And let's be clear: having your people massacred while there are two million self-serving thinkpieces and shouty capslock-filled YouTube videos is not fun. I don't appreciate our pain being a hashtag. I don't appreciate watching everyone rush to give their hot take in the hopes of going viral.
6. None of us are free until Palestine is free.
Thank you! I periodically consider starting a blog or newsletter but really I'd love to be a regular guest writer for a newspaper or magazine (writing about geopolitics/culture/history especially in South and Southwest Asia, or food, or an advice column about mental health in times of crisis)
Which also means I keep having that guilty relief of "that wasn't so bad" followed by the rage of "we have so completely and utterly normalized the brutalization of my that this is what NOT SO BAD feels like."
My feelings are large and complex and at some point I really need to just start a blog/newsletter or get back into journalism because I cannot usefully talk about this on BlueSky, but here's an attempt:
7. Speaking of Palestine, having watched decades of brutality against Palestine and Afghanistan (and many many other nations, but these are the ones where I hold lineage) be handwaved and dismissed and justified and ignored, I always figured that if the US & Israel bombed Iran no one would care.
I'm grateful people cared. It's a complicated jagged angry gratitude. People are still being arrested in this moment for speaking against the genocide of Palestine, and if Iran didn't have the military and strategic power to strike back we'd have justified it more quickly (see: Cuba.)
Thank you, that's really kind!
I've been boycotting NYT for ages but I adore The New Yorker for fiction/poetry and @hels.bsky.social's food column
But I appreciate the widespread agreement of "this is Bad, actually." It's a nice break from having to grieve and also simultaneously argue for the right to grieve. May condemnation of imperialist violence be normalized, and may it create more action and fewer hashtags.
