Britain Chooses the Ocean

There's a saying attributed to Charles De Gaulle "If the British ever have to choose between Europe and the Ocean they will always choose the Ocean." I haven't been able to verify if De Gaulle actually said, but regardless I think it explains why they majority of British voters choose to leave the European Union. Personally I hate the term "Brexit" because it sounds like corporate media Newspeak. But I think the vote to leave the EU is biggest news this year, even bigger that who wins the US presidential election, because it will decide the future of Europe and much of the world as well. It's too soon to tell what the consequences will be, but it's clear that the supposedly "inevitable" move toward European integration is in trouble.

Many progressive minded people, on both sides of the Atlantic, seem to lament the vote. It's important to distinguish between the "idea" of European unity and the reality that the EU has become an undemocratic, bureaucratic monster. It may not be totalitarian like the Soviet Union, but it has become the despotism of German Chancellor and her loathsome Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble. If the British people decide that they don't want to be bossed around by Merkel and Schauble, who can blame them?