We are firmly on the road to, if not species extinction, societal annihilation. But mainstream politics wants you to believe the existential threat is higher taxes.
The new year is a little over a month old, but the smell- of rot is already upon it. The ground outside my apartment stinks of wet, decaying dirt and melting dog shit. The entitled of this earth stole nature's rhythm and now it swings uneasily between premature puberty and early menopause. There is snow in Yorkshire today but on the shores of Lake Ontario, it feels like spring has arrived with crocuses sprouting up in neighbourhood flower beds.
The weather isn't strange; it's fucking ominous because climate scientists at the EU's Copernicus Institute announced 2023 breached a new temperature anomaly. The planet’s temperature warmed by 1.5 degrees, something our neoliberal governments pledge to prevent. We are firmly on the road to, if not our extinction, societal annihilation.
We are sinking by the bow, but Labour Leader Keir Starmer, a shoo-in to be Britain's next PM, announced they can't keep Labour's 28 billion a year pledge for green investments should they come to power. He used the same old trope used by those who do the 1% dirty work that the “government credit card was maxed out.” It’s bullshit but it does tell you that had someone like him been Labour Leader in 1945, there would have been no NHS.
Neoliberalism sees their existential threat as higher taxes for the 1%, not climate change.
Our environment, politics, and the economy are out of step, whether in Britain, Canada or anywhere. We are experiencing in real-time the post-Second World War consensus where capitalism and democracy allied themselves for the betterment of every citizen become unravelled.
The small city where I resided has been ruptured and torn apart by the cost of living crisis. Like everywhere else, homelessness is an epidemic, and housed citizens have a hard time keeping a roof over their heads because their incomes can't pay their bills. It's an angry and sad city where, behind closed doors, lives ruined by low wages, flood-level debt and a disintegrating social safety dwindle away.
The streets of my city are an open theatre of lives wrecked by capitalism for all to see but seldom do- until it becomes a tragedy so immense you can't help but stare at its unfathomable despair.
This past Tuesday, 17 people overdosed in the downtown of my city because getting high is the new Russian roulette owing to fentanyl. Human misery has gotten out of hand in every large metropolis, city, town or small village because few are getting ahead in today's economy. The cracks are so wide and deep people are just swallowed up by mental illness, addiction, poverty, loneliness and other vulnerabilities that thwart the human spirit from finding some measure of satisfaction and contentment during our brief interlude with existence.
The mass overdose in my city elicited little sympathy for the unhoused because street people who are addicted to drugs are thought by most to be victims of their own indulgences. It's a lie But it makes it makes most people feel superior. The lie also protects capitalism from being blamed. So it is encouraged by the wealthy- after all -homeless addicts ruin their property values.
Fascism is always ushered in by those with a bit of property, who are easily convinced it is those below them who are out to rob them rather than those above them. We lost the first three decades of this century to fascism- and may lose the next three decades to it as well.
But a fuse against the 1% and the fascism they promote was lit during these long COVID and cost of living crisis years.
The only question is- what happens next? Is our fate the wet fart of a Guy Fawkes' insurrection or the overturning of the Bastille? Something is going to drop because we live in interesting times.
I am always so pleased when you, my readers get this far in one of my essays. Thanks for reading and supporting my substack. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many my survival is a precarious daily undertaking- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities as I age 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. Take Care, John
Interesting times indeed!