Listen up, you filthy animals, because I’m about to shove some truth down your throats like a bad batch of synthetic adrenaline. I’m holed up in this godforsaken studio, chain-smoking whatever passes for tobacco these days, and watching the world circle the drain faster than a hooker on payday. This whole “America rise up” bullshit has got my brain itching like a venereal disease. Over there, they’ve got lunatics lining up to put a hole in Donald Trump’s orange skull – hell, they’ve already tried, and the bastard’s still strutting around like a peacock on Viagra. But don’t think we’re immune over here in the soggy isles. No, we’ve got our own homegrown hate-monger, Nigel Farage, that smirking toad who’s built his entire slimy career on stirring up the kind of rage that makes people reach for the pitchforks. Or worse.
Let’s rewind the tape, shall we? Back in 1812, some bankrupt nutjob named John Bellingham decided the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was the root of all his woes. Perceval was the architect of economic policies that had half the country starving and rioting – Luddites smashing machines, bread prices through the roof, and the Napoleonic Wars bleeding the empire dry. So Bellingham walks into the House of Commons lobby and pops a cap in Perceval’s chest. Boom. First and only British PM to get ventilated on the job. The unrest? It was a powder keg of class warfare and imperial overreach, and Perceval was the idiot holding the match.
Fast-forward a couple centuries, and we’re still playing the same stupid game. Remember Jo Cox? That poor MP in 2016, gunned down and stabbed by a far-right psychopath screaming “Britain first!” She was pushing for unity during the Brexit shitstorm, while Farage and his ilk were out there whipping up anti-immigrant frenzy like it was a fucking circus act. Cox’s murder was a direct hit from the hatred those bastards peddle – unrest boiled over into blood on the streets. But we’re not done with the history lesson, oh no. Let’s pad this out with more ghosts from the grave, because if there’s one thing politicians love, it’s dying dramatically for their own bullshit.
Take Abraham Lincoln, that lanky rail-splitter from across the pond in 1865. He drags the U.S. into a civil war over slavery, emancipation proclamations flying like confetti, and what does he get? A bullet to the back of the head from John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer who thought Lincoln was the devil incarnate for tearing the country apart. Unrest? Brother, the whole nation was a battlefield, with brother killing brother over “states’ rights” and human chattel. Lincoln caused it, sure – by trying to fix a rotten system – but the hate he unleashed got him a one-way ticket to the theatre balcony express.
Or how about Julius Caesar, way back in 44 BC? That power-hungry Roman prick turns the Republic into his personal playground, crossing the Rubicon and declaring himself dictator for life. Senators like Brutus and Cassius see red – unrest from the masses starving while Caesar plays emperor – and they shank him 23 times on the Ides of March. “Et tu, Brute?” my ass; it was the unrest of a crumbling empire that did him in.
Jump to 1948: Mahatma Gandhi, the skinny pacifist who partitions India and Pakistan, sparking riots that kill a million people in the name of independence. Religious fanatics are foaming at the mouth over Hindu-Muslim divides he “caused,” and Nathuram Godse pumps three bullets into him during prayers. Sweet irony? Gandhi preached non-violence, but the unrest he stirred – however noble – got him erased.
Closer to home in spirit, if not geography: Anwar Sadat in 1981. Egyptian president makes peace with Israel, Camp David Accords and all that kumbaya crap, but it pisses off the Islamists who see it as betrayal. During a military parade, soldiers turn on him with grenades and AKs – unrest from the Arab-Israeli powder keg he tried to defuse, but ended up exploding in his face.
And don’t forget Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Israeli PM pushes the Oslo Accords, trying to give Palestinians a sliver of hope, but right-wing extremists in his own backyard label him a traitor. Yigal Amir, a religious zealot, shoots him dead at a peace rally. The unrest? Settler violence, intifadas, the whole Middle East mess boiling over because Rabin dared to negotiate instead of bomb.
Benazir Bhutto in 2007 – Pakistan’s iron lady returns from exile, campaigning against military dictatorship and extremism. She’s stirring up the masses against corruption and Taliban sympathizers, and boom: suicide bomber and gunmen take her out in Rawalpindi. Unrest from decades of political chaos she was both victim and instigator of.
Hell, even Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 – heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, meddling in Balkan politics that had everyone hating everyone else. Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, plugs him in Sarajevo, kicking off World War I. The unrest? Imperial overreach and ethnic tensions that turned Europe into a slaughterhouse.
Now, back to our modern circus. Farage’s entire bid for PM – or whatever the hell he’s after now – is fuelled by the same toxic sludge: anger at “boat people,” hatred of the EU, the elites, the woke, whatever buzzword gets the rubes frothing. Could it jump from 1812 straight to 2029? Abso-fucking-lutely. We’re in unprecedented times, riots erupting like zits on a teenager’s face – anger and hate at levels that make the Blitz look like a tea party. These idiots like Farage aren’t solving shit; they’re the arsonists yelling “fire!” while pocketing the insurance money from the chaos.
Would it be sweet irony if Farage caught a bullet? Oh, you bet your ass it would. The man lives by the sword of division, slicing up society for votes from his hate-fuelled grift. “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword,” as some long-dead hippie once said. But mark my words, if it happens, it’ll just accelerate the spiral. We’re teetering on the edge of a civil war in the UK – something I’d have laughed off as paranoid bollocks ten years ago, but now? Now I’m stocking up on canned goods, because the writing’s on the wall in blood-red graffiti.
The real trouble ain’t the immigrants or the “boat people” – it’s these hate-mongers, these political vampires sucking the life out of decency for power and profit. We need solutions, not more anger. Real talk: infrastructure that works, education that doesn’t brainwash, jobs that don’t make you want to eat a gun. But instead, we’ve got clowns like Farage and Trump turning democracy into a gladiatorial arena.
Wake up, you bastards. Before the whole thing goes up in flames, and we’re all just ashes in the wind. I hate it here.
Spider Thompson, signing off before I puke.
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