There comes a time, a moment of clarity, when we each realise that the great question in life is, which side are you on? The propaganda that has woven sheep’s clothing for the wolves of the world is threadbare. Fascism is finally donning the stormtrooper armband that it kept hidden in its sock drawer for 80 years. Those who call themselves libertarians are asking for more cops and more prisons – they actually love state power as long as someone is making a profit from it. The Zionists are buddying up with the neo-Nazis – it turns out that actual antisemitism doesn’t bother them, only criticism of Israel. The Western liberals are sending squads of heavily-armed cops to arrest the “terrorists” whose “terrorism” consists of saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” or simply “from the river to the sea”. From the terfs to the techbros it has never been this obvious since 1945 that there is a fascist formation with a coherent fascist movement. Many people are asleep to this, but more are waking. For those who can see, it is time to rouse the sleepers.

Even with a declared ceasefire with Iran, substantive peace is still certain to elude West Asia. Both the US and Israel have established behaviours of violating ceasefires as a matter of course. In the long term the US will never be content to allow Iran to have a military deterrent sufficient to allow itself to exercise sovereignty over its own petroleum resources. While the US empire exists and while petroleum is still crucial to industrial and military applications any period of “peace” will just be a period hybrid warfare while the US prepares to find the pretext for another deadly assault. As with Israel’s aggressions, lulls of relative inactivity should not blind us to a slow ratcheting up of overt genocidal violence. Having bombed Iran so heavily this time, the US will face less resistance for repeating the same intensity of violence in the future.

In order to achieve these objectives the US has needed to abandon it long practices of theatrical benevolence. The mask is off and it is not simply because Trump cannot be discreet. Trump did not get to his position despite being a narcissistic monster from the worlds of organised crime and reality television, he got to his position because of being a narcissistic monster from the worlds of organised crime and reality television. These are the skill sets he brings to the office of the Presidency of the United States of America. He is what the US empire needs because it cannot sustain itself without the Western world giving either commitment or assent to overt fascism and overt racial chauvinism. They can no longer hide the fact that they work on the basis that most people’s lives are disposable to them, so they must sharply divide a minority of largely white Westerners to become their semi-privileged thugs in a war against humanity. We have to show that another way is possible because otherwise, those who strip the working classes of their security will turn their fears into hatred. The path to a life of material dignity will only be open to those who abase themselves to join a system of mass violence against those deemed less human.

So far, though, the more open their fascism becomes the more the resistance grows. Unfortunately that resistance has not forced change on any government throughout the world. Make no mistake that since the beginning of the Gaza Holocaust the institutions of complicity have been under real pressure, their evasions and prevarications and need to be blatantly dishonest has eroded public trust and they know it. The problem is that if we don’t push things to a tipping point, this all becomes the new normal. Our lost trust fosters lowered expectations, the democratic deficit grows and we become ever more resigned to being ruled by an Epstein class of child-abusing warmongering ecosphere-destroying aristocrats.

In reality we all stand to lose – even the bunker-owning billionaires. Neoliberalism has divided and redivided society into tiny weak units, bestowing the privileges of security and baubles on just enough winners to keep others competing to rise as individuals. But those who don’t live in that delusory world understand that our strength only comes from standing up for others. Every injustice we accept being visited on others will see injustice perpetrated on us. When the semi-privileged see their retirement funds evaporate while Elon Musk revels in being the first trillionaire, they too will come to see. We are all connected now. There are no borders, no identities of religion, race, nationality or gender that really matter to the Epstein empire. An injury to one truly is an injury to all.

And now more than ever we need to grow the struggle. Public sentiment is on our side. If we show them that action has the potential to change politics they will join us. That process starts on Saturday. If you can, come to join us as we take action. One way or another, change is coming, and I’m not going not be a lamb led to slaughter. I will see you in the struggle.