Ally, I don't often comment on your posts, but I read every word, and I nod like a crazy person because you have a clear, incandescent voice that distills outrage and despair into a call for compassion and empathy. And because I am a person who seeks solace in books, I also want to recommend Colum McCann's novel, Apeirogon. It's a gutting, gorgeous novel based on true events, particularly the friendship between an Israeli father who lost a 13-year-old daughter in a suicide bombing and a Palestinian father who lost a 10-year-old daughter to a rubber bullet fired by an Israeli border guard. I read a review that called the book an "empathy engine," which I think is such a perfect term, and applies to your writing, too. Thank your writing, your grief, your outrage, and the power of your words.
Thank you so much, Irena, I will order this book immediately. I can’t thank you enough for your words, too, because that is always my hope. No one needs another essay that will just add to the rage or despair. I am always trying to hold onto some hope, even if it comes out like rage some weeks. Thank you for seeing that and understanding me so clearly 🥹🙏🏼
I don’t know if you read Joanna Chen’s gorgeous essay “From the Edges of a Broken World” when it was first published in Guernica, and then retracted? I did, and was astounded when they pulled it. If you missed it, you can read it here. I suspect you will also find it exceedingly painful and beautiful and worth everyone’s time: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/03/18/from-the-edges-of-a-broken-world/
Oh, wow, Ally. So much overlap between the article and the book. Unbelievable that it was pulled, but at the same time absolutely believable. There is so much rage and pain on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, not helped at all by hot takes on social media and elsewhere (*really,* Guernica??) by people who appreciate neither the Gordian knot of Middle East history nor nuance. Empathy is the only thing that's going to get us through, and yet so many people refuse to see it.
I ordered the book and can’t wait to read it. Honestly that essay is the best thing I’ve read about the entire situation to date. There is no way forward if people are going to insist on this monolith/binary way of viewing everything. It doesn’t serve anyone, and it isn’t even real. Thanks again for your comments, Irena, they mean so much to me 🥹🙏🏼
I can't wait to hear what you think of the book. I read it a month ago and can't stop thinking about it.
On a different (but somewhat related) note, I am so deeply grateful for this conversation. I'm Jewish, and ever since Oct. 7, I've felt profoundly alone—because these days, in our tribal, binary, monolithic, virulently angry world, you're either team Israel or team Palestine, and if you so much as open your mouth to point out how complicated and fraught the situation is, you get shouted down. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. There's an armed guard in front of the Chabad house around the corner from my house—in quiet, suburban Palo Alto. There are children being shot in Gaza and buried under rubble in Iran. That's why Apeirogon gave me so much hope: because it's about seeing the humanity in others, about meeting them where they are. Because we have to start somewhere. Anyway, sorry to ramble and again, thank you for being here. (Also, let's start an Apeirogon book club because I think it should be required reading FOR EVERYONE.)
The inability to have meaningful, painful, nuanced conversations, and the desire to paint everyone with one large brush is one of the saddest parts of this whole mess. I am so looking forward to this book and I would be totally down for a book club ♥️ I should probably read the book first, though 😉 Hugs and love.
I dropped my daughter at work this morning, then drove home listening to Eve of Destruction, 'over and over again'.
It's strange to feel the same emotions I felt in my adolescence; to have the same lyrics be so applicable to what is happening in the world today.
Trump isn't Nixon and Iran isn't Vietnam, but the patriarchy and bigotry are still going strong. I have to say, this actually feels worse, since then we were (seemed) more unified against corruption, and of course, there was no AI.
I believe we will see better times, and justice done, though I couldn't say exactly when. Evil can be vanquished, but it has a nasty habit of making a comeback.
Thank you Ally; I know this is draining work, and I appreciate you. Take care🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
I agree, it does feel worse because it seems like we ought to know better by now. “We’ve seen this film before and we didn’t like the ending.” Are people seriously going to maintain their loyalty to this hollow, self-serving man to the extent that they’ll send their *children* to die “in service to their country”? He’s changed the objectives of this war four times in four days. They can’t even get the messaging straight.
The part that hurts so much is the kids, everywhere. The innocent people who want no part of this. I understand there are some people celebrating, just like there would be some people celebrating here if a certain thing happened. But if it happened at the hands of another Mad King who —possibly? reportedly? —thought he was anointed by Jesus? Jesus! Anyway.
