Outrage overload . . . and a mea culpa

I don’t know about you, but the last eighteen months of this coalition government have felt like a attack on everything I hold dear.

Daily, we see environmental protections stripped away, climate change initiatives halted, clean water degraded, our health system decimated as it’s made ready for privatisation, laws that should uphold our democratic right to protest warped and strengthened against us, worker and women’s rights that have been long fought over scrapped, and a full frontal attack on anything Māori or in support of other marginalised groups.

Daily, we hear our elected officials twisting facts, demeaning those who speak against them, demonising the poor and those most vulnerable, and sometimes straight-out lying. They reward donors, shape policies to further enrich themselves and their mates, use shameful attacks on their opponents to distract from their corruption and incompetence, ignore science and genuine experts, strangle the arts and community initiatives, and quietly work to undo all the social gains generations have fought so hard for.

While they sit in their glass towers, amassing salaries in the hundreds of thousands, they lecture us on the need for austerity whilst wasting billions on political point-scoring, cynically play semantics (i.e. equality versus equity), blithely cut away our social supports, and stoke the fires of petty hatred to distract from their looting and pillaging of everything we hold dear.

It’s exhausting. I’ve never written so many submissions or letters to Ministers, and have had to curb the way I receive daily news to lessen the outrage. I’ve marched, waved placards, spoken out when possible, but sometimes the outrage overflows, the utter disdain this government shows for the people it is supposed to serve too much to bear. It feels like a physical and mental assault, unrelenting, and the worst part is knowing they are purposefully flooding the zone in order to leave us so exhausted and dispirited we’ll stop paying attention and give up, handing them free rein to further dismantle any supports that may shore up our future. It’s Shock Doctrine in action.

In early July, I sat through two days of oral submissions regarding the Regulatory Standards Bill, a Machiavellian piece of proposed legislation that represents a very real threat to our democracy and our commitment to te Tiriti. For two days I watched as brave, smart, genuine people poured their hearts and concerns out, taking a stand to uphold our democratic rights and maintain the rights of others, while government Ministers yawned, rolled their eyes, failed to pay attention, made snide remarks, cut people off, and awarded those who supported their views significantly more time; Ministers who didn’t even have the decency to turn up, instead gazing into the middle distance from the comfort of their homes.

Yet it was heart-warming to see the depth of support for a fair and decent partnership with Māori from submitters, but heart-breaking, too, to see so many Māori submitters once again being belittled, made to justify their place in our society and their rights to equitable treatment — continuing a fight that has never let off since colonisation.  It was upsetting. Enraging. Soul-destroying.  Especially as the bulk of media coverage was given over to the very person who was pushing this ugly ideological far-right agenda, David Seymour, enabling him to abuse his position of power by mocking and defaming those who spoke out against him.

I was, by the end of those two days in outrage overload, not thinking straight. So when, at the end of that second day, an email popped into my inbox (by someone whose opinions I usually find sound) that pointed a finger at RNZ broadcaster Jesse Mulligan for pushing the government’s hard-hearted ‘lines’, I saw red. I sent Jesse a very angry email, such was my disappointment. Trouble was, as soon as I sent it, I realised I’d not only overreacted but misinterpreted what he’d said. And when he quite rightly called me out on it in a reply email, I was devastated and embarrassed. I did, of course, immediately apologise, but the damage was done. Outrage overload had messed with my head. I should have checked with him first, before I believed what was written. I should have done my homework.  Jesse is, in fact, one of the handful of broadcasters these days who actually does show compassion, and his support for the arts is a beacon in a very strained landscape. But it’s continued to nag at me. It’s not who I want to be. So, here’s my public mea culpa, with an addendum that the whipping I’ve given myself is greater than any someone else could deliver.

However, the same cannot be said for some of our other broadcasters. If RNZ wants to know why its audience numbers are dropping, look no further than their gleeful hounding of opposition MPs and their seeming acceptance of the government spin they’re being fed.  Take this, for example: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018999861/labour-leader-on-skipping-covid-19-public-hearing  How is this badgering, defying the actual facts, considered appropriate for a national broadcaster?

Of course, many other news outlets are just as bad or worse. The Herald act like the Government’s publicity arm, their attempts to ‘humanise’ our so-called ‘leaders’ shameful in their glib bias, and Newstalk ZB promotes the very worst of human nature, compassionless name-callers, hounding anyone who dares to challenge the Government spin, their presenters utterly removed from the real world we ‘bottom-feeders’ live in. The Platform, meanwhile, is solely a vile propaganda outlet, stirring foment, targeting the worst in us, hateful in their rhetoric.  

So how do we survive this constant onslaught and counter the outrage overload? If we switch off, we play into their hands. If we pay attention, we risk our heads exploding, going slowly mad, like I did that afternoon in early July. As someone who feels things very deeply, and truly desires us to come together to protect each other and our grandkids’ futures, how do we survive this?

Your thoughts would be welcome.