There’s no satisfaction in I told you so. It’s basically a mechanic of the mind to make you feel better about resignation. The sigh and the ‘we’ll have to see what happens.’ It’s not so much that it’s a poisoned chalice as much as it is the poison beginning to act. You can scream and fight as they force it down your gullet but defiance is not an antidote. Too many angry discussions of current affairs, politics, social issues, history, go in this direction. For those whose very existence challenges consensus reality when it comes to these areas, the poison is not a drink but the oxygen we share - perhaps a gas leak, waiting for the slightest discourse shift to spark - igniting and creating a fire. I find myself struggling against a bit of a vacuum sometimes when it comes to conversations like this. My early twenties were mostly kicking and screaming - online, primarily - about global violence, exploitation, collapsing systems, patriarchy, hegemony in general, thanks to a very patient and compassionate community and inner circle on tumblr and other online spaces. It didn’t start there but the budding library socialism in me may well have been stamped out by other ideological orthodoxies that surrounded me. Now, starting my thirties, and looking back on my digital footprint in Power Poster and other essays, it’s a relief to know that while the issues of - to name a handful - apartheid violence and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, racial police violence in the US, US foreign policy, austerity and anti immigrant racism here in the UK haven’t gone away the conversation has certainly gotten louder around them. Much of that can definitely be attributed to the shrinking of my echo chamber, though surely anyone who was angry online in 2012 can affirm that the space for people to discuss these things has definitely expanded. We have, thankfully, moved past Facebook profile pic borders. In 2014 when the Scottish independence referendum raged, I found myself battling tooth and nail for the independence of my own country when many around me were telling me they were going to vote against independence. It’s not as though I have any anger to the No campaign, in the ensuing 10 years I’ve oscillated gently between agreeing and understanding the points of view. But I knew then that the promise of remaining in the EU only if we remained as part of the UK was bullshit - like any part of british politics, was completely at the mercy of the oligarch-owned press and the voting constituency to which that press has an uninterrupted messaging line. What good is knowing this? What good is I told you so! In the wake of the EU referendum in which Yes and No voters both feel the ground around them trembling. We are so beyond I told you so this October. I told you so would feel a disgusting, unearned luxury. A year ago discussion still revolved around whether or not Israel’s military had been responsible for destroying a hospital in Gaza. They have since destroyed almost every single one. Journalist Liam Cosgrove, in a briefing with Matthew Miller, says that the US government are treating brazenly the threat of nuclear war but also that nuclear war jeopardizes thousands of years of human achievement. Smirking, Miller says “There are plenty of places to give a speech.” Smirking. The feeling this evokes in me is like no other. I’ve seen the smirk before in a sliding scale of severe situations, and it doesn’t surprise me to see this happen in a situation as dire/brutal/heartless/violent/genocidal as the one we are seeing today in the middle east. He smirked and said that Cosgrove was delivering a speech. What is I Told You So going to do for Matthew Miller? If we stand in the ashes of a ruined world is the type of human being who can be the face of evaporated dead children going to show contrition hearing we told you so? Is being right worth anything? Is being alive? Truthfully, it feels like there is no life, no quantity of lives, that the engines of the United States will not burn to feed the engines of capitalism and the military industrial complex. No amount of ideological discussion, no voting, no feel-good posting will move that needle. And who am I, or anyone outside of the apparatus of power in the US to change it? Is civilization already over, and we’re waiting for the plastic veneer of the death machine to come off so we can see it for what it really is? What becomes of my anxieties and my anguish? Do I keep going in discussions of politics and current affairs - keep the fire burning in the hope my message one day reaches a future head of state? Obviously this is solipsistic. The kinds of things intended by solidarity movements and collective action are intended to have a different effect than appealing to the withered consciences of career politicians. But then it prompts the question of what or who we are posting for. Truthfully though it may be easy for those who toiled in the discourse mines in the early 2010s to assume the learnings are done and we’ve handed the torch on to the next generation but there are always, always blindspots worth ripping apart. But also look at the differences between 2012 and 2024 in terms of the profile of those now unwilling to remain quiet in the face of genocide and violence. It’s always been the mission or obligation of punk and independent artists to raise the flag for such causes, but it feels like those voices are audible above the churn of celebrity nowadays - look at Macklemore! Figure of ridicule in the early 10s, now fighting tooth and nail for that to be heard! (It’s much more than can be said for the quote unquote punk band Idles) fuck your record deal and fuck your marketing department. I never said power poster was going to be all good writing but I mostly think of what to write while going round Alexandra Park in Dennistoun and it’s all I can think of this October. Free Palestine forever.