Can we stop the Clocks from Striking Thirteen?
Even if the clocks haven't struck thirteen, these times are far from normal.
Democracy curdled in the economic soup neoliberalism made, and mould grows around its rim.
Last night, I watched the CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I was not surprised the interview revealed there was no there-there with the candidates or the news network.
It was the journalistic equivalent of a softball competition for pre-schoolers. The nature of 21st-century news gathering is to present politicians who represent the status quo as compassionate, competent and expert navigators of choppy waters because their policies favour the wealthy.
The interview only reinforced my belief that the only thing that separates Donald Trump's evil from the Democrats is table manners.
My mother, until her death, had a conflicted relationship with Germany because she grew up there when it was ruled by the Nazis.
Mum loved the language of her birth, its literature, music, film, humour, food, beer and people. But she was no ingenue; my mother knew that despite all that was good or noble in the German character, it did not prevent the country of her birth from being the author of the worst genocide in the 20th century.
Selfishness, racism, financial self-interest, economic inequalities, and mass death normalised by the first world war were driving forces for those who influenced the masses into the arms of Hitler and the Nazis.
My mother knew this better than many others because her mum's lover- at the end of August 1939, days before Hitler invaded Poland, joined the Nazi Party. It was purely self-interest because he was an importer of tobacco, and his main client was the German Navy.
He wanted to make a bundle, which he did. Today, his descendants in Hamburg, Germany, are fabulously wealthy from that Nazi nest egg he created during the Hitler era.
The only thing my grandmother got from being in a relationship with this man was her daughter survived the war. That, however, is a story for another essay.
Self-interest, ethno-nationalism, racism, capitalism controlled by oligarchs and political cynicism also drive the genocide in Gaza in 2024..
The cries by the majority of citizens for an arms embargo against Israel to stop its genocide against Palestinians are bootless. But no government has done it because genocide is a big business. Billions have been made by the 1% in the extermination of Palestinians. The USA keeps upping the ante of lethal weaponry they will provide to Israel to eradicate the Palestinian people because its ruling class have become so corrupted by neoliberalism that they believe their immense wealth is proof of their manifest destiny.
Neoliberalism is a malignancy that is killing society and it can't be treated with incremental methods. It has led to the most cynical political age in modern history. It is not fascism that has decoupled democracy from the people and put it into the hands of top-income earners.
The sad reality is if Israel's leadership and entitled class get their way and exterminate or expel every Palestinian from their homeland, western politicians and their corporate news media will still not call it genocide. They will gaslight, terminate our employment or arrest us for claiming it was genocide because they are doing so now while Israel massacres Palestinians with impunity. All we can do is stand up as best we can to oppose and refuse to join the chorus of news medial lackeys, influencers, pundits and politicians who profit from mass death as cynical Nazis once did with their allegiance to Hitler.
Hi all:
Thanks for all your continuing support. You have been great, and I am so pleased my Substack has nearly 2400 subscribers- 221 of which are paid. I am building a community here, but it is slow and arduous work.
This month I have 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 am in a bind right now, I have 36 hours left before my rent is due and I am short a few hundred Canadian. It is never much but it is enough to begin my spiral into homelessness. 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.