Meanwhile it’s the billionaire authoritarian men in their last decade wreaking the most destruction and guilty of the most grievous corruption and heinous crimes, and we’re all screaming at each other. They did a great job with that part.
I agree we can fight evil/greed/corruption/misogyny/bigotry/racism back again. I think more people need to see who the perpetrators really are. Who is benefiting from this system? Because it isn’t 99% of us. I just hope we get it together sooner than later. I went and listened to Eve of Destruction and had a good sob. Thanks for being here as ever ❤️🩹
I'm glad there are people who are able to write about this because I know it is hard. I hope it helps some to get it out of your head and into ours. We are all in this real life nightmare together and I do mean all. 😢
It always helps me to try to get my thoughts organized and out of my head somewhere I can look at them, and it helps even more when other people are like, omg, me too. Or wait, what? Lol. Anything where we are in a conversation together and not trying to deal with this nightmare in little boxes by ourselves feeling scared. So thank you for being here, Mary, and for being one of the people who always makes me grateful I battled through the weeds of the thoughts that didn’t make it into the essay ❤️🩹🥹
Amen sister. Everything you said. My husband told me this morning that he longer possesses the super power he had for 60+ years—the ability to sleep soundly through the night. I don’t understand how anyone can at this point.
I so relate to that sentiment, Martha. I barely slept last night. When I do get a decent night of sleep these days, it happens because I’ve had four nights of fitful sleep or little sleep at all. Hugs to you, thank you for being here ❤️🩹❤️🩹
You and me both, Alice. It is astonishing, terrifying, enraging and utterly depressing. I remind myself again and again, this is 39% of the voting public, not the country. Which still does not help very much. I wish we could shut down Faux News. I know that wouldn’t solve everything, but I bet it would help. Hugs to you, thanks for being here ❤️🩹
It's unreal, isn't it? After yet another unbearable thing, I'll see a headline saying his approval rate just plummeted... all the way down to 39%. I'll never understand it.
It is such a moral failure to allow children to suffer anywhere. I can’t wrap my head around it. Sometimes when I write about these things someone will say, “did you say this when children were dying in ____?” And the answer is yes. I’ll always say it, wherever children are dying, and the minute a person can’t, something has gone wrong. I don’t know how we’ve gotten to a place where people want to try to weaponize empathy or come up with terms like “toxic empathy” but good luck to them. Some things should be easy to figure out. Thanks so much for being here, Stephen ❤️🩹
This is so clear and present - as in danger. The danger we are all in because of this #*%€£¥| orange scab and his WCN enablers and billionaire suckups. But I digress: beautifully said, Ally. “a planet that provides all the resources we need if only we’d share — and this is what we do instead.”
“There is a war on now which no one wants to fight, in which no one can see a gain —a zombie war of sleep-walkers which nevertheless goes on out of all control of intelligence. Some time ago a Congress of honest men refused an appropriation of several hundreds of millions of dollars to feed our people. They said, and meant it, that the economic structure of the country would collapse under the pressure of such expenditure. And now the same men, just as honestly, are devoting many billions to the manufacture, transportation, and detonation of explosives to protect the people they would not feed.” This is from Steinbeck’s “The Log From The Sea of Cortez” circa 1941. I have been dragging this book around for decades and now find it the right place/right time to read it. I am rather stunned by these words. What has changed!?!? Nothing!!!!!
This was like reading my own thoughts! I agree with you 100%. I can't believe we have so-called leaders who won't even do anything to take him down. What could he possibly have on them but they are so fearful of him that they let him make all these horrible decisions that affect so many people's lives. I too do not believe only seven service members died. I heard there were over 150 some with massive injuries. That I believe. But they will never get better and they and their families will fight that war forever. And the people that bury their children in any conflict will fight that war forever. There are days I want to buy 100 cans of soup and a gun and hide my family in the basement. And then I go to my Bible and try to calm down. This is as confused as I have ever been in 70 years of life
I wish there were somewhere safe for all of us to go who never wanted any of this. Or that there were a place for the people who voted for this man to go, and take him along. That we could rip the matrix and have two realities, because I want no part of this and I can tell you don’t, either. It feels so enraging and horrifying that our fates are tied, and no matter how loudly you try to yell that over the fence, they just do not care. I get the cans of soup/basement thoughts, Cathy. I have those thoughts, too. I have to fly tomorrow and I’m scared and I hate that I’m scared. I want to be in the same state with my kids right now because the world feels precarious. It’s all so sad because it doesn’t have to be like this. Anyway, sending you huge hugs and love. Thanks for being here ❤️🩹
We’ve had offline discussions about this offline and right now I can’t think of anything to say except something accusatory and sarcastic and scathing that should probably stay offline.
