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The Guardian has an interesting article describing how Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage used techniques developed within the military to influence Britain's vote to exit the EU. Although it appears that the companies involved (AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytics) are private companies, they have deep roots within the military.
The article describes Britain as a "managed democracy", with major decisions controlled by a US Billionaire.
[ n1: The article is an interesting read, including a reference to how in 2013, Google Founder Eric Schmidt's daughter Sophie suggested Cambridge Analytics get in touch with Palantir, Peter Thiel's data mining contractor for the GCHQ and many US military and intelligence agencies. Sophie currently works at Uber. According to a former employee, in 2013 Cambridge Analytics was just a "psychological warfare firm [...] before we became this dark, dystopian data company". ]
It was with AggregateIQ that Vote Leave (the official Leave campaign) chose to spend £3.9m, more than half its official £7m campaign budget. As did three other affiliated Leave campaigns: BeLeave, Veterans for Britain and the Democratic Unionist party, spending a further £757,750. “Coordination” between campaigns is prohibited under UK electoral law, unless campaign expenditure is declared, jointly. It wasn’t.
[...] The Electoral Commission has written to AggregateIQ. A source close to the investigation said that AggregateIQ responded by saying it had signed a non-disclosure agreement. And since it was outside British jurisdiction, that was the end of it. Vote Leave refers to this as the Electoral Commission giving it “a clean bill of health”.
[...] I asked David Banks, Veterans for Britain’s head of communications, why they spent the money with AggregateIQ. “I didn’t find AggegrateIQ. They found us. They rang us up and pitched us. There’s no conspiracy here. [...] Their targeting was based on a set of technologies that hadn’t reached the UK yet. A lot of it was proprietary, they’d found a way of targeting people based on behavioural insights."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 15 2017, @06:27AM (12 children)
Is it really these slandered men who are subverting democracy, or the whispering whiners who hold the lower classes in disdain for voting the wrong way?
Maybe if the British people did not feel it was EU policy to displace them via uncontrolled migration both from within and outside of Europe, they wouldn't have have said to hell with it all. But the unelected servants of the ownership class refused on behalf of their masters to take any action that might put native Europeans over profits, nor let Britain have a sovereign say over such matters lest they vote the wrong way.
The next war in Europe will be like the last two, with all of the unrestrained savagery of a clash of race, faith, and civilizations. All because the short term profit-focus on labor costs. Monarchies may not be looked at with approval, but they sure desired longer-term stability than governments that can fall to a petty debating club's confidence vote.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @09:22AM (3 children)
Is it really these slandered men who are subverting democracy, or the whispering whiners who hold the lower classes in disdain for voting the wrong way?
Oh grow up with that "whispering whiners" bullshit.
There was an enormous amount of bald-faced lying from the brexit camp [brexitlies.com] - not just standard political wishy-washy vagueness to let people fill in the blanks with their hopes, but out-right lies of substance. By the time the liars are held accountable for their lies the damage will be done and they will be off living in Mallorca.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @12:15PM (1 child)
Sources for lying?
That page you link to only contains predictions about the future, and predictions can only be lying when you are the one in control of that future (and the brexit camp neither was nor is in control of the EU buerocracy).
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @12:20PM
> That page you link to only contains predictions about the future,
Literally the very first entry on the list is the lie about NHS funding.
The rest of your analysis is equally shoddy.
(Score: 4, Informative) by rleigh on Monday May 15 2017, @07:07PM
The "camps", either remain or leave were an irrelevance. The only thing that ultimately mattered was the box you crossed on the ballot paper, and the result of the referendum. All the promises and threats were so much noise. It was a giant fuss around the answering of a straightforward question (albeit with far-reaching consequences).
I found both campaign groups quite awful, and certainly didn't base my choice on any of the rubbish they were spouting. I researched the history and organisational structure of the EU in detail, properly informing myself about the subject matter, and ultimately voted to leave. I looked hard at reasons to stick with the status quo, but overall didn't find the cost/benefit worth it over the long term. I'm definitely not alone in voting based upon what is likely going to happen in the short to medium term, and felt we would be better off out sooner rather than later.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:23AM
>who hold the lower classes in disdain for voting the wrong way?
Try to use your brain for something, instead of romantic fantasies. Do you REALLY believe Theresa May and her party were pro-EU in any meaningful way? See all the happy rush to a police state since Brexit vote, and think again.
With both teams playing for the same goal, the result was cut and dried, with the voters or without. "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." -- Joseph Stalin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @11:17AM
No, the artificial migrant crises means unskilled, uneducated and illiterate people being ferried into Europe en-mass. These individuals are unemployable, they will live out their lives on state welfare, vote for the big state and destroy the cultural identities of Europe's nation states. None of which explains the real reason for these imports - debt slavery. Millions being imported for the sole purpose of taking on debt to support the continued existence of the central banking ponzi scheme. Curious that the left attempt to emotionally manipulate and guilt trip people by perverting the history of the slave trade when the left themselves are modern day slavers.
This is a good thing, liberal democracy is the best form of government we have.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 15 2017, @12:34PM (1 child)
My post, currently the second entry on page three, might be of interest to you. The Powell Memo talks about those whispering whiners.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @11:49PM
My post, currently the second entry on page three,
You attempt to flatter yourself, Runaway! There is no page three! I only see one page! Do you think, as you think about the world, that everyone sees the same SoylentNews you see? No wonder you so often flatten your own self.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @02:02PM
The next war Europe fights is going to wipe out the muslims. England and Germany on the same side, fighting a real war? The other poor bastards don't have a chance.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:17PM
Call me an elitist whispering whiner if you want. Trump is making me a lot of money and I warned the unwashed masses about him and got called a whiner and a crybaby every time.
I won't feel so much compassion when you slime are scrubbing my shitter and your grandchildren are paid to wipe my ass.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @05:02PM (1 child)
Is it really these slandered men who are subverting democracy, or the whispering whiners who hold the lower classes in disdain for voting the wrong way?
I'm reminded of the story of the The Ant and the Grasshopper [wikipedia.org]. It's not disdain for voting "the wrong way," as your strawman puts it. It is the fact that people were told incorrect things, believed them despite the ability to find the truth with casual searching, and voted according to misinformation.
For example, how much money does the UK send to the EU each year? We could save $350m pounds [theguardian.com] a week by leaving the EU! That could all go to the NHS! Except that number isn't even close to right, and it couldn't all be spent on the NHS. Just look how fast they backpedaled that promise once they actually won the referendum.
I could go on with pretty much every argument for Brexit: How are laws made in the EU imposed on the UK, the number of refugees the UK has been "forced" to take, the ability to continue free-trade without free movement of people, etc.
It's not disdain for voting the "wrong way," it's disdain for the willful ignorance for voting for somebody who promises to, "lower taxes, lower debt, increase social services, and increase military spending. I can do it because I'm a winner." I think it's very reasonable for the Ant to be angry at the Grasshopper for being shocked that Winter came again this year when the Grasshopper comes demanding food and shelter.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:10AM
There you go with describing the lower classes as idiots who believe untruths.
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