It is not only heat domes we live under- but the threat of a never-ending fascist dome.
September's heat dome broke during the early morning of this month's 8th day. I've known hot Septembers, but not the heat I experienced last week. It was humidity fit for Havana and not for the crisp shores of Lake Ontario at this time of year.
The latest heat dome lifted 48 hours ago, but my body still has a hangover from the extreme temperatures. That is because I experienced the end of it- without AC, as my wall unit quietly quit after keeping me cool for the last five years.
If the times were ordinary and capitalism had not been allowed to run amok by centre and right-wing governments, my broken AC would be timely repaired by the corporate landlord of my apartment building.
But those times of corporate responsibility to tenants, consumers and society are long gone. The corporate landlord knows they can repair my AC, non-functioning dishwasher and broken window blinds with the same haste and competence as an apparatchik in charge of apartment maintenance for the oblast of Perm during the days of Brezhnev's Soviet Union. If I complain too much or go public with it, I will be renovicted quicker than you can say, "Property Brothers is on TV."
Late-stage capitalism doesn't recognise individuals as citizens with inherent rights and freedoms because they own government now. It sees us as economic units-who if they aren't increasing profits for the 1%- are liabilities to be shorn- from the ledger books.
I am one of those undesirable economic units with a lower margin of return for the billion-dollar corporate entity that owns the building where I lease my apartment. I've lived here too long, so to them, my rent isn't as profitable as a new leaseholder.
This housing crisis we endure in 2023 will not end. It is permanent because it is not only a crisis of supply but a crisis of ideology. So when politicians of the centre, right or the defanged left say to you, "We need a wartime effort to fix the housing crisis," it's bullshit.
The politicians who now call for a wartime effort to build housing have been at war their entire careers against the politics that used a wartime effort to build affordable housing, for the working classes, after the defeat of Hitler in 1945.
Politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, who might have had a chance of- if not breaking at least taming capitalism's stranglehold on the aspirations of ordinary people to have a decent life, were destroyed by the corporate news media; who are the pit bulls for the status quo.
People like me- and there are millions of us- live in a justified continuous angst. They are scared shitless of being swept under by the forces of greed unleashed by both the centre and the right.
People who are not part of the top 20% of income earners are pessimistic about their futures and that of their children. Standards of living and life expectancy are falling fast for that group which is the majority of citizens. It has created anger and a rightful demand for immediate change, not incrementalism. But incrementalism has always been neoliberalism's, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today," strategy to keep voters' expectations in check.
If you are a tenant like me, fear of losing what you have or ending up on the streets is understandable. The cost of living crisis created and perpetuates a fear of losing what you have or not getting what you deserve. It is not irrational for voters to dance closer to fascist politics despite its rank evil rather than choosing centre or watered-down left-wing politics on offer in Western nations.
I am left-wing. But I understand why many people aren't. They detect a decadence in the left's political and ideological leadership. It is an unwillingness to fight hard and dirty to achieve transformative politics. It's a corruption of intent that is not dissimilar to the decadence in the centre and conservative nomenclature. It is a willingness to conform and profit from neoliberalism.
Every election coming in the next three years will not be a battle between darkness and light but between darkness and dusk. It's why fascism will ultimately win. If democracy doesn't have the courage or the willingness to become a blazing light of change, it deserves the death coming for it. It is not only heat domes we live under but the threat of a never-ending fascist dome.
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JM Smith
Your post today definitely depresses me. You have written what I have been feeling for a while: “Every election coming in the next three years will not be a battle between darkness and light but between darkness and dusk. It's why fascism will ultimately win.” I dread 2024 because I cannot depend on the corporate Democratic Party to do what is necessary to get people to come out and vote for them. I have no illusions that we are voting between good and bad. In too many ways, the vote is between bad and worse, but a Fascist dictatorship is infinitely worse than anything a corporate Democratic Party will do. I am old. I like my life but I am actually hoping to die in my sleep sooner rather than later and so take “the easy way out.”
No but every other one