Another incredibly crafted essay, Ally. I can definitely say that.
Thank god for our offline conversations. They keep me sane, and that way not everyone has to be subjected to our most scathing and sarcastic remarks 🤣 And thanks. Always means the world from you. Xo
To the "This is your moment" performance, I say to the Secretary of Mediocrity: "Go yourself, then. Put your daughters in that school." These people are playing video games with real lives and getting their rocks off on the perception of winning. Epic Fury, FFS?!
Your last line, Ally, is what I wish everyone could hear: It’s hard to win if you’re FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLE, and there are no winners in a war."
Yes, you are allowed to feel all the feelings. The devastation is soul-sucking. I'm grateful you are doing what you can to press on, to the benefit of the rest of us.
They are all such toxic, tough guy cos-players. Meanwhile they would not sacrifice a hair on their heads for someone else. But I agree, the men who so casually start wars should be the first to put their lives on the line. That still makes all of us unsafe, though. Really they just need to be stripped of their power. Wish we could do it today.
I will always be drawn to how you refuse to gloss over the nuance, the difficult simultaneous truths there are to be held. You just hold them, and you do it so we can all see. Grateful for you.
Another essay of yours after which I have a sore neck from nodding along. I don't even have words any more, like two people who just nod to each other, knowing without ever saying anything. I will say I'm thankful you're here, and I'm glad you're writing what you write. Hugs to you, friend <3
Nodding works, god knows we put enough words out there every week, and most of the time I feel like you’re in my head, anyway 🤣 I’m glad and thankful you’re here, too, doing what you do. Hugs and love ❤️🩹
Thanks as always for having the courage to stay in your feelings long enough to string all these thoughts together so beautifully. I can imagine how hard it must have been because thinking about all of this makes me sick too.
Like others, I really resonated with the ideas of, "if kids are dying we have lost the plot," and "we have this beautiful abundant world and this is what we have chosen to do with it??" These are two core principles that I just can't understand how anyone with a beating heart could disagree with. If we ever do manage to progress as a society, I hope these principles are at the core of what we build.
I hope so, too, Cody. I don’t know how we build anything meaningful without those really basic ideas as part of the foundation. I long for the days we can look back on this time as the time the machine broke and everything fell apart and we planted a garden instead. I hope we get there sooner than later. Sending you love and giant hugs.
You had me at "I don’t know how to be close to people who want to pretend the ground underneath us is solid. It’s never solid, things can always change in a day, in an instant, no matter how much you plan — but I don’t think it’s ever been less solid in my lifetime than it is right now." I no longer am, to be honest. God, how I miss feeling that the ground is solid.
Yeah I don’t think I am close to those people anymore, either. I feel like we live in different realities. I don’t ever want to be someone who can know children are dying at the hands of stupid, greedy men — and somehow be okay, and I don’t want to be close to people who operate that way. They must not be in their bodies.
I think I always have this acute awareness that everything can change in an instant. I am pretty sure it happened during my labor with my son, and that feeling stayed with me. But I miss feeling like a small patch of ground might be solid. That doesn’t seem like a lot to hope for. Sending you a lot of love, Rita. I would hold your hand while hurtling through space any day ❤️🩹
Thank you Ally for writing with such eloquence as usual. As an Iranian living in the US, I am beyond gutted at what is happening to my country of birth. Yes, Khamenei was a dictator who led an oppressive theocratic regime for over three decades. It's also true that a certain number of Iranians, especially those living in diaspora and some in Iran, celebrated his demise. However, despite what the LA-based pro-Zionist, pro-war, pro-Pahlavi contingent seem to believe, Khamenei and the government still have a large base of support inside of Iran which now can use his "martyrdom" in the holy month of Ramadan as a rallying point. Iran is a majority Shia country and one of the defining tenants of Shia Islam is martyrdom in the face of oppression, so congrats to US and Israel for creating a martyr out of an old crippled tyrant who would have probably died soon enough.
