ChicagoBlue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 10 Jan 2009
- Messages
- 21,937
If you take the emotion out of it, it is a simple question: Do you want to control your own destiny, warts and all, or do you want your destiny tied to the vagaries of over two dozen other disparate countries over whom you have almost zero control?
Unwinding any system, and the change required to do it, is almost always going to be considered more difficult and stressful than hanging your hat on the status quo and accepting your future as a fait accompli. While nationalism has become co-opted and bastardized into something to be feared, it shouldn't be feared, but embraced....but not in the manner in which it has been co-opted. Accordingly, before speaking n those terms, one has to return to the simpler, more refined definition of nationalism.
IF Britain can, as it has fought to do for millennia, stand on its own two feet, it should. It should embrace the democratic process and all it entails. It should return the power of the country to the people who have never seriously had it, and it should embrace British ingenuity, ability to work hard and make the best products in the world, and spread its own net far and wide to become equal partners with the next generation of trading partners, while seeking to maintain its relationships with historical partners. Britain should never beg for trade, nor should it bow to pressure to be a subservient partner. That said, it should also never seek to dominate a partnership, nor leverage a partner for lopsided gain.
A new paradigm in capitalism is needed in the world IF we are ever going to succeed in maintaining and growing the global economy, and serving the needs of its seven billion plus population. It is all well and good siphoning off the riches of earth to the highest bidder, but then we need wars to redress balances, and revolutions to overthrow tyrants. Both things should be things of the past, events from which we have already learned, and to which we should have no need to return. Britain has an opportunity. The only question now is will it take that opportunity or will it squander it. The cynical money will be on squander, and it may even be the smart money, but I have to hope that one day, a nation with the history, intelligence and will that zbritain surely has, will lead the world away from the abyss to which it is inexorably marching and towards a brighter, more egalitarian and democratic future, where the needs of people are placed ahead of the need for profit, but also where profit is not a dirty word but a positive statement of worth for all involved in its creation.
I live in hope.
Unwinding any system, and the change required to do it, is almost always going to be considered more difficult and stressful than hanging your hat on the status quo and accepting your future as a fait accompli. While nationalism has become co-opted and bastardized into something to be feared, it shouldn't be feared, but embraced....but not in the manner in which it has been co-opted. Accordingly, before speaking n those terms, one has to return to the simpler, more refined definition of nationalism.
IF Britain can, as it has fought to do for millennia, stand on its own two feet, it should. It should embrace the democratic process and all it entails. It should return the power of the country to the people who have never seriously had it, and it should embrace British ingenuity, ability to work hard and make the best products in the world, and spread its own net far and wide to become equal partners with the next generation of trading partners, while seeking to maintain its relationships with historical partners. Britain should never beg for trade, nor should it bow to pressure to be a subservient partner. That said, it should also never seek to dominate a partnership, nor leverage a partner for lopsided gain.
A new paradigm in capitalism is needed in the world IF we are ever going to succeed in maintaining and growing the global economy, and serving the needs of its seven billion plus population. It is all well and good siphoning off the riches of earth to the highest bidder, but then we need wars to redress balances, and revolutions to overthrow tyrants. Both things should be things of the past, events from which we have already learned, and to which we should have no need to return. Britain has an opportunity. The only question now is will it take that opportunity or will it squander it. The cynical money will be on squander, and it may even be the smart money, but I have to hope that one day, a nation with the history, intelligence and will that zbritain surely has, will lead the world away from the abyss to which it is inexorably marching and towards a brighter, more egalitarian and democratic future, where the needs of people are placed ahead of the need for profit, but also where profit is not a dirty word but a positive statement of worth for all involved in its creation.
I live in hope.