Austerity and Genocide, neoliberalism is the gateway to authoritarianism.
The season of endings rather than beginnings started this week for the northern hemisphere.
Winter is our next off-ramp- everything merges into it. Already, I feel its approach around midnight when crisp air chills my bedroom from an open window.
That is also the time when I hear the homeless outside, who go through the bins on the street looking for empty beer and wine bottles to recycle in the morning at the Beer Store for their day's drink and food.
I do not look forward to this winter. It feels like there will be a cull of the herd by neoliberal societies. More of us are to be tossed overboard as excess baggage that slows down the 1% pursuit of unlimited profits.
Starmer's Labour has already plotted its course to an austerity of unspeakable cruelty on the vulnerable. They can do it too because their influencers and the news media convinced the voters that change for the better was at hand with a vote for Labour.
Instead, the Winter fuel allowance for seniors will be means tested and people who shouldn't will go cold. Twenty years ago, I visited in February a cousin of my Dad's, who lived in Bridlington. She couldn’t afford to hear her small house. So she lived, in her parlour with an electric heater infrequently turned on. It was so cold inside that room, I was surprised you couldn't see her cat's breath.
The older I get, the more I loathe mainstream politics for what it plundered from ordinary people and handed over as tribute to the entitled.
Democracy mutated into consumerism under neoliberalism. You get what you can afford, and for me- that is margarine, white bread and fast fashion. It benefits no one but those who own the means of its production.
I am amazed each time I hear that the economy is turning the corner. It is propaganda because despite my spending habits not changing and my income being slightly better than last year, I can't afford as much as before.
I will be sixty-one next month and walk more than my budget can afford to do it safely. And so my feet feel twice that age. Who knew a daily 8-12 kilometre march in footwear manufactured from petrochemicals made by modern-day slaves in Asia could be so damaging to one's feet?
Too many are living on the edge because of the cost of living crisis. Society has reached. or soon will, critical mass for civil discord. I think it will be in November with the US Presidential election because it doesn't matter whether Trump wins or Harris; there will be blood on the streets.
The better off refuse to open their eyes that we are in an era like the end of the First World War where violent political change is guaranteed. None of it resonates with them whether it’s the price of groceries or the cost of heating and housing. I think it is because they really do believe they got where they are by merit rather than inherited wealth and systemic corruption.
As a top income earner said yesterday after I mentioned the genocide in Gaza.
"Sorry I wasn't paying attention because you know it was August."
For the better off, every day is like being in August, whether it is the cost of living crisis or the annihilation enabled by our governments in a faraway place. They don't see any of it as a sign that the wheels are down for this era and it is coming in for a crash landing.
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In August I published over 25k words here, which is a lot of words. To be honest too many words. If I wasn't so short of cash the post would be fewer but more polished. But that isn't happening anytime soon if ever. I still have a bit to cover for my rent. So, if you can and only if you can please subscribe to my Substack or use the Tip Jar. I am reducing a yearly subscription by 20% because it is a fire sale, of sorts. Take care because I know many of you are sharing the same boat with me.