As the result of a wormholey sort of warp in time and space, we are back in 1940….but in one of those illusory twists of electrons at a distance, the current crop of protestors has been carried backwards intact. Beam down with me now as it all goes horribly wrong…
Mark Robospart switched off the radio and glared at his long-suffering wife.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, noisily, “our fucking waster of a king has handed over the reins of government to that drunken upper-class warmongering racist Churchill”.
“Well dear,” Gracie Robospart pointed our, “I suppose somebody has to stand up to Herr Hitler, what with the Left having been so committed to Hope not Hate….”
Her husband stood up suddenly, and paced around the room as he addressed the people five doors away at Number 17.
“He’s a vicious strike-breaker and enemy of the People….you mark my words, the first thing he’ll do is sign a peace deal with the Nazis and then go after Comrade Stalin and his glorious crusade to unite Europe under the banner of….”
“I don’t think so, darling,” said Gracie, “from what I hear, Mr Churchill seems to regard Mr Stalin’s invasion of Poland as really rather cynical…”
“Cynical?” Mark spat, “CYNICAL? What was he supposed to do, leave himself with no bulwark against Nazi expansionism?”
“Well,” she tried again, “it seems to me the people left with nothing at all are the Poles, and we did commit to…”
“The Poles?” sneered Robospart, “that bunch of anti-semitic fascists?”
His wife paused, and then answered at a barely audible timbre.
“I thought you despised Israel? I thought you were a fan of Islam?”
“Paff!” he argued, “This war has nothing to do with Zionism, it’s a war to defend colonialism against International Socialism…”
“And National Socialism,” Gracie pointed out, “which, oddly enough, Mr Stalin seemed to support in his speech about ‘Socialism in one Country’ didn’t he?”
Mark’s lips adopted their default sneer mode.
“You really don’t understand anything, do you? It’s a tactic – purely a tactic to lull world capital into a false sense of security. But the Man of Steel is ready for them: he can see the likes of Churchill coming. All of we activists can see what’s coming…”
“Yes dear,” she said dutifully, “of course. Perhaps if you’d gone to Spain, you might have helped his supporters to defeat Franco, and then…”
“I’M A PACIFIST!” he screamed gently.
“Of course dear,” she agreed, “a pacifist activist. Would you like some tongue for your tea? I smiled at the butcher, and he let me have…”
“I don’t want your bourgeois black market defeatist fucking tongue” Mark asserted, “what else is there?”
She smiled.
“Er, nothing dearest. I was going to buy a tin of John Bull spam, but you banned that from the house on principle as a regressive symbol of capitalist jingoism, so I thought it better not to”.
Mark pouted.
“I’m going out,” he announced.
“Oh,” she replied, “Whatever you like darling. Where are you off to then?”
“It’s Tuesday,” he said, “the Spanish Anarchist anti-Catholic League always meet on Tuesday. It’s important that I show my support for their war on opiate religions”.
“I suppose so” Gracie agreed, “but the Saviour was in favour of peace. Like you.”
“I’m in favour of peaceful relations with socialists,” Mark pointed out, “but not with capitalist warmongers using bogus saviours to justify their actions…and anyway, the Vatican’s appeasement of the Nazis is unforgivable”.
“Of course dear,” his wife said, “you’re right, as always. Have a nice time….I’ll leave you some cold tongue in the meatsafe for when you get back. I might still be out myself, by the way”.
Mark Robospart’s face registered outrage.
“What?” he enquired.
“Yes,” she continued, “I’m going to a meeting of the Female Munitions Workers’ Collective. We’re registering our support for Polish airmen, Free French refugees, Mr Churchill’s War Coalition….and an end to turning away Jewish refugees from the Nazis. You see, we think this is a time for solidarity against a common enemy. You know, the enemy with 200,000 men, 30,000 bombers and eight tank divisons sitting 25 miles away on the other side of the Channel. We think they’re more of a threat to freedom than misogynist men, Polish fascists, Roman Catholics, Zionists or Trotskyite revisionists.”
The Robospart front door slammed shut with a resounding thud. Gracie Robospart smiled as she cut herself a slice of tongue. She was willing to bet that her husband didn’t know what a misogynist was. But she did.
The Slog 