America the Caring and Heartless
Bombs go off or planes crash into buildings, and we see huge outpourings of support and kindness and demands that something be done and the villains brought to justice. Blood banks across the nation fill up, and trust funds are started for the survivors. That's wonderful! Heartwarming! But millions of lives destroyed by unnecessary poverty, hunger, and medical bills in a country of enormous wealth? We can't do anything about that; what are you, some kind of socialist? I got mine, so screw you, you must not have worked hard enough if you don't have what I have. (But if a teacher is making 70k counting benefits in Wisconsin, how dare they take so much taxpayer money?)
I've no idea who set off those bombs, and clearly anyone who indiscriminately wounds and kills is quite a horrible person, but if someone desperate got the idea that the best way to get ahead in this country is to plant a bomb and then become a "victim" when it goes off, I would largely blame our culture and the media that defines it.
As the saying goes, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Especially when that statistic gets in the way of the top 0.01 percent squirreling away more billions in the Cayman Islands.
tl;dr: Why can't we show compassion without a well-televised disaster to prompt us?
ETA: This article about veterans' thoughts on the bombings has a lot of good points, too.
"I went through some weird stages," Warnock said. "At first, just, like, shock and anger -- how could this happen here? Then I guess I realized I'm sort of surprised it doesn't happen more. Then I was like, I just read on the BBC there was another wave of bombings in Iraq that killed like 40 civilians. And I paused to reflect on the paradoxical situation that I would be so shocked and outraged over what happened in a city that my sister lived in but not a country I once tried to help."
I've no idea who set off those bombs, and clearly anyone who indiscriminately wounds and kills is quite a horrible person, but if someone desperate got the idea that the best way to get ahead in this country is to plant a bomb and then become a "victim" when it goes off, I would largely blame our culture and the media that defines it.
As the saying goes, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Especially when that statistic gets in the way of the top 0.01 percent squirreling away more billions in the Cayman Islands.
tl;dr: Why can't we show compassion without a well-televised disaster to prompt us?
ETA: This article about veterans' thoughts on the bombings has a lot of good points, too.
"I went through some weird stages," Warnock said. "At first, just, like, shock and anger -- how could this happen here? Then I guess I realized I'm sort of surprised it doesn't happen more. Then I was like, I just read on the BBC there was another wave of bombings in Iraq that killed like 40 civilians. And I paused to reflect on the paradoxical situation that I would be so shocked and outraged over what happened in a city that my sister lived in but not a country I once tried to help."