As the Trump administration’s war on Iran spirals deeper into civilian bloodshed and media complicity, activists with CODEPINK are demanding answers that Washington and corporate media seem determined to avoid. In this explosive conversation with ScheerPost, CODEPINK organizing director Danaka Katowicz lays out the movement’s growing campaign to force Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to answer for the bombing of a girls’ school in Minab, Iran — an attack that reportedly killed more than 168 people, most of them children.

But this interview goes far beyond one atrocity. It exposes a collapsing media system where billionaires, mergers, propaganda, AI warfare, and state violence increasingly operate hand-in-hand. From the Pentagon’s alleged use of AI targeting systems to CNN’s responsibility to confront war crimes instead of sanitizing them, Katowicz argues that ordinary people can no longer afford to remain spectators. As Gaza burns, Iran bleeds, and dissent is criminalized, CODEPINK says the answer is not despair — it’s organizing.