I've recently started watching the Ken Burns documentary series about the American Civil War, and what struck me, and also kind of scared me, was how similar the whole thing sounded to Brexit. Now I'm no expert on either subject, in fact with both - Brexit and the documentary - they've kind of just been going on around me whilst I sit looking at Twitter on my phone, so I fully expect to be outed as an idiot.
However, this documentary was made in 1991, so it can't have possibly have been framed in such a way to present similarities to Brexit, but I found things like the the language used and the events leading up to the war just very similar to what happened around Brexit. Both situations involved normal people - if you want to make comparisons between the type of folk in the deep south of the US and those who voted for Brexit that's up to you - who felt like a government, based far away from them, had too much control over their lives. The southern US states were being governed by Washington, Britain was being governed by Brussels. You know the story. And the catalyst for both was racism - the abolition of slavery in the US and immigration in the UK.
The irony I find in both situations is that normal people weren't really effected by either. In America only the rich benefited from the slave trade, whether it be making money from it or having free labour. And in the UK immigration is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, the real problems are caused by the unequal distribution of wealth favouring the rich. However in both cases the normal people were persuaded to fight (metaphorically in Brexit's case, however literally fight and die in the Civil War) over something that had no bearing of them.
It made me think how mad it would be if Brexit were to lead to some kind of European Civil War, a war in which Britain really would be on the wrong side. The strange thing with that would be for people like me who would be obliged to side with our country, even if it was fucking terrible. It makes you think how back in WW2 there were obviously Germans who disagreed with what was taking place, but had no choice but to stick with their country. Of course if such a scenario were to occur now Britain would be the Nazi Germany of the piece, no doubt lead to war by an unholy alliance consisting of Tommy Robinson supported by Katie Hopkins and Piers Morgan.
Tommy Robinson, or Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, would be the new Hitler. Robinson, who is as much a working-class man of the people as old Adolf was German, would somehow mange to gain power through his charisma and hoodwinking. Quite how people find Tommy Robinson charismatic is beyond me, although the same could be said about Hitler. Apparently his speeches were so good that those who listened to them were willing to stand by and let six million Jews be systematically murdered. I'm not sure whose speeches we'll blame when we tell future generations about how we let young children drown in the Channel.
Katie Hopkins would of course be Joseph Goebbels, a disturbing looking creature with an unfortunate knack for turning people's deep lying prejudice and fear into propaganda. Piers Morgan completes terrible trio as a modern day Mussolini, the fat muppet who thought fascism was all fun and games until he got lynched by his own people. Of course no war would be complete without the backing of our old friends the USA, pretty much rounding off the WW2 role reversal as we fight side by side with Donald Trump.
Whilst I joke it wouldn't even surprise me if something like this one day occurred. It would have to benefit the rich of course, as they are the one's who'd have to trick us all into dying for them. 100 years ago Britain's Empire reached the largest it would ever be, after we went into a room and handpicked which African colonies formerly belonging to Germany that we wanted for ourselves. The astounding arrogance of this country's aristocracy, after sending millions of our working class men to their deaths whilst drinking tea and playing golden pianos (claim based on recent evidence) the first thing they did was go and decide which non-consenting African countries they'd like to rape and pillage next. And it's this great Empire that Brexiteers nostalgically long for today. If you're going to fuck things up for all of us over an idea at least make it a good idea lads.
Anyway that's enough from me for now. This was actually my first blog in just over three years, I'm sure you've all been waiting patiently so I'm sorry I've disappointed. And also sorry to anyone who was hoping for a new parody porn blog, although I might throw one out in the near future. It's dry January and I'm bored, that's why I wrote this. I didn't really know what I was going to write to be fair I've just kind of seen where my thoughts would take me so sorry if it was shit, personally though I think the line comparing Piers Morgan to Mussolini was worth the entry fee. All the best.
