We are living through the wrong revolution because the Oligarchs are Madame Defarge.

This is an unsettled and upside-down age- like no other in recent history. Even the Hitler era wasn't as dangerous as our present political and economic situation. We are living through a revolution orchestrated by the 1%, and currently, they are winning.

The early 20th century promised a dictatorship of the proletariat that never materialised, which allowed the 21st century to institute a dictatorship of wealth. So, unless you are rich, there are no best of times during these worst of times.

Western Oligarchs are Madame Defarge knitting whilst we are guillotined by their catastrophic fascist machinations.

Photo by Kayle Kaupanger on Unsplash

When the Covid pandemic arrived five years ago, people hoped it would spur a progressive societal reset. A reset did occur, but not to benefit the people. Instead, Billionaires' collective wealth increased by 5 trillion dollars during the first two years of the pandemic which was more than it had grown in the 14 years previous.

Despite COVID-19 killing nearly a million Americans during its first pandemic year, social media platforms were rife with paid influencers and bots who promoted anti-science rhetoric that America just had a bad case of the flu and should stop panicking. Campaigns of disinformation were launched by politicians to foment doubt about the efficacy of vaccines & K95 masks as a means to control the virus’ lethality in the general public. Populations were gaslit to ensure they continued to labour for giant corporations and consume the disposable ephemeral goods they manufactured.

As the pandemic became more extreme. It killed or incapacitated workers in numbers only seen on Great War battlefronts. As more citizens became unable to fully participate in consumer society the economy contracted. However, the wealthiest of our world were not harmed by the economy shrinking. Fortuitously for the 1%, the price of goods began to increase with inflationary zeal. The public was told by the corporate news media these increases were because the neoliberal supply chain was damaged after the economy broke down due to the Covid pandemic.

The cost of living crisis persists to this day. However, the excuses for its continuation shifted from supply chain issues to over-regulation, too many migrants, or Chinese and Russian government plots for world domination. Trump's declaration of a Global Trade War will also become a predominant excuse the political class employs to explain away the decreasing standard of living. No government has admitted unbridled greed from the 1% and systemic political corruption as the primary cause for its ongoing affordability crisis.

Democracy doesn't exist for a country if a large percentage of its citizens can't afford housing and healthcare, raise their children, and pay their bills without going into debt. Ordinary citizens in every G7 nation endure at least one of these existential terrors.

In the USA, 77% of Americans say their incomes can’t keep up with inflation. Currently, 100 million Americans live in various degrees of wage poverty, from extreme to struggling situations. Working poverty is so merciless in the USA that half a million Americans whose address is the pavement or the backseat of their car are in fulltime work and yet have no ability to afford a roof over their heads or obtain the necessary references to allow them to rent an apartment. Over 25% of American seniors live below the poverty line, which is predicted to become worse under Donald Trump. He and the oligarchs want social security to be eliminated or at least curtailed, which condemns America's elderly to work until they drop dead or die destitute.

In the 1930s, the USA faced similar levels of economic disenfranchisement. FDR understood that to prevent his nation from becoming a Nazi State like Hitler's Germany, he had to institute a New Deal where workers and the vulnerable shared in the prosperity of the country.

Our times haven't forgotten history. It was misappropriated by neoliberalism, which erased the post-World War Two working-class revolution and replaced it with a myth that wealth bestows wisdom and virtue on those who possess it. For neoliberals, there is no higher purpose for an individual than wealth accumulation. Without that myth, someone like Donald Trump would never have been elected President or even Keir Starmer as Prime Minister of Britain.

The poorest households in the UK are worse off after 15 years of uninterrupted austerity than the poorest households in Slovenia. Keir Starmer wants his government to dig up by the roots the last remains of the Welfare State planted in 1945 by the Attlee government. The Prime Minister is determined to cut Britain’s disability benefits system by £6 billion. Life won’t be worth living for millions of vulnerable people after this Labour government obliterates its welfare system.

Starmer has followed America's political navigation charts. He sailed Britain towards a Gulf of Fascism. When the winds are right, Starmer will push the Labour government into an authoritarian sea by employing jingoism, waging war against Russia and creating the “enemy within.”

Living conditions for billions of earth’s human inhabitants has regressed at an accelerated pace.

Unless a coherent, disciplined uprising occurs soon, humanity will become like the characters in Act 5 of Hamlet, all dead on stage. Only AI will remain like a Horatio, and tell our story.

As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts. I really need your help to keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith and his Last Stand alive, in the public eye and relevant. Your subscriptions to this newsletter do that and also keep my housed which has become a precarious thing thanks to getting cancer, interstitial lung disease and some other co- morbidities during 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. There is also a tip jar for those inclined. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John