A week of Israel invading Jenin, a border agent trafficking drugs, and protestors disrupting a pipeline construction in Virginia

Hi, I’m Marcela: I’m a comedian, I live Brooklyn, and I really like to tell people how to feel about the news. After wowing zoomers all over on TikTok by giving them news with a sense of humour and anarchy, I decided to start a weekly Sunday newsletter to share my feelings about more news. 

My weekly newsletter has evolved into this beautiful Tuesday weekly news column for shado which also covers international news. I hope the newsletter keeps you informed and makes you laugh a little. We live in hell and I believe humour helps keep this place a little bit cooler.

Today I’m sharing my feelings on the government working with truck lobbyists to keep trucks dangerous, the Israeli invasion of Jenin, West Bank, a Customs and Border patrol agent being arrested for trafficking drugs, and protestors preventing the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. 

Onto the news… 

News that made me explain what would make me enjoy tacos more

Hundreds of people every year in the so-called United States are killed by trucks. Trucks are the trifecta of evil. They kill people, they are bad for the planet, and they are ugly.

In order to prevent deaths by trucks, researchers working for the Department of Transportation (DOT) recommended the addition of a side guard on trucks. The side guard would prevent pedestrians, cyclists, or cars from being caught under a truck and prevent death from people sliding under.

Of course the DOT immediately sent out the regulation for commercial trucks to add side guards that would prevent trucks from being toasters of death. Just kidding. Of course they didn’t. Where do you think this is? A place where people matter over money and food is free? No, this is the land of the pretending to be free where actually everything is up for sale, including human life!

The DOT didn’t force corporations to add side guards to their trucks. It let truck lobbyists from the American Trucking Associations gut out the recommendations to add side guards as any good government run by corporations would.

It gets worse though. Doesn’t it always? The lobbyists said spending thousands of dollars to prevent human death was too expensive and not productive because trucks don’t kill that many people.

I was under the impression that there was no amount of money worth one human life because money is made up and people aren’t. We don’t need money to do things, it’s just a tool to control us. No one has ever gone foraging and have the mushroom ask them for money before allowing itself to be plucked from the ground.

The government which we pay for is letting people die because corporations don’t want to spend money! If I got a mushroom every single time I said this, I’d be able to make mushroom tacos for the rest of my life. Which are delicious, but would be a lot more delicious if I didn’t eat them while living under corporate tyranny.

News that made me feel like no one expects settlers to be nice

Israeli forces invaded Jenin, West Bank because that’s just what settlers do. The invasion killed 17 Palestinians and injured over 100 Palestinians. The Israeli forces not only harmed humans but they also destroyed water and power infrastructure in the city – like any genocidal state would. If you are doing genocide, you are capable of doing anything.

Not that I’ve ever met anyone who has committed genocide. However, I’m pretty sure no one who commits genocide has ever been like, well let’s makes sure we leave the place of the people we are killing intact so they can come back home to a nice cup of tea.

Israel claims they invaded Jenin to root out militants fighting against the Israeli state as if that’s an excuse to murder children and mow down people’s homes. But as I said earlier no one expects people committing genocide to be nice.

My tip to Israel is that if you don’t want people to fight against oppression, maybe you should stop oppressing them. If I don’t want to miss my train, I simply make sure I show up on time. I don’t show up late, miss my train, then blow up the train station because it didn’t bend to my will.

Yes, expecting people to accept you stealing their home and murdering their children is just as illogical as me blowing a train station because I missed my train.

News that made me tell you why people can’t access the drugs they want

A Customs and Border patrol officer was arrested for letting drug-filled cartel cars through the so-called United States and Mexican border for a small fee. I guess the US government isn’t okay with one of its employees picking up a side hustle with another criminal organisation. Yes, I’m calling the United States of America a crime syndicate because it is.

The border cop’s ability to do his side hustle while doing his real job is a perk that most remote workers wouldn’t even dream of achieving. It’s much easier for border officers to moonlight as cartel workers though. Think about it, in order for this man to get paid by his second employer, all he needed to do was to not search someone’s car. So he was literally getting paid extra to not do his job!

As an anti-border human, I’m a fan of border cops allowing drugs and humans to freely move across. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the only crime this man committed was not letting everyone freely cross the border.

If people want drugs or to move somewhere for a better life, they should be able to. Neither the cartel nor the so-called United States government should tell people where to go or control access to drugs. Isn’t that freedom? Why would the land of the free, aka the so-called US, hate freedom?

I’ll tell you why. If people were freely able to move around and do whatever drugs they wanted, syndicates like the cartels and the US government wouldn’t be able to profit from human suffering. Which would mean capitalism would start unravelling, and that would make me very happy. However, it would make Joe Biden’s employers very angry.

News that made me feel like we are like mops but much cuter

Joe Biden and the so-called US Congress, also known as terrible Thing One and even more terrible Thing Two, expedited the construction of Mountain Valley Pipeline, a gas pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia. The Mountain Valley Pipeline’s construction was halted by the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals because of the pipeline’s threat to water quality.

However, as part of the theatre where the republicans pretended they would not raise the debt ceiling, the democrats agreed to overrule the court and expedite the pipeline. Congress literally said, let them drink dirty water and Maria Antoinette couldn’t be prouder.

No, you don’t need to call your congressperson or Joe Biden to tell them that gas is bad for the planet. They already know it – they just don’t care. If you want to call them anyway, call them and ask them when they’ll start stitching patches of all the corporations that paid for their elections on their suits.

The politicians’ job is to wring as much as possible from the planet and humanity to serve capitalists. Politicians are like a wringer in a mop bucket, the capitalists are the ones holding the mop and we are the mop. Okay we are much cuter than a mop, but you get me.

We are the only ones who can stop the politicians from wringing us!

That’s why people who refer to themselves as pipeline fighters halted the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline when construction resumed on July 5th. It’s very fitting this happened the day after the US celebrated its fake independence day to show people what they should be doing on July 4th. This is the best way to celebrate July 4th. Fighting for actual freedom!

Congress might have given the company permission to destroy the planet but the people didn’t. These pipeline fighters are carrying out the will of the people. As a result of direct action, “the project [Mountain Valley Pipeline] has been delayed by five years and is 3.5 billion dollars over budget due to spirited opposition by local pipeline fighters.”

I took a break from the news to talk about classism 

 

@feelthenewswithmarcela Replying to @MiskaLoveDaisy ♬ original sound – Feel the News

See ya next week,

Marcela