Also, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the US engineered a deliberate dollar shortage in Iran, causing the collapse of the Iranian currency. The first few days of protest in Iran were peaceful and only targeted economic issues but according to credible reports and even by Mike Pompeo's stupid tweet, Mossad agents started infiltrating these protests and inciting violence which triggered the government's response and the murder of thousands of Iranian protestors. Now as evil and horrible as the Iranian government is, don't the US and Israel also bear some responsibility for the deaths of all the protesters that they are using as pawns in their plan to destabilize and ultimately destroy one of the more powerful countries in the middle east?
Finally, no matter how much you hate your government, nobody wants to see their country bombed by foreign governments and have their children murdered. Anyone in any part of the world who celebrates the death of a child or any innocent civilian has lost sight of humanity and is no better than the ones who are doing the killing.
Oh Sonbol, my heart aches for you and for all of us. I feel there are so many people caught up in this horror who want no part of it, but we don’t get to opt out. You can’t unsubscribe from your own government no matter how much you might want to — at least not while you remain in the country.
I feel there is a horrifying chess game being played with people’s lives, by men at the highest levels of government and society that we don’t have any access to at all. And now they are just blatant about it and could not care less who dies. And yes, of course I think the U.S. president and his slime ball cohorts and every person who voted for them and continues to support them — along with Netanyahu and all the people in Israel who continue to support him absolutely bear responsibility. This is why I’m saying there are no monoliths. Maybe there are some Iranians who are happy about what’s happened, but no one can be happy to have their country bombed and their girls killed at school, it makes me ill. I want to scream at the injustice of it.
I didn’t factor in the martyrdom aspect of this situation. I appreciate your insight and also shake my head harder at the lack of judgement and leadership in this country. It is astounding and embarrassing.
Thank you for weighing in, I appreciate your comments so much. I always do, but appreciated them extra this week. Sending you so much love, friend. I am so sorry we have such awful people running the show here. This administration will be a stain on this country for the rest of time. I hope we can recover and create something new and so much better. Love you ❤️
Ally, I don't often comment on your posts, but I read every word, and I nod like a crazy person because you have a clear, incandescent voice that distills outrage and despair into a call for compassion and empathy. And because I am a person who seeks solace in books, I also want to recommend Colum McCann's novel, Apeirogon. It's a gutting, gorgeous novel based on true events, particularly the friendship between an Israeli father who lost a 13-year-old daughter in a suicide bombing and a Palestinian father who lost a 10-year-old daughter to a rubber bullet fired by an Israeli border guard. I read a review that called the book an "empathy engine," which I think is such a perfect term, and applies to your writing, too. Thank your writing, your grief, your outrage, and the power of your words.
Thank you so much, Irena, I will order this book immediately. I can’t thank you enough for your words, too, because that is always my hope. No one needs another essay that will just add to the rage or despair. I am always trying to hold onto some hope, even if it comes out like rage some weeks. Thank you for seeing that and understanding me so clearly 🥹🙏🏼
I don’t know if you read Joanna Chen’s gorgeous essay “From the Edges of a Broken World” when it was first published in Guernica, and then retracted? I did, and was astounded when they pulled it. If you missed it, you can read it here. I suspect you will also find it exceedingly painful and beautiful and worth everyone’s time: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/03/18/from-the-edges-of-a-broken-world/
Oh, wow, Ally. So much overlap between the article and the book. Unbelievable that it was pulled, but at the same time absolutely believable. There is so much rage and pain on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, not helped at all by hot takes on social media and elsewhere (*really,* Guernica??) by people who appreciate neither the Gordian knot of Middle East history nor nuance. Empathy is the only thing that's going to get us through, and yet so many people refuse to see it.
I ordered the book and can’t wait to read it. Honestly that essay is the best thing I’ve read about the entire situation to date. There is no way forward if people are going to insist on this monolith/binary way of viewing everything. It doesn’t serve anyone, and it isn’t even real. Thanks again for your comments, Irena, they mean so much to me 🥹🙏🏼
I can't wait to hear what you think of the book. I read it a month ago and can't stop thinking about it.
On a different (but somewhat related) note, I am so deeply grateful for this conversation. I'm Jewish, and ever since Oct. 7, I've felt profoundly alone—because these days, in our tribal, binary, monolithic, virulently angry world, you're either team Israel or team Palestine, and if you so much as open your mouth to point out how complicated and fraught the situation is, you get shouted down. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. There's an armed guard in front of the Chabad house around the corner from my house—in quiet, suburban Palo Alto. There are children being shot in Gaza and buried under rubble in Iran. That's why Apeirogon gave me so much hope: because it's about seeing the humanity in others, about meeting them where they are. Because we have to start somewhere. Anyway, sorry to ramble and again, thank you for being here. (Also, let's start an Apeirogon book club because I think it should be required reading FOR EVERYONE.)
