They want you to be numb
Israel and the United States have started another war. The propaganda is inescapable. And did you know? You're ruining it if you talk about the parents screaming in the street trying to find their babies.
Feel free to skip to the comments if you read this already in your email
If you talk about the children, deliberately targeted? You are not 'listening to Iranians'. If you're not celebrating slaughter? You must love Ayatollah Khamenei.
Can't you just be happy! Can't you just celebrate?
Every day, we are encouraged in new ways to close our hearts and minds.
Every bombing justified. Every slaughter understandable. Every genocide complex.
Don't believe your eyes. You have no right to care about these children if you're not from that country! You don't understand! It's complex! Sometimes you just have to bomb a school. And also they didn't bomb a school. It was Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State anyone but Israel... OK, it was Israel, but it was a military base that also served as a school. Years ago.
Don't worry about the evidence; those kids will be forgotten tomorrow.
It's nuanced! It's complicated!
And this is just code for: stop trying to make me empathise! Stop trying to make me think!
Did you write daily about it before now? Show me your credentials. Show me your protest history. Show me your fundraisers. Your heart isn't enough and it doesn't matter anyway.
Journalists and commentators and politicians do "analysis" and "explainers" and "statements" which are all just "BIG KILL BOMB GO BOOM BAD MAN DIE USA USA USA" and when they're challenged it's you just don't understand the complexity of the situation, why do you hate Iranians and love the Iranian regime?
It's all so tiring.
So, we do the only thing we can do: we concentrate on the here and now. We keep showing up for our communities, and we hold onto our values even if they isolate us. Even if in doing so we are not toeing the party line, even if we're causing a fuss, even if we're annoying people who just want to....stop talking about all of this.
It's all fixed now. Shhh. There is no way you could have known this but it's nuanced. It's complicated. Let those cliches smooth your poor tired mind. Stop thinking. Stop feeling. Above all, stop thinking: what would I do if that was me? If that blood-stained backpack belonged to my child? Shhhhhh.
Donations have been a game-changer since I switched to Ghost. If you can give a koha to the kaupapa, every little bit helps so much.
Thank you!
A short (non-exhaustive list of things you can do for your community this week):
Rainbow parents are needed to take part in a survey! Link below.
Become a Tax Justice Aotearoa member. Or join up as a volunteer!
Get to a Go Purple Day near you! This movement promotes pay equity and growing solidarity through union membership.
Did you know kindergartens grew from women-led community organising? Join the Kindergarten Movement Webinar and find out more.
Submit on the proposed disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment: The Chaos Coalition is trying to destroy the Ministry for the Environment by rolling it into a super-Ministry, where it will lose the power, influence, and institutional knowledge it currently uses to advise on the environment. This is by design: the Coalition is anti-environment to the core and the Ministry is one of the few remaining handbrakes on wholesale pillage and destruction. Submit against the disestablishment here.
Community events by region
Te Whanganui a Tara
Commissioner for Animals petition handover - this is our opportunity to show the Government that New Zealanders believe in a system that works for animals, not against them.
A fundraiser for PATHA, advocates for trans rights
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVSzAz8E-f7/?igsh=MWRwZjNtemIyaDF2cw==
Pride Hīkoi - Te Whanganui a Tara
Pride Festival - Featherston
Get to a plant sale and open studio for Palestine
Tāmaki Makaurau
Bike Curious - a community climate action event
Māui Dolphin Day & the Recycled Raft Race 2026
Auckland Central door-knock training
Tauranga
Friends of the Bush Benefit Concert 2026
Community kōrero with Marama Davidson
Ōtautahi
Cuba under siege public meeting
Creative Sticker Workshop – Pride Edition – 18+ years
The Real Story in Puberty Blockers
Ōtepoti
They are trying to wear you down. Taking action shows them they can't win.
After the horrific Bondi shootings, I wrote this, and it is as true now as it was then and always is:
When traumatic events like this occur, looking to the helpers and looking to see if we can help should be our default reaction.
Can we help?
Who is helping?
How can we help them to help?
In life, we have the opportunity to again, and again, and again help each other. We can do what we can, where we are. We can devote ourselves to not choosing the option of upholding and nurturing the hatred that is part of the design of terror.
In her excellent book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care, Kelly Hayes says: “To resist the erosion of empathy, we must invite people to participate in acts of care, defense, aid, and rescue.”.
Fill the hollow, hopeless feeling in your gut with community care.
Choose each other over division.
Remember all of the values that we share and act on those values.
Show you believe in the sanctity and sacredness of life by protecting it.
Emily Writes
Emily Writes
Emily Writes
Donations have been a game-changer since I switched to Ghost. If you can give a koha to the kaupapa, every little bit helps so much.
Thank you!