It is us or them.

Living in a pandemic world for two years should have sobered up citizens to the fact that the entitled are going to hold onto their privileges for as long as we are willing to sacrifice our lives for them. However, instead of fighting against being treated as a disposable commodity for the rich, too many nod their heads in agreement when they are told; "we must learn to live with Covid."

It is covid fatigue, the news media reports when people after restrictions to dining or entertaining, to slow the spread of omicron are announced fight them like a toddler struggles against having a snowsuit put on them in winter. The 1% have convinced us that freedom is the ability to consume goods, services and all types of ephemeral activity rather than the right to affordable housing, free post-secondary education or the freedom to have leisure without penury.

That is why ordinary Britain's outrage over revelations Boris Johnson partied during Covid lockdown when millions were denied a final goodbye with a loved one will be short-lived. The Tories know the average person is indifferent to the deaths of others if they are granted enough amusements to ignore the suffering of others. Ten years of their austerity proved that. Between 2010 and 2020 poverty increased, and food insecurity soared but ordinary Britain found comfort in watching reality TV and ignoring the suffering of its fellow citizens.

A general rancour simmers in our communities for the way things are, during this pandemic era. But our temperature of outrage never bubbles over because social media has seen to that. People now demonstrate their outrage by way of memes, tweets, and Tik Tok rants instead of downing tools and taking to the streets. We know this government does not have our best interest at heart when we see the covid casualty figures. . Still, we won't raise a finger to stop our own destruction because we are afraid of losing what we have.

Even in, the before times, the entitled knew we just didn't have it in us to risk our ability to purchase consumer goods by attempting to stop their neoliberal plans for the globe. It's why they weren't afraid when over a million people marched in the streets of London to stop Tony Blair from going to war in Iraq. They knew the people weren't going to use their only weapon against the excess of government, "A General Strike." After all, they reasoned, the people have mortgages to pay, children to clothe and retirements to save for. So, their personal sense of self-interest will prevent them from either rioting or impeding us from garnering profit from the sweat of their brow.

They were correct because the Iraq War began eighteen years ago and it never really ended. The conflict killed a million Iraqis as well as thousands of allied soldiers. But most of us looked the other way while it was happening. Yes, some were brave, like Chelsea Manning, who sacrificed their freedom to inform us about crimes against humanity. But most of us kept our dissidence to peaceful demonstrating, letter writing and angry talk down at the pub with our mates. I am not saying I was any better than most of you during the Iraq War because I wasn't.

I didn't have much time for it. I was a man in his prime of middle age who felt sure of himself by abstaining as much as possible from self-reflection. I was left-wing, but I wore it with a veneer of cynicism that prevented me from absorbing the true horrors of neoliberalism that were devouring our society.

My dad saw that war much different than me, or most of you. From the get-go, my dad never trusted Tony Blair or believed that he was working for the betterment of ordinary Britain. "He's a bullshit artist," my dad liked to say anytime he saw Blair on the evening news. My dad predicted that the Iraq War would be our undoing. He was right because Iraq changed our world as much as the first world war changed early 20th century Europe. Democracy has dimmed in Britain, the USA and all across the globe because of that war. As a society, we are tainted by the war crimes committed by our politicians because we didn't fight hard enough to hold them to account for the great harm they did to humanity. Economic inequality, nativism, racism, xenophobia are all in ascendency because of the fallout from the Iraq War.

It's why in these times, where the entitled think it's time to move past Iraq and knight Tony Blair normalising his war crimes, ordinary activists and plain citizens must be willing to give more than a tweet or meme. This is our last chance to change the course of our history before we careen towards a horrible end. We must organise and prepare to be as tough and selfless as those who fought for human rights and workers' rights in the 1930s. Remember, no liberation movement was ever successful without economic warfare against its oppressors. It's time to talk about general strikes and peaceful civil disobedience.