Happy new year almost seems like an inappropriate thing to say...

but happy new year anyway...

Happy new year, everyone.

I almost feel guilty for writing that, like we have no right to be happy, given our role in so much suffering, but we do. We have every right to be happy and I hope you had a brilliant Christmas or whichever other holiday you celebrate and I hope you have a wonderful new year.

Hope. Now there’s a word…

There doesn’t seem to be much hope, right now, but when you can’t rely on hope, your only option is to rely on action. If you don’t feel hope, build a situation in which hope becomes possible again. That’s something we’re all gonna have to figure out…

In my 42 years on this planet, 2024 was easily the darkest I have lived through. I’ve certainly had years that were darker on a personal level, but the collective darkness was something I hoped I’d never see. And collective darkness is bleaker than individual darkness because it’s more damaging to hope.

At times, I was unsure if we’d make it through the year in one piece. As our rulers gave the green light to strike Russian soil, and their rulers kept striking Iranian soil, we were sitting on a knife edge, just one coin flip away from being thrown into a meat grinder in Iran or Ukraine in a last gasp attempt to save a dying empire that humanity so desperately needs to collapse.

If we can give one gift to this world, it’s to accelerate the demise of the empire that not only destroys every country that doesn’t bow, but privatises and devours every good thing our working class has, leaving us with nothing but debt and corporate slavery. We don’t need to be fans of foreign rulers to understand that a multipolar world is in our interests too, so we should all hope BRICS succeeds. It’s the one thing that might stop neoliberalism, the system whose survival is dependent on foreign exploitation. We should all want every country to be strong enough to resist exploitation.

Events since October 7 2023 confirmed what I’d known for some time but hadn’t fully understood the implications of: the western empire is the biggest force for evil in the world.

On the one hand, it’s a relief to get through 2024 with the world more or less intact, but it’s so very far from being cause for celebration. If one emotion can sum up how I’m feeling right now, and how we should all be feeling, it’s shame. Shame that we couldn’t stop our corrupt rulers from committing a genocide in broad daylight.

In my naivety, I never thought we’d see the empire act so brazenly in the days of social media and smart phones when we can all see what they’re doing. Once upon a time, they could convince enough of the public they were keeping us safe, but I don’t think anyone believes that anymore. I think people either close their eyes or choose to see.

In the UK, we have a leader no one likes, who shows no principles, and does not have the slightest interest in what you want, need, or think. He is interested only in controlling you. Who the fuck wants a leader like that?

When I started my “activism” (I hate that word) in 2017, I did so with a naivety. I actually thought someone like me could make waves, and our collective voice could make a tsunami! I thought that as we shone a light on the empire, we could either force our rulers to change or remove them from power. I haven’t given up on removing them from power, although I recognise we have an almighty battle on our hands.

One thing I have given up on is the idea we can pressure our rulers to change by appealing to their conscience. If we can show them footage of children being melted in tents, and babies decomposing in incubators, and naked people being thrown into mass graves, and prisoners being raped with rifles, and charity vehicles being blown up, and children being sniped with drones, and doctors being stripped and beaten, and hospitals being destroyed, and rubble and craters as far as the camera lens can see, and confessions from war criminals, and our rulers can still shrug and say “Genocide? What genocide?” then public outrage alone is not going to change them, in which case, we must find another way.

The real battle of our time is not against Putin or Xinping or Khomeini or the Houthis or any of the people our rulers tell you to hate. It’s certainly not against al-Qaida who are are friends now, I think, since they rebranded to HTS. The real battle is against our own rulers. Those rulers want you to fight workers in Russia or China or Iran, but every worker in the world is on the same side. We should never be fighting each other. We should always focus our attention on the ruling class.

Our rulers are far more likely to harm us than any leader in a foreign land and far more likely to start World War III to prevent the rise of a multipolar world that brings an end to Western hegemony. Last time I checked, it wasn’t Putin who was plundering our NHS, it wasn’t Xinping who was making our people homeless, it wasn’t Khomeini who was beating the shit out of our public for protesting against genocide, and it wasn’t the Houthis who were jailing our citizens for trying to stop climate destruction. I’m not going to tell you any of those rulers are good guys, I don’t think any rulers are heroes, I’m simply saying your own rulers are a bigger threat to your way of life.

The people who do the bidding of the corporations who price gouge you have no interest in making your life anything but harder. The people who have no qualms about genociding Palestinians would have no qualms about genociding anyone. That includes you.

You either care about humanity or you do not, and our rulers clearly do not. Now imagine a world in which they’re in full control, a world in which no one is capable of standing up to them. Just ask the former subjects of the British empire what life was like while their friends’ heads were put on stakes.

