America the "beautiful"

[kailice]

I am happy to be an American. Usually. I don't have an American flag propped up in my lawn or anything, and I'm not one for showy patriotism, but I do love my country.

I just can't stand the people sometimes.

All of you might have heard about this already, but let me give you the five general responses that Americans have had (from my observations) regarding the catastrophe in Japan.

1. Empathy and action. If they can't donate anything, they at the very least keep the Japanese in their prayers and hearts. Very few people fit into this category.
2. Pity. They feel sorry for the people who have been affected, but don't really do anything about it. They get on with their lives without thinking about it until watching the situation on the news again.
3. Narrow-mindedness. In other words, they are completely ignorant of the suffering Japan is going through because they don't see anything that happens outside of the good ole US of A. Sure, it's a shame that all those people died, but thank God the tsunami missed Hawaii! Oh shit, what if the radiation reaches California? Thousands of people died in Japan? Well, that's too bad. Wait, what if prices on products from Big Important Japanese Companies skyrocket? GOD HELP US ALL.
4. Japan can take care of itself. C'mon, people. Japan is an economic world powerhouse! Now, Haiti, that was a tragedy. But Japan can just pick itself up by the bootstraps and fix itself, right? Sure, the death toll is thousands of lives more than Hurricane Katrina - a disaster that we, another world power, are still recovering from - but I'm sure they can handle it. Why should I donate money to a country that already has money?
5. The earthquake, tsunami, aftershock, fires, explosions, and radiation? Yeah, that's all karma. Those bastards bombed Pearl Harbor, remember? This is the universe's way of screwing them over for the way they screwed us. God bless America!

This is sickening. I'm so tired of ignorant morons who just treat human beings like this. I think #3 is what I hear from the majority of people. So many people are concerned about California with the radiation thing when they don't give a damn about Japan.

Sometimes, when the trouble is on the other side of the world, there's not much you can do. But have we really lost basic human compassion? Do we really only care about ourselves? Do we really know what happened, if we can see pictures of destruction and say that they should take care of themselves? Can someone with a beating human heart hear of this horrifying catastrophe and say that they made us suffer 70 years ago, so they deserve it?

That being said, seeing the fandom pull together to do everything they can is one of the most beautiful sights I've seen. I'm so proud of us, of you guys. After listening to these kinds of heartless responses for the past week, it's a relief to see that the entire world hasn't lost its humanity.