussel, and then claimed "we have to do this because Brussel said so" in the national government.
@mt @dreadfulscribbler @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese Nigel Farage, our leading Brexit proponent (and friend of Trump) was an MEP on the EU fisheries committee and only attended one meeting, then appealed to fishermen to get the Brexit vote. Proper stitched up.
@Flisty @dreadfulscribbler @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese Well, Farage is one of those people you figure everyone knows that he's lying... but apparently not.
@mt @dreadfulscribbler @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese I think people will believe something if it's convenient. It was all "vibes" (and racism), but Farage kept giving people convenient, plausible-sounding excuses to trot out as to why it was something else, actually. And then he released that bloody poster.
@Flisty well, for at least 1 person Brexit was successful financially: Farage himself.
@dreadfulscribbler @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese
@Professor_Stevens @Flisty @mt @claesdevreese Population surveys show that most people think it's crap. But these are still divided between those who knew it was crap to start with and those who now say "this isn't the #brexshit I voted for" (it is, of course).
@TimWardCam @Professor_Stevens @Flisty @claesdevreese
"this isn't the #brexshit I voted for"
Without a plan that the leave-side was going to following, how can you tell?
@mt @Professor_Stevens @Flisty @claesdevreese The only legally possible #brexsbit was a blind #brexshit, where what you got was what you got. And that's what they knowingly voted for. So *anything* that resulted would have been the #brexshit they voted for.
@TimWardCam "brexit is brexit", I remember.
As useless a phrase as could be.
@mt @TimWardCam @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese it does demonstrate the value of stupid slogans to shut down conversations though. Anti-Trumpers need one. "Returners" in the UK need one.