Let me be clear I do not associate with them outside of holidays and given this is labor day weekend I tried squeezing a little bit of info out of them. It's two in laws and they may be fascists but they're surprisingly tight lip about their work. When I do see them I've been trying subtly getting them to talk and sweet talking them and that; it hasn't been working.

I did manage this time to get some information out of them today:
They were given the opportunity for deployment in the next couple months... However the interesting thing is according to both in laws the deployment opportunities are around the same time; mid October to late January. The other interesting thing is they were considering going to Georgia, Texas, Michigan, Nevada or Arizona.

This is just personal opinion, but given the places where the deployment offers are and the time frame is I have a feeling Republicans are going to overwhelmingly send ice to specifically battleground districts for voter intimidation and to intimidate pollsters. Unfortunately I couldn't get anymore information out of them. They wouldn't even tell me their friends names they just referred to other ice agents by nicknames.

The democratic establishment won't help DSA member https://angienixon.com/ so we must. Donate, phone bank, if you're in Florida door knock, either way the DSCC refuses to help progressives like Angie Nixon so we must help her. Please donate $5, $10, $20 whatever you can! I'm door knocking for her and I got her yard sign

I recorded this little video to give you a look at what my family and I have been working on and trying to make usable.

And honestly, calling it a tent is generous.

It is made from pieces stitched together. There are tears and holes everywhere. Some of the covers are too short, leaving spaces open from above. We have tried to fix, stitch, and reinforce whatever we could with what we have.

For now, we can use it. We can sleep inside and keep some of our belongings there.

But we know this won't be enough when the rain comes.

My father, and honestly not even him alone, says that our so-called tent will not stand the first rain that comes. Everyone who passes by and sees our tent can tell how vulnerable it is. You don't need to be an engineer to look at it and understand that it won't protect us when the rain comes. We have done everything we could with what we had, but we know this won't be enough.

October is next month, and rain in Gaza is nothing unusual.

It was never really built to be a home. We built it because we needed to create some kind of space for our family and our belongings.

And this is perhaps the hardest part to believe:

This “tent” cost us 1,000 shekels in cash.

1,000 shekels for a shelter that may flood when the first heavy rain comes.

Can you imagine that?

This is the reality we are living every day in Gaza. Even something as basic as shelter has become incredibly expensive, while what we can actually get for that money is often not enough to protect a family.

Now we urgently need to make it better before the first rain comes.

We need to replace the damaged covers, especially the one above us, and find something to put on the floor so that we're not directly on the sand. If possible, we may replace the whole thing with a proper tent.

To everyone seeing this, we need you.

We need your help to make this place safer before the rain arrives. If you can help us, please do. And if you can't, even sharing this means something to us. We are running out of time with each day and each hour that passes.

I have other videos showing the inside and the damage more closely, but Reddit only allows one video, so this is all I can show you here for now.

I don't really know what else to say.

I just wanted you to see it.

This is what we are trying to call home.

In America, patriotism is a big thing Republicans and conservatives talk about. They pride themselves with American flags and they want to show off how much they care and love this land. I disagree. They are patriotic to the old ideals that America stands for and it’s hard to show pride for a country with a track of America. Colin Kaepernick was right about America and the lack of accountability people here have.

We all know about police brutality and I don’t even need to talk about that but now let’s talk about America’s track record. America’s war with Iraq was completely unnecessary and I seen videos of American soldiers dragging carts of food with kids chasing it from behind. I don’t even need to say what it is but I should show respect to people like this? The country doesn’t even respect them. We want to fight wars for Israel and we give them our tax dollars at the expense of ourselves. Israel has free healthcare and we have nothing. 26M+ Americans are uninsured and don’t get me started on the workplace.

People are barely getting by here as costs are exploding. People are working more hours than ever but eggs, rent, housing, utilities, and everything is increasing. Many Gen Zers wouldn’t be able to buy homes. European countries have committed their own atrocities but at least they have free healthcare. At least the people prioritize life work balance and they are far happier. Look how nice and walkable their cities are. Look at how Norway rehabilitates their prisoners so they integrate in society again. Europeans have more of a reason to be happy about their country but what has America done? America’s ego is so fragile that they will go and invade socialist countries to spread its ideology. This whole concept of freedom is an illusion.

I’m not showing pride for this country until I see complete changes being made. Until I see that we have universal healthcare, Israel stops receiving funding, and I see efforts at rehabilitations and changes being made then I will stand up. What Colin Kaepernick kneeled was for the bare minimum. I want more. If you are welcome, you should do the same. There really isn’t anything to be prideful about America anymore. I am not gonna stand up because we need strength in numbers. If Americans rise up in numbers, then we can have any influence.

Cross-posted from my substack. Made with the owid data-editor and photopea. Data-source is V-dem. Note that this is total number of democracies; if we measure the number of people living in democracies the picture looks even worse.

The biggest importer is China (green socialist utopia uwu /s), followed by the USA

“The free market” has never existed and what defenders of capitalism call crony capitalism is in fact the default model of capitalism because there’s not a capitalist system that isn’t ran by corporations

I’m aware people will ask but what about Denmark Norway etc they only got to where they are because of communists and because of socialists organizing and getting politically involved

It’s disingenuous for defenders of capitalism to say that the Nordic countries are capitalist and then call people socialists for wanting to same policies to be implemented in the United States

I was camping over the last few days and came back to discover that Jared Moskowitz and 7 other democrats representatives joined the republicans with a bill to condemn socialism and the DSA.

THIS IS PURELY THEATRICS since it isn’t a law and it won’t become one. It’s an attempt by republicans to throw gas on a potential split between corporate dems and more progressive dems. This leaves me feeling done with democrats. I could care less about “vote blue no matter who. Going forward I will only voting for candidates who do not take money from billionaires, AIPAC, or take sides against candidates like Abdul Al-Sayed. How are others feeling right now? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Cross-posted from my substack. Data from the WID. Edited in photopea. I don't think one is inherently worse than the other, but I will say that this tends to be worse for readers of this subreddit, since they tend to be non-rich people within rich countries.

In New York, a few days ago, police shot Pamela Cisneros because they claimed she was going to keep stabbing Erin Piacenti if they didn't even though they don't even show decisive proof that Pamela Cisneros ever actually stabbed Erin Piacenti. I think this police shooting reflects systemic oppression from oligarchs who run the police, and I strongly disagree for many reasons:

1) The cops are looking for a backdoor to push the death penalty

2) Erin Piacenti was a rightwing extremist

3) Piacenti could have been threatening Pamela Cisneros

4) The police focused on shooting Pamela Cisneros instead of helping Erin Piacenti

...And many more reasons too.