Every time I read an RO story that’s the first thing that goes through my mind.
Modern (2009) American society is better than any society has ever been (witness our rock-bottom violent crime rates). While our soldiers occasionally are arraigned on abhorrent charges, our society no longer views rape and pillage as de riguer en la guerre. While Americans will never win awards for our environmental policies, nearly every citizen can breathe without coughing up carcinogenic particulates. The odds of your child being snatched off the street by that mythological child molester is significantly less than the odds of your child dying by your side in the car you drive on the highway five days a week.
And, yet, not a week goes by that I don’t read an article about some outrage that happened an 8 or 15 or 25 hour drive from where I live.
In another recent thread I was accused of being heartless for focusing on a bit of humor regarding some whacked-out woman’s death. And you know, maybe I am heartless, but here’s the thing: Do I feel for rape victims? Sure. Do I feel for THIS PARTICULAR rape victim? No, not really; in fact, I neither know nor am I related to her and I really don’t give a shit about her. A bunch of stupid kids did a really bad and stupid thing. It happens EVERY DAY but, for some reason, this particular story hit the news. Why? I neither know nor care; I can only assume that some producer decided this particular story is sexier than a bunch of UN workers getting offed by the Taliban in a place where billions of your tax dollars have been spent in the last 8 years.
Something like 4,000 children under 18 died today from diarrhea. DIARRHEA. A condition those of us who imbibe get every Saturday and/or Sunday morning, 4,000 kids die from every day because their water sucks. Why on earth should I spend any energy whatsoever bemoaning the fate of victims of rare and random occurrences while multitudes more die every hour from something you, personally, can kill off with a bottle of Gatorade and a greasy breakfast?
Shit.
The only goddamn thing the 24-hour news cycle has done for me is…well, no, it hasn’t done jack for me, because if something’s actually IMPORTANT sensical news stations break in.
Some people are fucked up; some people get fucked. Rare, heinous, random occurrences are the situations that get all the press despite the fact that the BIG THINGS - the stuff that can actually affect our nation as a whole, like our tax dollars or our national security - are background noise.
National and international policy has decided that I shouldn’t care about the war-related rape that has been, for the last decade or more, the de facto policy of the military forces being paid by the Khartoum government. Why on earth should I care about this woman’s rape just a little more?