spuded
New Member
Now that the footie is over, I’ve got a proper chance to reply to this……
Back in the 70’s Ronald Reagan came up a policy of reducing the number of unemployable working class youths, with the idea of starting a war and shipping all of these ‘degenerates’ to a far away land to either get killed; or if they survived, to become up-standing re-adjusted citizens when they came home (- right-wing white house logic, not mine).
It also had the added bonus of kick starting the arms industry back home, to produce the weapons for the war. The policy became part of a broader collection of economic ideas by Reagan known as Reaganomics. In fairness it’s not the most original idea in the world, governments and monarchies have been doing this since people have been around.
Anyway....when he became president in 81,’ he tried to implement this part of his policy in Nicaragua, but it never got off the ground, because things were too screwed up there even for the americans. When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, unemployment in Britain was at an all time high, industries were closing, and basically everything was going tits up. She happened to be close buddies with Reagan at the time, so he suggested to her (in accordance to Home Office records that where realized 25 years after the secrecy rule was lifted), about the idea of starting a war to kick start the U.K. economy. Which is exactly what she did, by rounding up as many so-called degenerates as possible, and shipping them off to the Falklands 13,000 miles away.
Recruitment for ‘the war’ started back as far as ‘78, even though the Falklands hadn’t even been identified as a potential place to go to, for at least another 3 years. The main centres identified for recruiting people, where in all the poorest areas of the U.K. – East London, Cardiff, Glasgow and parts of Edinburgh, which is where our good/bad man Wattie comes in. The policy in these centres was that any person from an ‘undesirable area’ with an ‘undesirable background’ who went into their local job centre, was ‘encouraged’ to join the army as a career. And so found Wattie for right or for wrong in Belfast, (because the Falklands deal hadn’t been finalized by then),
All of the above is probably complete bullshit of course, but Wattie went on to articulate the whole thing in The Exploited album, amply titled:
‘Let’s Start A War – Said Maggie One Day’!
…… jaysus, I’m one smug bastard
TBH the idea of the 'economic draft' has never settled well with me, Wattie could've done a whole host of other things if he couldn't get a job, even illegal shit such as robbing cars or selling drugs both in my mind are preferable to joining the army and going to serve in an occupied territory.
