Israel today is no different than Nazi Germany

There is zero doubt that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. They deliberately murdered aid workers who were delivering critical food aid to Gazans suffering under a brutal IDF bombardment campaign and famine induced by Israel. As a former aid worker myself, this cut particularly deep.

The aid trucks did everything by the book, getting advance permission, informing the IDF of their coordinates, having their logo clearly on their vehicles and yet…they were still killed with precision missiles, fired one after the other even after the aid workers tried to escape following the first strike (check out the second picture below showing the distance between strikes, clearly indicating a deliberate military operation). Israel did this to systematically prevent further food aid from getting to Gaza, starving an already brutalized population. And they succeeded, with other aid convoys halting plans for food delivery after the killings.

Israeli society seems to have gone past a generational fascist tipping point, with a bloodthirsty, advanced military conducting ethnic cleansing and the overwhelming majority of the population goading them on. History will remember the Israel of today as no different than Nazi Germany. There is a reason why, despite being a wealthy country, more people leave Israel than come in (yerida outnumbering aliyah to this day). Israeli society seems to be drowning in bloodlust, blocking aid trucks going into Gaza, celebrating the deaths of women and children on snuff channels, and actively calling for the complete genocide of Palestinians.

Enough is enough.

If you still support Israel after all this, you are no better than a Nazi.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/chef-jose-andres-says-israel-targeted-his-aid-workers-systematically-car-by-car-2024-04-03/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/04/gaza-world-central-kitchen-aid-operations-explainer

***

Broken Shackles Media | April 4 2024

The BJP’s Mafia State

Broken Shackles Media | March 17 2024

It’s pretty frightening just how much of a mafia state the BJP-led Indian government has become, garnering almost 50% of the electoral bonds in the country. Did I say “garner”? I meant swindle and steal, utilizing raids by powerful central government agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Department, and Central Bureau of Investigation, among many others to arm twist companies into purchasing said bonds.

You know, mafia type shit.

Central regulatory and investigative agencies essentially acting as the private mercenaries of Modi, Shah, and their acolytes.

Thankfully the Supreme Court of India has proven to be a bit of a democratic bulwark against the BJP’s gangster approach to national governance, forcing the Election Commission to release data about Electoral Bonds after the EC hemmed and hawed, stating that it would take them four months (i.e. after the 2024 Indian General Election to be held April through June) for data that they essentially could have gotten via a simple search command.

As was proven to be the case.

Ladies and Gentlemen…The BJP’s Mafia State:

https://frontline.thehindu.com/news/eci-reveals-electoral-bonds-data-bjp-congress-trinamool-top-beneficiaries-biggest-donors-future-gaming-megha-engineering/article67954271.ece

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/ed-raids-were-conducted-on-companies-to-get-electoral-bonds-for-bjp-congress/articleshow/108520123.cms

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/aap-slams-bjp-on-electoral-bonds-data-received-funds-from-firms-raided-by-ed-101710505937063.html

https://scroll.in/article/1065267/after-raids-by-central-agencies-these-21-companies-purchased-electoral-bonds

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/sbi-electoral-bond-data-14-companies-under-ed-cbi-scanner-donated-over-rs-4-000-crore-to-political-parties-11710493008447.html

https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/electoral-bonds-donors-raided-by-investigative-agencies-cbi-ed-income-tax-bjp-tmc

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/congress-exposes-bjps-chanda-do-dhanda-lo-policy-electoral-bond-scam-unveiled/articleshow/108535981.cms

https://thewire.in/politics/sc-verdict-renders-pm-modis-anti-corruption-plank-shaky-amid-electoral-bond-revelations

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/video/fresh-details-of-electoral-bonds-now-public-data-shows-bjp-got-maximum-funds-2516112-2024-03-17

Broken Shackles Media | March 17 2024

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

By Emma Lazarus (1883 manuscript) – https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/images/hh0041s.jpg Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17155055

Internalizing this Emma Lazarus poem, famously inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, is less about altruism and compassion, and more about plain common sense (you know, not being a dumbass).

Crapping on immigrants and migrants in America is among the more moronic forms of dehumanization in a veritable smorgasbord of fake problems that rightwing nationalists keep frothing on about.

For starters, without immigrants this economy would crash and burn, eventually becoming a backwater, lower middle-income, plantation republic. Hell, that’s how it started, despite all the brute advantages it had from colonialism, genocide, and slavery. It needed immigrants to become an industrial superpower.

Immigrants pay taxes without representation and contribute more into the system than they take out. They are not eligible for the vast majority of social security and welfare benefits, while still paying into it. Immigrants are less likely to break the law and more likely to stay working longer hours, than Americans with birthright privilege. We, as citizens, benefit immensely from this unequal arrangement.

This only works if America allows for the open, competitive, free exchange of people and capital. America needs to embrace humanism and not dumber, baser instincts like religious nationalism.

More importantly, it needs to continue being a desirable place for immigrants and migrants. Else this economy is dead. All your racist parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts are increasingly being taken care off by immigrants and migrants who are willing to put up with crap wages. All the roofing crews in my neighborhood are staffed solely with hard working dudes from Central and South America. I’m pretty sure Liam, Tyler, and Cody from vanilla ‘burb highway town America aren’t applying to be fruit pickers any time soon.

