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As Israel visits upon the Palestinians in Gaza what the Nazi’s inflicted on the Jews in Europe, western propaganda outlets strain to spin the new holocaust into something less politically troublesome, using gaslighting so polished that its like living in an alternate reality.
This new reality is late stage horror capitalism – a global themepark. Those possesed of disney jobs can wander the park buying toys and sweets, read the funny papers and vote in joke elections where candidates jostle to say and do nothing that might upset the camp’s owners.
When trusted brands like Israel are engaged in genocide you can lobby your approved park representative – or just shout at a guy in a Donald Duck costume in Orlando, the effective result being the same.
We have no political or journalistic institutions anymore – all were hollowed out long ago by capital, replaced by false shop fronts and staffed by obedient water carriers. Sociopathic ciphers like Keir Starmer and client journalism portals like The Guardian are not just hollow – they crowd out the moral sphere with lies.
I was at a vigil yesterday for the thousands of children murdered in Gaza by Israel since October 7th. We gathered on the approach to Shannon Airport to protest its ongoing use as a hub of U.S. weapons to Israel and elsewhere. As the litany of names was read out, I watched people sweep up in luxury cars – some supportive of the Palestinian flags and peace banners, but most just dead eyed / bored and vaguely annoyed that we care.
These zombies are the perfectly neoliberalised citizens of today. Comfortably numb yet vaguely resentful, they live out theme park lives, addicted, distracted and mostly happy for the horror to just happen to someone else. Don’t do it to me – do it to Julia.
The sheer emptiness of modern life is its defining characteristic. While Palestinian children are slaughtered by Israeli fascists, our political class predictably just puffs out smoke, their careers dependent on preventing basic morality entering public discourse.
Contemporary journalism is a client of capital and similarly polices the limits of acceptable debate so as to preclude truth and warm human values. Ever alert to the dangers of waking the slumbering masses, they sabotage the rare politician of principle that even bothers to try and scale the ramparts.
But then how many actually care anyway? There are rat races to be won, addictions to be fed and many distractions to be enjoyed in the theme park at the end of civilisation. Of all the people I know who rage against the fascist atrocities of Israel, I know ten more who are as bubble headed as ever.
Perhaps only a mass horror can really wake up enough people for any of this shit to really change. Will it take a world war or climate vandalism by way of a global ecocide?
There is something grotesquely appropriate about Israel turning Gaza into a death camp – a reflection of the future arc of humanity in the shared neoliberal death camp which our planet Earth has become.
I pray for something to wake us all up – because any political chaos would be better than this apathetic decline. To paraphrase this famous pop hit:
Wake us up inside(We can’t wake up) wake us up inside(Save us) call our names and save us from the dark(Wake us up) bid our blood to run(We can’t wake up) before we come undone(Save us)
Thank you for speaking out.The torment and suffering, and the deaths of thousands of children , is reported daily, and yet it still goes on. This is Hell on Earth, and we are all looking on. And protests are called ‘hate marches’ . How has humanity sunk so low?
Speaking out is all I can do. We will keep doing it.
Go well Carol.
What a great article this is. It resonates so poignantly in my own life. I download your essays and post them widely on the Net so that they are seen in Russia and in North America and world-over. Donation is forthcoming. All power to you! In Lak’ech*
*Mayan for ‘I Am another You’
Many thanks Rory. Go well friend.