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A week of LA fires, Trump’s inauguration and the “ceasefire” in Gaza

A re-reading of the news through an anarchist lens

Design by Naomi Gennery @nn.aa.ii

Hi, I’m Marcela: I’m a comedian, I live in 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 newsletter has evolved into this beautiful 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 about the Los Angeles wildfires, Trump’s inauguration and the “ceasefire” in Gaza.

Onto the news… 

News that made me feel like we are paying for billionaires’ open bar tab… ’cause we are

I was talking to my friend about the LA fires and it felt like we were in one of those dystopian films where the characters who haven’t been hit by the apocalyptic event are having a mundane moment before the disaster reaches them. I was just waiting for The Rock to show up in a helicopter to save us from the gentrification of Bed-Stuy. Unfortunately, no single man with a helicopter can save us from gentrification, it doesn’t matter how big his biceps are. Especially not a man who is a tool of capitalist propaganda.

To be honest with you, I always feel like I live in a dystopia – because we do! If you don’t feel like we live in a dystopia, you are either Elon Musk or you are on some really good drugs. If you are the latter, please give me the drugs. Unless those drugs are capitalist propaganda to make you believe everything is fine – I don’t want those drugs. I’m still decolonising my brain from the damage done by the show Girlfriends. If you are Elon Musk, please do us all a favour and disappear; feel free to take Trump and the rest of the ruling class with you.

Of course Elon Musk isn’t going to disappear. A world where Elon Musk gets to ruthlessly exploit people without consequences is a utopia for him, and no one leaves a utopia. Unless there is a really petty god who kicks them out of the Garden of Eden because they ate a tasty fruit. I mean how autocratic do you have to be to evict someone just because they ate fruit? The first time I heard the story of Adam and Eve in Sunday school I was on their side.

I bring up Elon Musk because he is a representation of the ruling class who prefer a world where workers are divided while the world literally burns rather than a just society. This is the ruling class that some of us are expecting to save us from this dystopia. No one is shutting down a party they are enjoying when someone else is paying for it. When was the last time you willingly left an open bar before it shut down? Okay, maybe this was just me in my twenties, but you get my point.

The capitalists and their puppets (politicians and media) do not care how many wildfires happen, they will continue to drill for oil because they can externalise all the negatives to us while internalising all the positives. They get private jets with open bars, we get death.

The capitalists always tell us to take individual accountability for our lives when they don’t take individual accountability for theirs. Are the oil companies going to pay for all the homes destroyed by a fire that was a result of a warming globe? Are the weapons manufacturers going to rebuild Palestine? Are the tech companies going to rebuild Congo? No, no, no. I wish that was the beginning of Destiny’s Child hit song No, No, No but unfortunately these are the state of affairs.

News that made me say we live in a global autocracy

The occupying state of Israel’s cabinet approved a ceasefire with Hamas slated to begin on January 19th. I saw footage on Instagram of Gazans celebrating the ceasefire announcement while reading posts on Instagram telling me that the occupying state was still killing Palestinians. I smiled at the joy and cried at the unimaginable pain of displaced terrified people. I know the ceasefire is a relief for people who have been consistently bombed for 15 months. I’m happy the dread of immediate annihilation will be ameliorated for many.

I still can’t shake off the grief of knowing that we live in a world where the will of a few can trample the will of billions.

Most of us cried and screamed against this genocide. We marched the streets. We posted on Instagram. Some of us shut down factories, blocked weapons shipments, boycotted our favourite sodas, broke the windows of the enablers of genocide, but the murdering didn’t stop. I’ve never been a soda lover but I remember someone complaining that every soft drink in the store was manufactured by genociders. Coke’s slogan might as well be “taste the genocide.” Actually, capitalism’s slogan should be “taste the genocide.”

