The Spirit of the Blitz

[Chickenkatsu]

blogs.warwick.ac.uk/markharrison/entry/brexit_as_economic/

Fourth, our willingness to “keep calm and carry on” will be much less than was the case in 1939 or 1914. We are not at war. We are divided among ourselves. Our government is representative of an extreme, not of a broad national coalition. Half the country expects Brexit to be painless or quickly beneficial. The other half sees it as a self-inflicted wound. Neither of these constituencies seems likely to put up with much pain for the good of the cause.

I read a Tobias hill novel recently about London post-war and it was excellent on this; there was a night during the blitz he described where there were no bombs at all and how millions of people had to endure a whole night of waiting where every second they thought it might start. It was chilling.

most of us do just carry on, what other option is there?

Sure but if it's self inflicted then it's masochism and it's not healthy.

What were they saying Mockers?

Telling Churchill and the King to get back to where they came from. The Dear Old Queen Mum's gag about how glad she was the Palace was bombed was very astute.

There were a while generation of haunted ww1 soldiers that also endured the blitz though- many of them worked as arp wardens or firefighters; there were also people who were bombed relentlessly over a period of weeks; I don’t think it’s possible to describe shell shock and the blitz as mutually exclusive.

Medical treatments tended to start with war and move to civilians. Like penicillin did.
There's an argument that total war (like WW2) makes the idea of home front redundant.

Ah the blitz.
Thousands killed, woman raped, robbing and looting, people losing everything they owned all the while all the time being told how chipper they all were.
Huge amounts propaganda.

Oh, and the Keep Calm and Carry On posters were never used. They were designed to be put up if there was an invasion, which thankfully there wasn’t.

Everyone said that Mockers? Any evidence?
PancakeandKeith my dgrandad was in London during the Blitz. You conveniently forget the selflessness and kindness people showed towards each other, which he described. Why would you do that?

Oh I’m sure there was a lot of selflessness and kindness.
But that is all anyone had ever been told. All the rest of it gets glossed over because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

People certanly looked after their own, massive crime wave in the blackout notwithstanding. Rationing was not something you would encounter at the Savoy, where there were never shortages.

As others have noted, the pre-war plans assumed mass-panic and mass-casualties. The Royal Parks in London were going to be dug up for mass-graves.

"Keep Calm and Carry On" was an accidental hit. Another poster that highlighted the gulf between rulers and ruled was the one that said:

YOUR efforts will bring US victory, which most people who saw it interpreted as saying that you lot will fight and die so that us lot can survive.

Mark Harrison teaches Russian economics. The blitz is not his field really.
The strongest evidence of 'blitz spirit' I have seen comes from communist societies in their early stages and from USSR in WW2. You can see why he believes in its existence in Britain.

"Keep Calm and Carry On" was an accidental hit.

It was never used during the war.

The so-called Blitz Spirit is definitely not exclusive to London or even the UK.

I think that's true howwud, but it is only continuously dragged out in modern times (for whatever cause needs jingoism or self-sacrifice) by Britain.

I dislike the idea of Brexit and that we will all have to evoke the ‘Blitz Spirit’. Hopefully we can agree on that.

Exactly Fa.

No other country is as obsessed with WWII as we are. Sometimes it seems that some men over 50 seem to they personally fought off Hitler because they’ve seen re runs of Dad’s Army.

All this ‘we got through the war we can get through this’ jingoistic bull shit is what got us into this mess in the first place.

www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/blitz_01.shtml

How far will this ‘blitz spirit’ go, when people rise that half the people hiding from the fallout have voted for this?

Yes, agreed. It's a very different situation.
The enemy is not some nation far across the sea, it's right here.

The inspiration for the blitz spirit was the war and the blitz. Who knows, maybe if Brexit results in devastated cities, chronic food shortages and mass casualties we may well find our blitz spirit. I'd rather we didn't have to find out though. I don't expect we will have the equivalent of 303 squadron to help dig us out the shit either. Pesky bloody Poles, coming over here, flying our planes, defending our skys.

There is some sense of togetherness among remainers though. It has been comforting to come on MN and see my own feelings being reflected by others. The march was an expression of that too.

That is interesting language to use FaFoutis.

Who knows, maybe if Brexit results in devastated cities, chronic food shortages and mass casualties we may well find our blitz spirit.

I can pretty much guarantee we won’t because the shortages won’t have been created by some enemy from overseas but our own government and our own people.

Spirit of the Blitz, my arse, I'll happily screw anyone who voted for this shower of shite to the wall. Fuck 'em, stupid, idiotic financial and economy suicide bollocks!

Who exactly do you consider to be your enemy then?

There was a strong sense of camaraderie when I was in the hospital with my DD, I wouldn't want to go through that if I didn't want to, obviously.

One of the best Doctors was Italian, the though of him being used as a 'bargaining chip' is grotesque.

*didn't have to