The empire never died, it just saw its influence wane, and now that it seems close to death, it is lashing out in full fury. It wants to come back.

The West is heading rapidly on an authoritarian trajectory as the idea of free speech evaporates. Expect things to get much worse if we don’t stand up and be counted.

Western leaders like Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer shredded their own reputations in order to keep Western barbarity going. There is nothing that we could have said or revealed that would have stopped them. They were prepared to even sacrifice their own careers and reputations, to become hated by every sane and rational person in order to keep a genocide going.

This tells you several things: first of all it tells you that whatever leverage Israel has over them is far stronger than the leverage the electorate has over them. We are an irrelevance. We have two hated major parties because electability doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who is the face of the empire from one election cycle to the next, nothing ever changes. Elections are nothing more than illusions.

Only interventions by the ICJ and ICC have gained leverage over our rulers, and that leverage has been minimal, such as Starmer suspending 8% of arms licences to Israel. International law was never supposed to be used against the Western empire, it was one of its biggest tools of oppression, but our rulers are losing their grip. This has infuriated them and they will do whatever it takes to regain their grip of the “rules-based order”. Don’t be surprised if bad things to happen to ICC prosecutors. Don’t be surprised if ICC judges suddenly become blind to evidence of genocide. This thing will either fizzle out because you can’t prosecute war criminals in absentia, or someone will be bold enough to arrest war criminals, in which case, we will see the full fury of the West. We will see exactly how far they are prepared to go to protect Israel.

If Israel does not have the leverage we think, Israeli war criminals will be thrown under a bus, and if Israel does have the leverage, you can expect many more places to look like Gaza. One ray of hope is that the empire seems overstretched and can only use up so many bombs before it leaves itself vulnerable. I just don’t know when that point will be reached and I don’t know if the warmongers know how to stop. It seems the balance of power has tilted in favour of the crazier elements of the military industrial complex. The ones who were once dismissed as lunatics, even by the likes of Reagan, now seem to hold more sway.

If we are going to stop these monsters, we have to make it impossible for them to continue. I’m in the minority that believes we could theoretically do something electorally, if only those with the resources would join the fight, but it seems we’re on our own. That’s a scary place to be.

Our unions have been rendered toothless by legislation and by the cowards in charge, but they have the power to bring this country to a standstill. If the establishment wants to drag us kicking and screaming into World War III, our best chance of resistance is a general strike. I’m not sure of the legality of such action, but we’re past the point of worrying about that. Refusal to keep the cogs of the murder machine turning is the most reasonable thing we can do. It’s the one thing that can show the establishment we won’t play their games. If only the unions weren’t so spineless, we could have already done this.

The establishment seems keen on a big war because it gives them the excuse for censorship and the opportunity to unite us against a common enemy. I fear they might be stupid enough to pick an incredibly bloody and expensive fight with Iran. There is a very good chance this is what the Trump administration has planned. Israel certainly wants it, they just want us to fight and pay the ultimate price. Can I take a moment to say fuck Israel?

Worryingly, the empire could get the public on side with a false flag, something that causes outrage and leaves everyone afraid. We’re going to have to be vigilant throughout 2025. We’re going to need the courage to speak out, even when it becomes extremely difficult. Make no mistake, there are bona fide nutjobs in powerful positions and if those nutjobs get their way, they could lead the world to a very dark place.

The tone of this article is bleaker than I would have liked, but not everything is bleak. I’m reminded of the Palestinians who find the spirit and energy to dance in the rubble of Gaza, to raise their hands and show their beautiful smiles and hug and laugh throughout unspeakable torment. If those people can find slivers of joy in their apocalypse, we can too, and we should cling to every bit of joy we can. The greatest act of defiance is to smile back at the monsters in charge. Smile and tell yourself one day we will put you bastards behind bars. We will achieve the better world that the overwhelming majority of us want and deserve.

To achieve a better world, we must stop being sheep and start being lions. The establishment depends on our obedience and fears our strength and unity. No man wants to face a pride of lions.

I feel I must end this piece with an apology. An apology to the good people of Palestine and Lebanon and Syria who we’ve let down so badly. I thought we could force our rulers to bring an end to the genocide in 2024. I kept telling myself surely not even they can be brazen enough to keep it going for so long while we’re all watching. Surely not even they can do a genocide on live stream for 15 fucking months, but, oh god, I was wrong! I learnt so much about them during this process, but I also learnt so much about us. I learnt that we must do better. This has to be everyone’s new years resolution. It’s certainly mine.

Happy new year, everyone, let’s build a situation in which collective hope becomes possible again. What other option do we have?

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