Health, construction, agriculture, retail services, hospitality…entire sectors would collapse without migrant and immigrant labor.

In short, xenophobia is dehumanizing and downright idiotic. Stop it. Get a life. Do something productive rather than demonizing people who keep your economy of excess running.

Stop romanticizing “the masses” and protect individualism. It might be our only bulwark against autocrats.

Countries colored with green have cultures that are more individualistic than the world average. Countries colored in red have relatively collectivistic cultures. Reference:
Beugelsdijk, S., & Welzel, C. (2018). Dimensions and dynamics of national culture: Synthesizing Hofstede with Inglehart. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(10), 1469-1505.

I used to be one of those people who romanticized “the people” and valorized “the masses”.

Now I’m feeling a little different.

I’ve experienced a couple of decades of various masses in various countries increasingly choose nationalism, religious fundamentalism, chauvinism, xenophobia, autocracy, and brute naked majoritarianism when making political choices. All while whipping themselves up into a frothy hysteria just because they’re depressed, miserable, and need someone to blame.

Progressive collectivist ideals have failed to stem the tide of obscurantism and fear that the masses of the world are subjecting themselves to. It takes too long to get a message of social cooperation across the rising cacophony of rightwing fear mongering that appeals to our baser, easier to access emotions. Currently I fear the only bulwark against this rising fascism and misogyny across the globe is the rise of individualism that has, ironically enough, undermined leftist ideals of collectivism.

I don’t think the collective needs as much protection as leaders would have you believe. We are a social species and always will be. Even in this current age of mass disconnection due to digital alienation, people seek community any which way they can access it. We will never lose the social and we will never abandon the collective…for the simple reason that it is impossible to do so.

Humanity doesn’t need to fear individualism. On the contrary, I daresay we should cherish and nurture it. We already know that the individual needs the collective, but it’s important to understand the converse is equally true. The collective needs us to be individuals.

We don’t need saviors, prophets, or great men.

We just need each other as rational, individual beings.

Home is where the heart is…

My heart belongs to the place my family chooses to call home.

Above all, it will be with my family, progeny prioritized to embrace their fundamental right to liberty.

Disavowing the classists and dogmatists, the puritans and supremacists, the fearmongering gatekeepers and guilded misery seekers.

We are a social species;

Therefore,

Long live the individual.

The Minnesota Dept of Education and State Auditor need to conduct a thorough audit of charter school Affiliated Building Corporations.

They are essentially private schools being run with public money;

With none of the market accountability that actual private schools must subject themselves to;

And pretty much none of the government oversight that public schools are legally mandated by.

It’s an unregulated free for all – with public money.

What’s really problematic however, is the fact that they get to own real estate – with tax-free revenue bonds and shady loopholes in the charter statute that allows then to set up their own building companies.

That’s the people’s money and thus must be subject to oversight by representatives of the people – elected and appointed.

If charter schools are delivering to the public as promised, then great, have at it and more power to them.

But if they’re not, then perhaps there needs to be a reappropriation and redistribution of our children’s money to ensure it benefits the children first.

***

Broken Shackles Media – citizen journalism – Oct 6 2023

There is a special level of venom I have for xenophobes.

Maybe it’s because I’m an immigrant myself.

A very proud immigrant who despises the nationalists of all three countries he has passports with.

So I’m just writing this blog to say…

Fuck you, if you’re a xenophobe.

And get a fucking life.

We’re all human beings, you miserable piece of shit.

Nationalism is for losers and cowards.

The only reason you hate immigrants is because we’re tougher, smarter, and more resilient.

Why do you think even your frothiest nationalist leaders can’t and won’t do shit about it?

We’re the reason your economies of excess are actually functioning, stupid.

And guess what?

We’re outcompeting you birth-privilege-wallowing bozos in the process.

Compared to where we came from, this shit is easy.

So, here’s a suggestion:

Stop fearing us…and start learning from us.

Up your game.

Cos our kids are going to have an edge your kids won’t.

Psst, hey Europeans (and all other dumb border nationalists)…

THIS EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYBODY

No one is illegal.

Dear fellow migrants:

Leaders like Meloni and her toxic ilk are meant for the trash heap of history.

Smash those borders and demand your reparations.

Europe’s parasitic ways are coming back to haunt them.

This is karma for their colonial plunder.

And lest we forget…

THIS EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYBODY

The most religious communities…

Produce the most backward thinking citizenry.

This is probably difficult for some people to internalize, perhaps even offensive for many to state out loud.

But it’s a truth that has, without fail, made itself apparent to me time and time again, over many decades.

Adults who have their religion be the end all and be all of their lives imprison their own minds.

And this is their right to do so.

But what is unacceptable, indeed downright immoral, is when the minds of children are imprisoned.

So…make no mistake.

Some of us will always hold the line.

We’re stubborn that way.

For this age of reason has soldiers.

Just look at those lines…

RAV 9/6/23

Barely 9 months ago he was covering the sheet in chicken scratches.

Humans are metal.