SOTT FOCUS: Selective Outrage and Empathy In The USA

I’ve been sitting here watching the reaction to two stories snowball as the minutes roll by.

1. The Colorado Theater shooting

2. The Anaheim Police Ambush of a group of protesters, which included women and children.

What I couldn’t help but notice is the almost instantaneous knee jerk reaction of MANY people here in the United States on Facebook to both of these stories, I notice the IMMEDIATE OUTRAGE. How dare men in uniform fire upon Americans?!! How HORRIBLE that people were killed in a movie theater!!

Yes, both of these stories are awful. I, too, am concerned and upset that people have been harmed or killed.

I notice the sudden unity that seems to happen when a story hits the public view – when Americans are harmed or when there’s a perception that Americans have been harmed – and the hype that invariably goes hand in hand with it. Reminds me of how people here were outraged after 9/11, when they were being peddled the bullshit about Arab terrorists flying planes into the Twin Towers. So many of us who normally have little to nothing to say on the plethora of news stories pumped out daily depicting mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, torture, massacres, drone strike killings – suddenly RISE UP LIKE LIONS when the victims are like us, American.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as though a lot of you seem to only give a shit when the media is screaming that other Americans are being wasted and it’s happening HERE.When it’s American children, my, my, how people RISE UP and show their fangs and pump their chests and start circulating their gun pictures.

Everybody’s a tough guy.

We have endless amounts of compassion for people who we see as “LIKE US”, don’t we?

It’s pretty disheartening to see this, because day in and day out, there are countless numbers of people in the Middle East being killed by other men ( and women) in uniform. There are inordinate numbers of women and children being fired upon, entire families murdered – day in, day out by U.S. and Israeli soldiers and by private mercenaries. all courtesy of YOUR American taxpayer dollars.

It’s not happening HERE, and so many of you LIONS out there roaring about Anaheim and Colorado never seem to have much, if anything, to say about all those stories of mass murder in faraway places that do not touch you with even one finger. Where is the compassion for THOSE people – those people in Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,,, etc. who are being harmed and wiped out of existence on YOUR DIME?

Do we only give a damn when the killing comes home to U.S. soil?

Is that where we’re at in this country?

We go bat-shit crazy, if, god forbid a group of Americans is taken out, if AMERICAN children are terrorized, if AMERICAN people are being dropped like flies.

But “THOSE PEOPLE” across the world – who gives a damn about their lives, is that it?

It takes these hyped-up little news spikes every now and then to be able to really see just how many of you still render a pulse.

Believe me, I get it.

The American people awaken from the collective coma in a *SNAP* when the bullet flies home.

American lives are the only thing that matter, but particularly so, when the media stokes the flames and rams the burning poker up your collective butt.

While you’ve been snoring, this is just a tiny part of what’s been going on:

Over 900 killed in US drone attacks in 2010 in Pakistan alone says HRCP

The Nation

As many as 957 persons became victim of the US drone attacks while 12,580 were murdered, 581 were kidnapped for ransom and 16,977 cases of abduction were reported in Pakistan during the year 2010, says a report on ‘State of Human Rights in 2010’.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) launched the report on Thursday during a ceremony held in a local hotel. Dr Mehdi Hasan, Chairman HRCP, and I.A. Rehman, Secretary General of the Commission, were also present on the occasion besides many others.

The report depicting the country’s bad law and order situation says that 957 people became victims of US drones strikes during 2010 and what the report called extra-legal killings.

It says that 1,159 people were killed in 67 suicide attacks during 2010 and the fatalities included 1,041 civilians while 2,542 people were killed and 5,062 injured in terrorist attacks.

“Violence, political and otherwise, led to the death of over 750 people in target killings in Karachi alone,” says the report. At least 237 political activists and 301 other civilians were killed in target killings in Karachi while 81 people were killed in Lyari gang wars. In addition to that, 118 people were killed and 40 injured in 117 target killings in Balochistan besides bodies of 59 missing persons were found in the province. According to the report, 34 new cases of enforced disappearance were reported to HRCP during 2010.

There was no way of independently verifying claims of killing of militants in these attacks. Several media reports stated that women and children were also among those killed in the drone strikes. The highest number of attacks, 117, was reported from NorthWaziristan Agency, accounting for 802 deaths and injuries to over 300 persons. In June, HRCP drew the governments attention to the report of a United Nations expert on targeted killings, including those through drone strikes, and urged Pakistan to ensure that the conduct of its own forces was not in violation of human rights and humanitarian law.

HRCP stated that such actions did grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and to prevent extrajudicial executions. The report by UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston had called the United States the most prolific user of targeted killings, primarily through drone attacks, which Mr Alston referred to as ill-defined license to kill without accountability.

But hey, I don’t mean to distract you from swirling those plumes of righteous indignation and bearing your fangs over the killing of American citizens here at home.

After all, all those people murdered in U.S. drone strikes, well, their lives have nothing to do with you, they mean nothing to you. They’re not “like you”.

You’ve got more important things to occupy your flat line reactive version of thinking. There are more pressing matters to feel pissed off about, eh? You’ve got “respects” to pay – American lives were lost, a tragedy, to be sure.

Oh, the impervious, oblivious American.

Don’t worry – you can go back to your regularly scheduled self-absorbed state of ignorant bliss soon enough. Just as soon as the media has sucked and drained off every last possible drop of juice it can out of these stories. Just as soon as they put the finishing tweaks on this particular episode of public perception.

It’s gotta be “just so”, ya know.

I’d been wondering when the next spikes would come, because that’s the only time blood seems to flow in the collective American vein.

When Death comes knockin’.

When the bullet flies home.

Forget about all those “other people” being killed off with your money, in your name. Gotcha.

After all….Americans have been killed in America.

What else matters for the next 15 minutes?

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