I hit a block. I have three separate things I started to write that I’ve struggled to finish. The overwhelming weight of the cruelty is suffocating. Words are stuck in the swamp of sadness. Nothing flows.

When the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was intercepted near Crete, not even close to Israel, and its people kidnapped by Israel western governments stayed quiet. They were trying to deliver humanitarian aid. Then Ben-Gvir, the guy the western governments were silent about when he had his noose cake and when he popped champagne in the Knesset wearing noose pins when they passed the apartheid death penalty, posted a video harassing, mocking, and abusing the civilian hostages. A video posted because he can. Because he has operated with complete impunity for years, free of consequence.

Now governments are upset. It’s deeply troubling. We’re watching the situation. Strongly worded letters and speeches are being penned right now. Mark Carney points out that Ben-Gvir is under sanction. Meanwhile the tortures continue.

What is a Canadian sanction on a foreign individual? They can’t spend a weekend in Muskoka? Their CBC Gem account will be disabled? A useless gesture against a single person. What nameless individual will you sanction for murdering a Canadian in Lebanon? Too weak to denounce the rot in the state, too easy to blame one fascist posting on social media.

Words. Yet at home they enact bubble laws to prevent protests around synagogues selling stolen Palestinian land or around schools where IDF soldiers speak and recruit. Literal soldiers of the IDF are Canadian and/or in Canada, and the only one getting punished is The Maple for reporting on it. Or anyone tangentially Palestine related.

The victims are criminalized and the criminals pretend to be victims.

The USA is indicting a former president of a country for shooting down small foreign Cessnas in its airspace. Planes that had previously dropped leaflets over its capital. Planes with links to the CIA. Planes that approached, despite being denied, during the same year that Cuba accused a US State Department overflight of crop dusting insects over its territory. Valid concerns considering “Operation Mongoose.” The USA indicted a man it has, on record, tried to assassinate multiple times over 60 years. 

All while the USA tries to starve the Cuban people with an illegal blockade.

The USA, the country that shot down an Iranian passenger plane over its territory, over the strait of Hormuz, eight years before the above. 290 were killed. 290. Not only was no one punished but the captain of the cruiser that downed the passenger plane was later awarded a Legion of Merit. These are the people that speak of justice. The ones that later say “I’ll never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”

We’re watching the USA manufacture consent in real time. It sends an aircraft carrier into the region. Maybe there’ll be military action this weekend. They spy for China and Russia. They bought drones. They played as Oddjob in Goldeneye. Nothing the USA says is honest.

The victims are criminalized and the criminals pretend to bring justice.

“To shoot down two unarmed civilian aircraft with American flags on a humanitarian mission should be considered an act of war against the US" they said. I think back to the 2010 Gaza flotilla. 10 civilians were murdered by Israel, some showing evidence of summary execution. One was American. They were on a humanitarian mission. It was never considered an act of war.

You can read in the news that there’ll be future layoffs at your job and live in dread for a month. Or it’s burning in a quarter’s financial report. Your executives will tell you nothing. You’ll just get an email at 6 in the morning letting you know on the day. Your access is immediately revoked.

Or you work at a company that is less in the news – or just gets fewer leaks – and you get a morning meeting. You’re gone. Or your peers are gone. Nothing is said but you see the work #channel member counter drop significantly.

You are put to summarize your job in a skills file. A markdown file. Fucking markdown. Your every action on your computer is tracked to generate training data. Your agent replaces you.

Jobless, hopeless, sad. It’s how they want you to be. It’s easy to get despondent and give up. I would say it’s my natural state. It’s easy to get angry, but am I angry enough to do anything? I just write and speak and with that I’m behind on the power balance. If I were to say what I wish would happen to these people, things they say openly, things they actually do to people, I would be the one put on a list. I would be the one breaking Terms of Service. I would be the one banned and questioned.

I’m not young, not an activist, not an organizer but this letter to young activists / organizers made me feel better: Read This If You're New and Trying to Find Your Way - In These Times.

make space in your life to begin again every single day. Be astonished at mundane things in your world. Build positive actions into the fabric of your life.

I will never have the courage of those in the Freedom Flottillas, those that kept doing it after activists were murdered. Those that kept doing it after they were kidnapped. Those that will keep doing it even after the latest round of abuse. But I can hope.

Listen to This

Martyna Basta2674 (feat. Rainy Miller)

Trying to get unblocked by letting it out,

sometimes.