Harry's Last Stand
"I Got Out, Dad" Death Before The Welfare State.
"On this day in 1943, my grandfather, Albert Smith, died.
When he was twelve, he began working in a coal mine dug beneath the village of Barley Hole. He had a hard life. My father remembered him as a gentle soul with a keen curiosity for history, who could play the piano and loved his children."
#HarrysLastStand #HarryLeslieSmith #JohnSmith #politics #fascism #WelfareState #poverty
Harry's Last Stand
We Became the Fascists Our Grandparents Fought
"Frost was forecast, but it didn’t arrive in the early hours.
Still, the nights are cold enough that I’ve recently seen the homeless at dusk searching for firewood on a patch of abandoned industrial scrubland near my apartment.
Austerity has turned autumn into a threadbare season. The economy strains under the corruption and greed of the entitled"
Harry's Last Stand
The 1% Know Socialism Dies When You Kill the Welfare State
#HarrysLastStand #HarryLeslieSmith #JohnSmith #politics #fascism
Harry's Last Stand
"My Brother Peter, His Art, His Voice, His Life
Schizophrenia silenced him too often in life. Today, I share his words and vision as he wanted them to be seen.
Peter Scott Smith
September 28, 1959-October 18, 2009
He should have been the one to say who and what he was. Instead, I am left to share his art, his reflections, and the memories of those who loved him."
#HarrysLastStand #JohnSmith #PeterSmith #art #MentalIllness #schizophrenia
Harry's Last Stand
Building a Britain Fit for the Working Class
Leaving the RAF: March 1948
From “The Green and Pleasant Land” by Harry Leslie Smith
"At the time of his death, my father was working on The Green and Pleasant Land, a multi volume memoir that aimed to give a ground-level view of working-class life in Britain."
#HarryLeslieSmith #HarrysLastStand #JohnSmith #politics #democracy #fascism
Harry's Last Stand
"From Construction to Destruction: My Father’s Generation and Ours
Some days history seems to repeat itself in the most grotesque ways.Today felt more hopeless than usual.How could it not? Donald Trump received the kind of greeting Hitler coveted from another British King in 1940. Today’s state visit cemented Britain as a Myra Hindley in its relationship with an openly fascist and authoritarian America."
Harry's Last Stand
Our Comrades Will Face Show Trials First
"Now that it is over, the journey into fascism took less time than I expected when the West set out on this political path, twenty years ago. I am not exactly sure when we arrived in the land of black shirts and intolerance. But it doesn’t matter because we are here now."
#HarrysLastStand #HarryLeslieSmith #JohnSmith #fascism #DemocracyMatters #politics
Harry's Last Stand
It Takes Gumption, But Also Compassion & Love To Build A Socialist State.
"Neoliberalism has undone so much since my father’s generation was young in 1948. Today, it is often easier to identify with the hopelessness of the 1930s or the struggles of the war than with the post-war battle to build a new society from the ashes of the old."
#HarrysLastStand #HarryLeslieSmith #JohnSmith #fascism #socialism #democracy #politics
Harry's Last Stand
Humanity is on the back foot because Fascism has almost won.
The past few days felt fateful, as if a cataclysmic history was being written for us. Political and economic waves batter us like a coast line during a hurricane.
An assassination of a major fascist agitator in the USA, a prominent Fox news presenter advocating for homeless people to be euthanised, a hundred thousand racists in London
Harry's Last Stand
When a Welfare State Was the Hope: Housing Then and Now
"For the past 18 months, I’ve been piecing together a project my father was working on before he died: The Green and Pleasant Land. This excerpt comes from a separate volume, Life on the Never, Never, and follows my father, Harry, as he returned to Britain in 1947 from Germany."
For the past 18 months, I’ve been piecing together a project my father was working on before he died: The Green and Pleasant Land. This excerpt comes from a separate volume, Life on the Never, Never, and follows my father, Harry, as he returned to Britain in 1947 from Germany.
Bob Jamieson
