Isn't it interesting how the entire USA is now consumed with understandable grief about last Friday's school shooting (the commonly used euphemism for mass murder) in Connecticut, whereas there is almost no sympathy for the scores, or even hundreds, of innocent children that have been killed in our name by weaponized drones?
Why does the empathy of a people end at their shores, or perhaps extend to people similar to themselves (for us, Europeans and westernized Asians, etc.)?
Odd... the empathy in the case of this latest mass murder is real, just as the lack of empathy for innocent children killed in our name, acts which should constitute war crimes if "war crime" was actually an objectively adjudicated crime, is real.
Americans are bizarre: they evidently love violence and killing, because they engage in acts of violence with impunity around the globe.
However, when their culture of death visits their own cities, which is probably inevitable, they go into a swoon of self-pity.
Violence is probably the largest industry in this nation: the defense industry, the "justice" system and penal system, the entertainment/video game industries...
The tragedy in Connecticut is heart-breaking, just as are the deaths of the 200 Palestinian children who were killed with our weapons last month, by our "ally" (an ally that has killed our servicemen and spied on us and basically treats us like a well-trained poodle). I was driven to despair by the latter, just as by the former. It's hard to function everyday in empathic mode, so I understand why most Americans only resort to it when they can also use it as an opportunity to feel like a victim, and when the realization starts to dawn on them they they are not invulnerable to fate and the presence of evil.
Will they, however, be able to look in the mirror for more than a few days?
Isn't it interesting how the entire USA is now consumed with understandable grief about last Friday's school shooting (the commonly used euphemism for mass murder) in Connecticut, whereas there is almost no sympathy for the scores, or even hundreds, of innocent children that have been killed in our name by weaponized drones?
ReplyDeleteWhy does the empathy of a people end at their shores, or perhaps extend to people similar to themselves (for us, Europeans and westernized Asians, etc.)?
Odd... the empathy in the case of this latest mass murder is real, just as the lack of empathy for innocent children killed in our name, acts which should constitute war crimes if "war crime" was actually an objectively adjudicated crime, is real.
Americans are bizarre: they evidently love violence and killing, because they engage in acts of violence with impunity around the globe.
However, when their culture of death visits their own cities, which is probably inevitable, they go into a swoon of self-pity.
Violence is probably the largest industry in this nation: the defense industry, the "justice" system and penal system, the entertainment/video game industries...
The tragedy in Connecticut is heart-breaking, just as are the deaths of the 200 Palestinian children who were killed with our weapons last month, by our "ally" (an ally that has killed our servicemen and spied on us and basically treats us like a well-trained poodle). I was driven to despair by the latter, just as by the former. It's hard to function everyday in empathic mode, so I understand why most Americans only resort to it when they can also use it as an opportunity to feel like a victim, and when the realization starts to dawn on them they they are not invulnerable to fate and the presence of evil.
Will they, however, be able to look in the mirror for more than a few days?