At sixty, I feel too old for a revolution, but I know it is coming.

My walk yesterday was unpleasant because a November rain fell across the city. When I passed through downtown, I noticed Christmas lights in the shape of snowflakes festoon lamp posts to mark that the holiday season has come again. 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 marooned on our streets. 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.

There is misery everywhere. But the only sympathy the downtrodden get, whether refugees or those destroyed by unfettered capitalism, is an empathy similar to what is emoted by Human Resources officers after they have terminated someone.

The dampness and darkness of yesterday lifted this morning because the sun is out. Still, a moroseness lingers in my bones. My father's been dead five years on the 28th, which is a long time gone.

It's not like he wouldn't recognise this place called 2023 because 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 is the most terrifying aspect of it all.

Photo by Alec Favale on Unsplash

The entire political class and mainstream news media class has done its best to shut down and stifle debate as well as dissent against a brutal war of retaliation against ordinary Palestinian people.  

They have gas lit and doxed those who are opposed to this war. They have misrepresented facts to perpetuate war crimes being committed by an Israeli government that is Trumpian in its corruption and fascism.

Biden, Netanyahu, Trudeau, Sunak, Starmer, Scholz and the EU don't want a cease-fire not because it would allow Hamas to reload but because it would allow the public to catch their breath and assess the validity of Netanyahu's war aims.

Considering my dad had a visceral hatred for the German army for starving Dutch citizens in 1944 to such an extent my father witnessed children eating tulip bulbs for sustenance. 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. Bakeries have shut down and the calorie intake per resident is below 700 calories thanks to this siege. We are witnessing in the 21st century what occurred in Leningrad and Malta during the Second World War-mass starvation to destroy a people. Our politicians have the means to stop it but Biden won't because he agrees with it. War crimes pile up by Israel's forces and politicians ignored it in the way bill payment reminder notices go unheeded by a debtor. We have been made accomplices to ethnic cleansing and what has all the hallmarks of being a genocide.

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

At sixty, I feel too old for a revolution, but I know it is coming. It will bring everything crashing down- the horrible along with whatever was decent in our lives too.

This month marks the 5th anniversary of my dad's death. It also marks the second anniversary of my Harry's Last Stand newsletter going live. During these past 24 months, I have posted 245 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 1200 in that period. Around 10% of you are paid members. I appreciate all of you but ask if you can switch to a paid subscription because your help is NEEDED to keep me housed and Harry Leslie Smith's legacy relevant. But if you can't all is good too because we are sharing the same boat.  Take care, John.

Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash