I was born in the darkest of times and it seems I will exit this world in a similar era of uncertainty, inequality and cruelty.

It is the eve of what would have been my Dad’s 102nd birthday. I am a bit down, and also somewhat angry, which I will write more in depth about tomorrow. I wanted to leave you with this passage from Don’t Let My Past Be Your Future which sums up our present world and the solutions we have to change our fate.

Beta copies of the Green & Pleasant Land will be available in 2-3 weeks. If you want one, direct message me, and I will make sure you get it.

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Cheers,

John

I know my moment on this earth is almost done. I will soon join my mother, my father, sisters, brothers, wife, son and friends who have passed on before me. I have tried to relate to you what I have learned and seen through many years of life because we are in the most dangerous time. It will be up to you to decide whether you fight for sunlight or submit to darkness. I am too old now to do much more but tell the truth about the history of my generation.

To survive, live well and enjoy love, you must choose the path of your ancestors. In you is the blood of all those who fought for fair wages, housing, healthcare and defended our island against the tyranny of Hitler. In you is the light that your grandparents had when they fought to preserve and expand the civil society through the welfare state. If you do not call upon the wisdom and the spirit of my generation, you will regress to an era when want and ignorance were as deadly as a pestilence to Britain. I can’t make that decision for you.

I have shown you what that world looked like when the 1 percent enslaved an entire generation to feed their greed. It is now up to you because the sunset has come to my life but you must not let it come to our country. It shouldn’t be this way. It should be better for you.

You deserve more than the second-rate politics of Theresa May and the third-rate lives many lead because of austerity. I was born in the darkest of times and it seems because of Brexit and Donald Trump that I will exit this world in a similar era of uncertainty, inequality and cruelty.

Right now, we are at a juncture in history that is as dangerous to this generation as the 1930s were to mine. There are serious threats of war emerging all across the globe, some caused by the folly of neo-liberalism and others just erupting because we forgot that tyranny, if fed, will metastasise in even the healthiest of societies. It is your choice now to decide whether you let the jungles of greed, neo-liberalism and corporations grow over and obscure the welfare state like vines and forest growth obscured the great Mayan civilisations a millennium ago, or you can reclaim your birth right.

My past won’t become your future if you hold firm to the belief that all people are born equal and deserve the right to a life free of want, ignorance and sickness. Believe in yourselves, in social justice, and live by the creed that we are all our brother’s keeper.

Thanks for reading and supporting my Substack. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. It’s a bit of an SOS with 4 days left in the month before rent day. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John.