Despite the global outcry, the mass slaughter of Palestinians continued because the capitalist class wanted it to continue. The weapons manufacturers who run our government made their billions. For over a year, Palestinians documented their own genocide, and the whole world watched. The majority of the world as indicated by the UN resolutions for a ceasefire wanted the slaughter to stop. Yet, the US blocked calls for ceasefire and humanitarian assistance. As a final fuck you to the Palestinians, Joe Biden planned an 8 billion dollar weapon sale to Israel right as he is leaving office. Despite the fact that most Americans are against the genocide.

The genocide in Gaza, Congo, and Sudan is a stark reminder that we the people live in a global autocracy fuelled by our blood. We don’t get to decide our own destinies. We don’t even get to decide how we communicate with each other because tech bros like Mark Zuckerberg who enjoy fascism and ugly outfits stand between us. We are wage slaves whose labour is used to murder people we’ve never met so terrible people like Elon Musk can get jaw surgery. I don’t know if Elon actually had jaw surgery but it upsets me to know that we as a collective paid for a billionaire to feel better about his face.

I don’t want to live in a world run by blood. I want to live in a world run by love. A world where loving and taking care of each other takes precedence over anything else. I see glimpses of that world when we do mutual aid or I see journalists in Gaza risking their lives to tell their stories. We have to fight for this world. We have to fight for a world where we get to make decisions for what’s best for our communities – not the ruling class, not politicians who serve the ruling class, not the state. Let’s not let the martyrs’ deaths be in vain.

News that made me quote my Sunday school teacher

I vehemently didn’t want to write about the inauguration because I felt like there were multitudes of people who would have a smarter and funnier analysis of the event. No, there is nothing funny about a fascist being sworn into office but the internet never surprises me with its capacity for dark humour.

However, yesterday as I lay awake in bed, all I could think about was Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos attending the inauguration. I know thinking about these slimy faces will keep anyone awake for eons. Maybe instead of ingesting adderall to survive finals week, students now place the photos of tweedle dumb, tweedle dumber, and tweedle dumberer in their view at all times to scare them into awakeness. I never took adderall in my college years because I’m naturally gifted with insomnia. Finals week was everyone living my daily life, minus the lack of showering.

Nonetheless, I was thinking about the three fascist musketeers because despite all their efforts to trick all of us into thinking their genius is why they are wealthy, they stand on the shoulders of nearly 2 million workers. These three men are stealing the labour of thousands of souls so they can stand next to a foul mouthed racist. Without these workers, Elon Musk would have his old jaw, Jeff Bezos would never have gone to space in a penis-shaped spaceship, and Mark Zuckerberg would have to buy his accessories from Claire’s like the rest of us. I know I’m being petty, but sometimes pettiness is all I have left after the rage has burnt through my soul.

The rage burning through my soul is driven by the thought that our labour is being used by our oppressors to further oppress us. Which means every single time we wake up and go to work to work, we are waking up to oppress each other. It infuriates me! It’s not our choice. We are all doing this because we know if we don’t, we will be houseless or we will starve. This is forced labour! Instead of spending our time taking care of each other and loving each other we spend most of our waking moments harming each other. For those of us with insomnia, that’s a lot of waking moments.

💌

No, I’m not being dramatic when I say we are being forced to labour. Even, the International Labor Association, a capitalist tool for propaganda, defines forced labour as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.” The threat of starvation and premature death from lack of basic needs is a penalty and a threat. We are not volunteering to work, we are being threatened to work. The sweeping of unhoused people’s encampments is a constant threat of work so that Bezos can get another penis-shaped rocket or else!

What do we do in a world of compulsory labour? We refuse. We collectively band together and refuse to use our bodies for evil. I feel like a Sunday school teacher saying use your body for good, kids!

I took a break from screaming into the abyss to beg people on TikTok to revolt  

@feelthenewswithmarcela I had to get this off my chest cause i’m losing it! Also who else was propagadized by Girlfriends? #capitalismsucks #propaganda #leftist #blackanarchist ♬ original sound – Feel the News


See ya later,

Marcela 

What can you do?

Design by Naomi Gennery @nn.aa.ii