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Nov. 9th, 2006 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tagrynMy response to ceej's saying that "It's a pity so many human beings had to, you know, die real non-metaphorical deaths in Iraq before the US voters clued in.":
I think the electorate really doesn't give a d**n about how many human beings/Iraqis die, any more than we care about how many of "them" are dying in Darfur, or in Lebanon, or in or the Congo (or, heck, that were dying in Iraq under the sanctions). Its the American body count ("us") that makes a difference.
That doesn't say much for our collective morality as a people, nor for the underlying racism behind that attitude, but there it is.
* I say racism, because the one place we made an exception? Bosnia. With those white, European faces being shown on TV, unlike like those darker-skinned people in Darfur, or Iraq.
* We also didn't lose a whole lot of sleep as a nation over selling out the Shi'ites and the Kurds to Saddam when we allowed him to crush their uprisings after the first Gulf War. No Americans being killed + not on TV = didn't happen, to the average American voter.
I think the electorate really doesn't give a d**n about how many human beings/Iraqis die, any more than we care about how many of "them" are dying in Darfur, or in Lebanon, or in or the Congo (or, heck, that were dying in Iraq under the sanctions). Its the American body count ("us") that makes a difference.
That doesn't say much for our collective morality as a people, nor for the underlying racism behind that attitude, but there it is.
* I say racism, because the one place we made an exception? Bosnia. With those white, European faces being shown on TV, unlike like those darker-skinned people in Darfur, or Iraq.
* We also didn't lose a whole lot of sleep as a nation over selling out the Shi'ites and the Kurds to Saddam when we allowed him to crush their uprisings after the first Gulf War. No Americans being killed + not on TV = didn't happen, to the average American voter.
