When Elephants Fight
Issue 035
Happy World War III to those celebrating.
We’ve moved beyond confusion. We are now in the ceremonial phase of the colossal clusterfuck.
On my desk, I’m surrounded by four screens. Al Jazeera English playing live on my desktop, The Guardian open on my laptop as I scroll with one hand, and social media glowing on my phone in the other. The fourth screen is my drawing tablet, where I’m supposed to be working on my graphic novel. It’s on. Untouched. I keep telling myself I’ll switch off the other screens any minute and resume drawing, so it doesn’t make sense to turn the drawing tablet off. It has now been on and untouched for three hours.
On social media, where nuance goes to die, posts and comments loaded with misinformation, hatred, insults, and accusations — most of which nurtured by an eager colony of bots — sprout on my feed like wild fungus.
Cheer for Khamenei’s death and you’re an American imperialist and Zionist. Criticize the U.S.-Israeli illegal attack on Iran and you’re a terrorist sympathizer and regime apologist.
You know we live in an unfathomably grim reality when the saviors arriving to rescue you from a criminal and oppressive regime turn out to be a genocidal war criminal with an international arrest warrant to his name, and his war partner, a narcissistic and megalomaniacal convicted felon who would apparently do the unthinkable to cover up his alleged criminal involvement with a sex trafficker.
