ARS NOTORIA EDITORIAL FOR OCTOBER

Trump as Judge Holden in Blood Meridien

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This October edition of Ars Notoria might very well be renamed Ars Notoria Futurum in the spirit of science fiction. All our dystopian futures seem to be arriving at once.

Orwell’s world of disinformation and surveillance is here. The dystopian worlds of Philip K. Dick, the serried ecocatastrophes of J.G. Ballard.

We stand at the abyss. The possibility of nuclear war beckons and that unholy quintet of Starmer, Merz, Macron, Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Rutte whisper, “Jump!”.

Financial and armaments corporations control and outmanoeuvre governments. Artificial Intelligence takes sides and is becoming as mad as a hatter.

And if you can believe it, as this editorial is being written, what is possibly a giant spacecraft the size of London called 3I ATLAS, coloured green and emitting cyanide (CN) and atomic nickel (Ni I), is intersecting the orbit of Mars.

3I ATLAS was first spotted on 1 July 2025 by the ATLAS telescope in Chile’s Río Hurtado.

Hardly anyone reads paper magazines or books anymore; they mainly read from screens, so this issue of the magazine goes into the ether.

Most painfully and strangely of all, we see how a nation made up of people calling themselves Jews, who claim descendancy from those who suffered a European Holocaust, are starving Palestinians to death, murdering, bombing, raping, assassinating, manipulating, and committing almost every horror against the Palestinian people that Yad Vashem memorializes. The Israelis like the Rhodesians and South Africans before them are mere colonialists.

Without the Einsatzgruppen portable killing units and the gas chambers, perhaps, though heaven knows that may yet come. The Israeli genocidalists do all this with the collaboration and support of the current governments of the USA and UK.

Those of us who imagined the 2030s and 40s would be more civilised and decent than the 1930s and 40s are now suffering from a nauseating historical whiplash.

In the heyday of western corporate hegemony, the intellectual toadies of capitalism fell deep inside academic and social wells where they could only hear the sound of their own voices croaking: self-styled philosophers like Stephen Pinker, Sam Harris and Fukuyama and others in their wake, declared that things could only get better.

Yes, Tony Blair will be Gaza’s new camp Kommandant.

The war of the future is here, fought with swarms of artificially intelligent, satellite-coordinated flying robots. Increasingly, our food is genetically engineered for ownership—Frankensteinian food.

The sea levels are rising as old combustion technologies continue to make a good profit for shareholders, and the rich and powerful indulge in organised depravities on their private islands and yachts and mansions that would put Tiberius, Nero and Caligula to shame.

And all in all, we find ourselves living in the future, a future where the president of the USA said just a days ago to an audience of top US generals—who sat in stony silence—that they should practise war on their own people, the people of the USA itself, on the ‘enemy within’.

In the UK, surveillance is now automated; a digital ID will be brought in, and an AI system will monitor every move and word people say. Unless we try to stop it, the dystopia of all dystopias will soon be here.

At the centre of Empire—the centre of the Anglosphere (New York twinned with London), for so long the heart of the storm of global imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism—the place which recently catalysed the death of nearly two million Slavs and facilitated such chaos in the Middle East… for us living in the bullseye, in Great Britain, life is relatively peaceful.

People are relatively polite. You can be gay, you can be trans, you can dress how you want. The state will pay for your medical care; you’ll get some support if you don’t have a job; you’ll get housed. Older people, reaching the ripest of ripe old ages, will go to a home where they’re cared for.

Here, at the quiet centre of the hurricane there are no bombings. There is no mass starvation. The Rawlsian calculus of rebellion is carefully managed. Those most in danger of revolting are bought off with sops. Those who want to keep their jobs in armaments factories—sending hundreds of thousands of bullets to go into Middle Eastern skulls—are reluctant to protest.

Not so in Italy, where a general strike has been declared.

And young people, decent young people, linked up all over the world must think the worst of our western ruling class, which is made up of evil gerontocrats of both sexes who smile and smile and yet are villainous.

The young have high ideals which they try to live up to, but they must enter into this melee, this fracas of selfishness they did not create. This profit driven word is a rat race. But as the British trades unionist, Jimmy Reid said: “A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings”.

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For the young the world is all new and it will be their world in the end. I hope when they write their histories they do not hold back their sense of anger and vituperation. May they be free to tell this truth.

As we speak, the Sumud flotilla has been attacked in international waters 80 km off the coast of Gaza, carrying food and medicine for the starving victims of a genocide carried out by the Israelis, and Greta Thunberg and her friends and brave comrades are being detained. Detained by the same demons who have massacred over 680,000 people in Gaza, according to UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

This mass murder they have committed in addition to all their other crimes. The Israeli Glanton Gang have started wars, grabbed land, assassinated opponents (and allies), carried out large-scale blackmail operations, lobbied the governments of foreign countries and and launched multimillion dollar counterfactual media blitzes.

So, in this coming edition of Ars Notoria—Ars Notoria Futurum—while celebrating the human spirit, we acknowledge that we publish as the world is at the the very threshold of disaster—unless we turn back.

Look up! The HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will snap a 30 km/pixel resolution picture of what may be a cyanide-green interstellar craft as it flies by Mars on the third of October. Call it a metaphor, if you like, but it is a 33 billion ton metaphor travelling at 100 kilometers per second.

The magazine opens with a pressing concern for our media landscape. Karl Rutledge critiques the BBC and other major outlets for normalising far-right rhetoric, asking whether this is a defence of free speech or a dangerous moral failure. In turn, Paul Halas sounds the alarm, calling for the left to consolidate its response to the rising threat of fascism before it’s too late.

Our political analysis continues with a global perspective. Richard Steinhardt notes that the current Pope, Leo XIV, has not adequately stepped up to defend Palestinians against ongoing starvation and genocide, arguing the Vatican has sided with the United States against the multi-polar world. Further amplifying these geopolitical tensions, Phil Hall speculates on the Trump regime’s recent gathering of 800 senior military officers, asking the ominous question: is Trump preparing for a blitzkrieg?

In the realm of culture and the arts, we celebrate the centenary of Nissim Ezekiel, a pioneer of Indian poetry in English. We also present an interview with the Venezuelan poet Carlos Katan, who explores his personal philosophical outlook. From the silver screen, Norman B. Schwartz offers a biographical sketch of Humphrey Bogart, while Jon Elsby reviews Ben Machell’s Chasing the Dark, an exploration of Tony Cornell’s investigations into the supernatural.

This issue also features critical discussions on the misuse of indigenous rights and media as weapons of imperialism. A particularly illuminating article by Andy Hall on his coverage of the Cuban withdrawal from Angola provides a masterclass in journalism in how the mainstream narrative imposes itself on journalists.

We then offer a moment of satirical relief with a parody of an outgoing spy chief’s speech, followed by a dark piece of short fiction from Amal Chatterjee. We are also proud to include extracts from the engaging memoir of chef David Yip, and from Margaret Yip, who details the challenges of family separation.

To cheer us all up, Grace McNicholas writes on the joys of rewilding chickens, and Arun Kapil reflects on the most crucial ingredient in cooking: time. In a keenly felt piece, Phil Hall discusses the Palestinian dish, Fatteh, using it as a lens to reflect on food, family, and the ongoing profound tragedy.

Finally, we end by questioning the very concept of utopia. As we ponder, we are reminded that those who defend their own existing utopia are often the very same who deny everyone else’s.

We publish as the world holds its breath. We must turn back from the brink.

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