The inability to have meaningful, painful, nuanced conversations, and the desire to paint everyone with one large brush is one of the saddest parts of this whole mess. I am so looking forward to this book and I would be totally down for a book club ♥️ I should probably read the book first, though 😉 Hugs and love.
I dropped my daughter at work this morning, then drove home listening to Eve of Destruction, 'over and over again'.
It's strange to feel the same emotions I felt in my adolescence; to have the same lyrics be so applicable to what is happening in the world today.
Trump isn't Nixon and Iran isn't Vietnam, but the patriarchy and bigotry are still going strong. I have to say, this actually feels worse, since then we were (seemed) more unified against corruption, and of course, there was no AI.
I believe we will see better times, and justice done, though I couldn't say exactly when. Evil can be vanquished, but it has a nasty habit of making a comeback.
Thank you Ally; I know this is draining work, and I appreciate you. Take care🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
I agree, it does feel worse because it seems like we ought to know better by now. “We’ve seen this film before and we didn’t like the ending.” Are people seriously going to maintain their loyalty to this hollow, self-serving man to the extent that they’ll send their *children* to die “in service to their country”? He’s changed the objectives of this war four times in four days. They can’t even get the messaging straight.
The part that hurts so much is the kids, everywhere. The innocent people who want no part of this. I understand there are some people celebrating, just like there would be some people celebrating here if a certain thing happened. But if it happened at the hands of another Mad King who —possibly? reportedly? —thought he was anointed by Jesus? Jesus! Anyway.
Meanwhile it’s the billionaire authoritarian men in their last decade wreaking the most destruction and guilty of the most grievous corruption and heinous crimes, and we’re all screaming at each other. They did a great job with that part.
I agree we can fight evil/greed/corruption/misogyny/bigotry/racism back again. I think more people need to see who the perpetrators really are. Who is benefiting from this system? Because it isn’t 99% of us. I just hope we get it together sooner than later. I went and listened to Eve of Destruction and had a good sob. Thanks for being here as ever ❤️🩹
I'm glad there are people who are able to write about this because I know it is hard. I hope it helps some to get it out of your head and into ours. We are all in this real life nightmare together and I do mean all. 😢
It always helps me to try to get my thoughts organized and out of my head somewhere I can look at them, and it helps even more when other people are like, omg, me too. Or wait, what? Lol. Anything where we are in a conversation together and not trying to deal with this nightmare in little boxes by ourselves feeling scared. So thank you for being here, Mary, and for being one of the people who always makes me grateful I battled through the weeds of the thoughts that didn’t make it into the essay ❤️🩹🥹
Hugs
Amen sister. Everything you said. My husband told me this morning that he longer possesses the super power he had for 60+ years—the ability to sleep soundly through the night. I don’t understand how anyone can at this point.
I so relate to that sentiment, Martha. I barely slept last night. When I do get a decent night of sleep these days, it happens because I’ve had four nights of fitful sleep or little sleep at all. Hugs to you, thank you for being here ❤️🩹❤️🩹
I am flabergasted that nearly 40 % of Americans still approve of Trump.
You and me both, Alice. It is astonishing, terrifying, enraging and utterly depressing. I remind myself again and again, this is 39% of the voting public, not the country. Which still does not help very much. I wish we could shut down Faux News. I know that wouldn’t solve everything, but I bet it would help. Hugs to you, thanks for being here ❤️🩹
It's unreal, isn't it? After yet another unbearable thing, I'll see a headline saying his approval rate just plummeted... all the way down to 39%. I'll never understand it.
when we can't take care of children, we are doomed. when the corruption is so complete that empathy is viewed as a problem, we are doomed.
netflix will not save us.
It is such a moral failure to allow children to suffer anywhere. I can’t wrap my head around it. Sometimes when I write about these things someone will say, “did you say this when children were dying in ____?” And the answer is yes. I’ll always say it, wherever children are dying, and the minute a person can’t, something has gone wrong. I don’t know how we’ve gotten to a place where people want to try to weaponize empathy or come up with terms like “toxic empathy” but good luck to them. Some things should be easy to figure out. Thanks so much for being here, Stephen ❤️🩹
This is so clear and present - as in danger. The danger we are all in because of this #*%€£¥| orange scab and his WCN enablers and billionaire suckups. But I digress: beautifully said, Ally. “a planet that provides all the resources we need if only we’d share — and this is what we do instead.”
