A Winter of Revolution is Coming-Theirs & Ours.

Considering the sunshine, and the abnormally high temperatures, it doesn't feel like the middle of November. If it weren't for the Christmas adverts and festive bric-a-brac manufactured by slave labour in faraway supply chain lands bulging from bargain store shelves, I'd mistake these days for the start of spring rather than the prelude to winter.

Photo by Guille Álvarez on Unsplash

Yet there you have it "tis the season" because Christmas lights in the shape of snowflakes festoon lamp posts in the downtown core of my city. Under them; the homeless congregate, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee from styrofoam cups.

There are more homeless this year than last, and probably next year, even more, will be stranded to life on the streets because the cost of living crisis ain't ever ending. Neoliberalism was never a victimless ideology. We all got sucked into its moving parts and pulverised or conditioned to accept our world was ever thus.

"The masses are ignorant," a person of substantial wealth said just the other day to their kid when I was on the phone with them. It was about Trump winning the Presidency. The observation was trite. But it had the efficiency of an automatic transmission for shifting blame for fascism from the wealthier classes to those with the least control over society, the struggling ordinary citizens.

In no other modern time outside of the Nazis' has Western society been so indifferent or homicidally malicious towards refugees. The corporate news media, along with neoliberal politicians, discuss Donald Trump's plan to deport millions of migrants/refugees in 2025 not with horror and disgust but on questions of logistics, further normalising the dehumanisation of vulnerable people.

 Mass deportations always lead to mass deaths. Stalin wasn't wrong when he said the death of 1 is a tragedy and a million a statistic. We were made numb by death during the Covid pandemic. When governments saw no protest over excessive mortality during the peak of the pandemic, they reasoned their citizens could swallow the death of others like it was water.

My father's been dead six years, this month. But he'd recognise this place called 2024. After all, he predicted much of it. Harry Leslie Smith knew the desperate struggle to survive for the vulnerable and the working classes would get worse over time, not better. The acceleration of our descent into authoritarianism, employing genocide as a tool of war and climate collapse is the most terrifying aspect of it all. We can't awake from this nightmare as this is our eyes wide, open reality. We are on a ship sinking fast by the bow and there aren't lifeboats for us or rescue vessels nearby to rescue us to safety.

The entire political class and mainstream news media class shut down and stifled debate as well as dissent against a brutal genocide against the Palestinian people.

They gas-lit and doxed those who are opposed to this genocide They have misrepresented facts to perpetuate war crimes being committed by Israel and the West. It's corruption that motivates this 21st-century banality of evil. It has shown the West to be what it always was under neoliberalism- a malign force to enhance the power and wealth of the 1%.

My dad had a visceral hatred for the German army for starving Dutch citizens in 1944. He would be enraged and disgusted that Palestinian children in Gaza beg for water, and food or not to be killed in a medieval war of vengeance against a people that are owed a nation of their own.

We are witnessing in 2024 what occurred in Leningrad and Malta during the Second World War starvation as a means to destroy nations. Our politicians have the means to stop the genocide. But Biden won't, Trump won't', Trudeau won't, Starmer won't, Macron won't, Albanese won't, and the EU won't. It is because they agree with the slaughter of Palestinians.

 War crimes pile up by Israel's forces but politicians and our press ignore them the way bill payment reminder notices go unheeded by the stoney broke. We are accomplices to ethnic cleansing and genocide and have relinquished our moral authority to claim our system of government along with our societies are the most civilised and caring in the world.

That the West's political class and the majority of its news media put its faith in a fascist like Netanyahu to conduct a just war is indicative that democracy is beyond repair without massive social upheavals.

A revolution is coming. It's on the horizon because we reached a tipping point. It will bring everything crashing down- the horrible along with whatever was decent in our lives too.

This month marks the 6th anniversary of my dad's death. It also marks the third anniversary of my Harry's Last Stand newsletter going live. During these past 36 months, I have posted close to 500 essays, as well as excerpts from the unpublished works of Harry Leslie Smith - along with chapter samples from my book about him. My newsletter has grown from a handful of subscribers to almost 3k in that period. Around 7% of you are paid members. I appreciate all of you for keeping the legacy relevant and growing. I’ve I had the means all of this would be free. But as I don’t your tips and paid subscriptions are greatly appreciated because it keeps the wheels on this bus turning.  Take care, John.