The Haitian Patient
I just want to celebrate another day of livin'
I just want to celebrate another day of life
--I Just Want to Celebrate, Rare Earth
They disguise it, Hypnotize it
Television made you buy it
--Hypnotize, S.O.A.D.
It's amazing how fast the world can go
from bad to total shit storm
--Zombieland (2009)
_________________
I just want to celebrate another day of life
--I Just Want to Celebrate, Rare Earth
They disguise it, Hypnotize it
Television made you buy it
--Hypnotize, S.O.A.D.
It's amazing how fast the world can go
from bad to total shit storm
--Zombieland (2009)
_________________
Ranger wonders why he is unaffected by the nonstop newsfeed of death and suffering in Haiti after last week's earthquake.
The barrage of painful imagery is ceaseless, yet the pain and suffering do not even register on my personal Richter scale. My mind completely blocks out and disregards the entire incident. I don't care. The only question is, WHY?
The event falls under the general rubric, "Act of God", when actually it is simply a natural disaster, a geological phenomena known as strike-slip fault, an event which was predicted last year. No gods at work here, though there sure are a lot of dead people.
Are we to mourn such natural events, resulting in large casualty rates paraded incessantly by our eyes, inhabiting our television sets? These events are unavoidable and predictable, and only good national pre-emergency planning could have alleviated the post-event suffering.
Meanwhile, the television in my living room has been disgorging catastrophic photos of an elective earthquake called the GWOT since 9-11-01. This discretionary disaster delivers daily death and destruction which cuts scythe-like through Afghanistan and Iraq, yet we cheer on and praise this deadly endeavor. Our movies are often violent death-oriented orgies paralleling our real life. Death has become our constant companion.
We have killed, wounded and destroyed as much as has this earthquake, but we revel in the glory of it all. We -- the U.S. -- are portable earthquakes awaiting our next victim.
This must be why my humanity is dulled, and nothing advertised during the news breaks will alleviate this fact. The man-made earthquakes in Afghanistan and Iraq have blunted the trauma and zombiefied my soul. This must be why the zombie movie is making such a fantastic comeback today.
We are the zombies, and Ranger is their leader since he feels nothing and doesn't even care. The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has sucked me dry.
Labels: haiti, phony GWOT, PWOT, zombies
posted by rangeragainstwar at 6:31 AM
3 Comments:
I thought it was only me. I think for me that that amount of death is incomprehensible. The news says they've found 70,000 bodies and the death toll is expected to reach into the 200,000 range.
Could it be that because it happened in another country that we're not as affected? If it had happened in LA or SF would the effect have been different? For me, I don't think so. I guess I've got a strong survival instinct. I recognize subconsciously that all those people are dead. But I'm still alive, and bottom line that's all that matters. That sounds heartless and coldblooded and logical but it's my way of coping with tragedy.
what was it stalin said?
the death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
and yes, if the quake had happened in california, the results would have been far less dramatic. the 90's world series quake that hit san francisco (we lost power in l.a. to that one) was about the same magnitude. there was some loss of life, some inconvenience (like the bay bridge collapsing).
right now, haiti is one good rainstorm away from holocaust.
I know and understand what you're feeling. After all the intentional murder what is a few hundred thousand accidental deaths for nature? And yeah barcalounger, same here I don't think the location would change the emptiness of uncaring.
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