Thanks so much, Kelly. I hold my head in my hands many days. Thanks for being here, community is about the only thing that helps. And gallows humor 😉🙃
“There is a war on now which no one wants to fight, in which no one can see a gain —a zombie war of sleep-walkers which nevertheless goes on out of all control of intelligence. Some time ago a Congress of honest men refused an appropriation of several hundreds of millions of dollars to feed our people. They said, and meant it, that the economic structure of the country would collapse under the pressure of such expenditure. And now the same men, just as honestly, are devoting many billions to the manufacture, transportation, and detonation of explosives to protect the people they would not feed.” This is from Steinbeck’s “The Log From The Sea of Cortez” circa 1941. I have been dragging this book around for decades and now find it the right place/right time to read it. I am rather stunned by these words. What has changed!?!? Nothing!!!!!
This is equal parts stunning and depressing. Why is it there is always money for war, but never money to feed people and keep them safe?
This was like reading my own thoughts! I agree with you 100%. I can't believe we have so-called leaders who won't even do anything to take him down. What could he possibly have on them but they are so fearful of him that they let him make all these horrible decisions that affect so many people's lives. I too do not believe only seven service members died. I heard there were over 150 some with massive injuries. That I believe. But they will never get better and they and their families will fight that war forever. And the people that bury their children in any conflict will fight that war forever. There are days I want to buy 100 cans of soup and a gun and hide my family in the basement. And then I go to my Bible and try to calm down. This is as confused as I have ever been in 70 years of life
I wish there were somewhere safe for all of us to go who never wanted any of this. Or that there were a place for the people who voted for this man to go, and take him along. That we could rip the matrix and have two realities, because I want no part of this and I can tell you don’t, either. It feels so enraging and horrifying that our fates are tied, and no matter how loudly you try to yell that over the fence, they just do not care. I get the cans of soup/basement thoughts, Cathy. I have those thoughts, too. I have to fly tomorrow and I’m scared and I hate that I’m scared. I want to be in the same state with my kids right now because the world feels precarious. It’s all so sad because it doesn’t have to be like this. Anyway, sending you huge hugs and love. Thanks for being here ❤️🩹
We’ve had offline discussions about this offline and right now I can’t think of anything to say except something accusatory and sarcastic and scathing that should probably stay offline.
Another incredibly crafted essay, Ally. I can definitely say that.
Thank god for our offline conversations. They keep me sane, and that way not everyone has to be subjected to our most scathing and sarcastic remarks 🤣 And thanks. Always means the world from you. Xo
To the "This is your moment" performance, I say to the Secretary of Mediocrity: "Go yourself, then. Put your daughters in that school." These people are playing video games with real lives and getting their rocks off on the perception of winning. Epic Fury, FFS?!
Your last line, Ally, is what I wish everyone could hear: It’s hard to win if you’re FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLE, and there are no winners in a war."
Yes, you are allowed to feel all the feelings. The devastation is soul-sucking. I'm grateful you are doing what you can to press on, to the benefit of the rest of us.
They are all such toxic, tough guy cos-players. Meanwhile they would not sacrifice a hair on their heads for someone else. But I agree, the men who so casually start wars should be the first to put their lives on the line. That still makes all of us unsafe, though. Really they just need to be stripped of their power. Wish we could do it today.
Hugs and love, Elizabeth ❤️🩹
I will always be drawn to how you refuse to gloss over the nuance, the difficult simultaneous truths there are to be held. You just hold them, and you do it so we can all see. Grateful for you.
This was such a kind comment and I appreciate it so much, Mary Beth. Thank you 🥹🙏🏼❤️🩹
Another essay of yours after which I have a sore neck from nodding along. I don't even have words any more, like two people who just nod to each other, knowing without ever saying anything. I will say I'm thankful you're here, and I'm glad you're writing what you write. Hugs to you, friend <3
Nodding works, god knows we put enough words out there every week, and most of the time I feel like you’re in my head, anyway 🤣 I’m glad and thankful you’re here, too, doing what you do. Hugs and love ❤️🩹
Ugh. 💔
Thanks as always for having the courage to stay in your feelings long enough to string all these thoughts together so beautifully. I can imagine how hard it must have been because thinking about all of this makes me sick too.
