Such good points you make here. My thoughts went in a broader direction. Because of the intensity and familiarity of the coverage of today’s gun violence incident no.1, we recoil and easily see the evil at play. Meanwhile the more expansive violence in Gaza - children dying of starvation- and Ukraine - a population subject to the persistent threat of bombs - has become a thing in the hazy distance, not needing our attention.
Man’s inhumanity toward man is the eternal enemy. Why can’t we face it?
In 1984, William Shawcross wrote a book,
The Quality of Mercy. The book mostly dealt with the genocide and famine in Cambodia as and after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took power.
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS died….. out of a population of 7.3 million, 1-2 million died between 1975 and 1978.
By-and-large, “the West” didn’t care.
I’m thinking back to the book’s Foreword.
Shawcross wrote, in the foreword, about the world’s reaction to a toddler trapped in a well. The toddler fell into the well and was trapped.
At the same time a MASSIVE earthquake hit somewhere in the Middle East (Turkey, IIRC). Thousands and thousands died.
In the Foreward, Shawcross wrote about the world’s reaction to the toddler in the well compared to the thousands dead because of the earthquake.
The toddler was international news for days. TV crews camped out at the site; filming constantly. The earthquake was out of the news in a day.
Shawcross’s point was that humans can process a death or a tragedy. We can’t process or fathom thousands and thousands of deaths (the earthquake). Forget about the hundreds of thousands or millions dead in Cambodia between 1975-1978.
Two murders of young people caught on video?
That’s going to resonate FOR A LONG TIME.
It is.
These two murders will hammer home to some Americans that the US is a violent hellscape. Forget the stats showing violent crime declining.
www.whitehouse.gov