Like others, I really resonated with the ideas of, "if kids are dying we have lost the plot," and "we have this beautiful abundant world and this is what we have chosen to do with it??" These are two core principles that I just can't understand how anyone with a beating heart could disagree with. If we ever do manage to progress as a society, I hope these principles are at the core of what we build.
I hope so, too, Cody. I don’t know how we build anything meaningful without those really basic ideas as part of the foundation. I long for the days we can look back on this time as the time the machine broke and everything fell apart and we planted a garden instead. I hope we get there sooner than later. Sending you love and giant hugs.
You had me at "I don’t know how to be close to people who want to pretend the ground underneath us is solid. It’s never solid, things can always change in a day, in an instant, no matter how much you plan — but I don’t think it’s ever been less solid in my lifetime than it is right now." I no longer am, to be honest. God, how I miss feeling that the ground is solid.
Yeah I don’t think I am close to those people anymore, either. I feel like we live in different realities. I don’t ever want to be someone who can know children are dying at the hands of stupid, greedy men — and somehow be okay, and I don’t want to be close to people who operate that way. They must not be in their bodies.
I think I always have this acute awareness that everything can change in an instant. I am pretty sure it happened during my labor with my son, and that feeling stayed with me. But I miss feeling like a small patch of ground might be solid. That doesn’t seem like a lot to hope for. Sending you a lot of love, Rita. I would hold your hand while hurtling through space any day ❤️🩹
Thank you Ally for writing with such eloquence as usual. As an Iranian living in the US, I am beyond gutted at what is happening to my country of birth. Yes, Khamenei was a dictator who led an oppressive theocratic regime for over three decades. It's also true that a certain number of Iranians, especially those living in diaspora and some in Iran, celebrated his demise. However, despite what the LA-based pro-Zionist, pro-war, pro-Pahlavi contingent seem to believe, Khamenei and the government still have a large base of support inside of Iran which now can use his "martyrdom" in the holy month of Ramadan as a rallying point. Iran is a majority Shia country and one of the defining tenants of Shia Islam is martyrdom in the face of oppression, so congrats to US and Israel for creating a martyr out of an old crippled tyrant who would have probably died soon enough.
Also, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the US engineered a deliberate dollar shortage in Iran, causing the collapse of the Iranian currency. The first few days of protest in Iran were peaceful and only targeted economic issues but according to credible reports and even by Mike Pompeo's stupid tweet, Mossad agents started infiltrating these protests and inciting violence which triggered the government's response and the murder of thousands of Iranian protestors. Now as evil and horrible as the Iranian government is, don't the US and Israel also bear some responsibility for the deaths of all the protesters that they are using as pawns in their plan to destabilize and ultimately destroy one of the more powerful countries in the middle east?
Finally, no matter how much you hate your government, nobody wants to see their country bombed by foreign governments and have their children murdered. Anyone in any part of the world who celebrates the death of a child or any innocent civilian has lost sight of humanity and is no better than the ones who are doing the killing.
Oh Sonbol, my heart aches for you and for all of us. I feel there are so many people caught up in this horror who want no part of it, but we don’t get to opt out. You can’t unsubscribe from your own government no matter how much you might want to — at least not while you remain in the country.
I feel there is a horrifying chess game being played with people’s lives, by men at the highest levels of government and society that we don’t have any access to at all. And now they are just blatant about it and could not care less who dies. And yes, of course I think the U.S. president and his slime ball cohorts and every person who voted for them and continues to support them — along with Netanyahu and all the people in Israel who continue to support him absolutely bear responsibility. This is why I’m saying there are no monoliths. Maybe there are some Iranians who are happy about what’s happened, but no one can be happy to have their country bombed and their girls killed at school, it makes me ill. I want to scream at the injustice of it.
I didn’t factor in the martyrdom aspect of this situation. I appreciate your insight and also shake my head harder at the lack of judgement and leadership in this country. It is astounding and embarrassing.
Thank you for weighing in, I appreciate your comments so much. I always do, but appreciated them extra this week. Sending you so much love, friend. I am so sorry we have such awful people running the show here. This administration will be a stain on this country for the rest of time. I hope we can recover and create something new and so much better. Love you ❤️