[391] Spatterings Pt. 1

This could be several blogs, so I'm going to just split it into sections. With so much time to reflect, and actually having access to the news, on cable, ick, there's too much crossing my mind to wait or try to compact it into some mega post.

My god is the news horrible. I really truly didn't appreciate just how bad until it was on screen at all times no matter where I went. If you watch the news, stop. Never put it on again. It's making you stupid. Not like, “I'm not getting the full story” stupid, like “this is how people are expected to talk to each other and about things” stupid. It makes me want to throw things at the screen.

3 independent autopsies? Is this because we've lost all semblance of what's to be trusted and reliable, or because it sounds “fantastic” that 6 bullet holes needs 3 different medical examiners to explain that bullets all over your body, including your head, likely meant you suffered and do indeed “cause the blood to flow out.” That's almost a direct quote. Someone was on television explaining that there are 2 ways you can stop a human. Incapacitate them, or make it so their blood runs out.

Every other statement is a random speculation, arbitrary question, or simple “non-statement” amounting to the kind of crap you see above. If I tallied the amount of times a “reporter” said “I don't know” my page would be black with ink. This is only so striking given how much they don't know to then have words to fill every second of screen time.

“Should Obama go there and fix everything?!” Yes! Just like he should be airdropped into Gaza and finally bestow peace to the Middle East. Duh. This is the level of discussion! 100 people have provided conflicting testimony on the shooting, so we'll be here to reiterate that fact for the next several hours. Here's officer Friendly's best friend explaining how he's never been racist or even killed a mosquito his entire life. Repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and, I'll give you a guess.

CHANGE PLACES!

The death penalty. People think it's between two sides. Either you're something of an over-sympathetic pussy with no capacity to empathize with the family of the deceased, or you're a blood thirsty monster who would see society devolve into anarchy and chaos.

To me, it's people deliberately avoiding parts of their perspective that would speak to all the extra they are saying in “simply” advocating for one over the other. At the level of the interpersonal, who isn't going to empathize or understand vengeance? Who wouldn't want to kill right back? At the level of society, why do you think that places with the least advocacy for violence or vengeance also tend to have the least amount of murderers? In a way, the more you need to kill the person who's done you wrong, the more you're setting up families to go through what you just have later.

But this speaks more to an overall absence of social competence and cohesion to me. Crazy people tend to have histories. Every kid who grew up in an emotionally abusive home or joined gang life did so for reasons that, in part, hark back to the environment that's been set up for him. Most horrible things and habits of humanity boil down to economic and conditioned responses. This isn't an argument against personal responsibility. But it seems you don't credit your own capacity to hold yourself responsible when you understand another person to only be another immoral manifestation of the devil.

This topic continually interests me because I have no sympathy for people who kill others, deliberately or otherwise, but I consider myself so much better than them as to espouse something independent of what horrible things I'd like to do to and see them experience. Even more than that though, upon a bit of further reflection, I don't really want to do anything or see them experience it. It doesn't speak to my bottom line. I think we shit all over conversations that are complicated and detailed and potentially powerful to carry longstanding consequences. To watch myself capitulate to “angry monkey” status is headache inducing.

This involves a conversation about the justice system, social psychology, personal responsibility, the economy, and general conception of the dialogue and methodology surrounding whether or not a death sentence is carried out. Or, you know, an eye for an eye. What are we, fuckin' saints?

MOVING ON DOWN.

We must be saints! Lest we forget the ice bucket challenge. Let's part with the things that don't matter.

Of course no one is denigrating charity. Of course it's not a pissing match between who's suffering more and from what. Of course “bringing awareness,” on the surface, isn't an ignoble endeavor. And of course I'm not going to dump water on myself if given the opportunity to signal anything about my morality.

I am on the side that isn't terribly impressed or happy with these challenges. Why must charity, awareness, or advocacy have to turn into a “viral phenomenon” before something is done? Why does there have to be tears and a poster child with the disease of the month before it registers that people are suffering, constantly, from any number of things, disease related or otherwise? Why do we flock to showy campaigns instead of build into our system a way for significantly more money and accomplishments to be realized?

I do think it's more distraction than action. Yes, money went out. For this short period in time some money will be lumped towards some cause more frequently than it did otherwise. We still don't really give a shit about the different diseases that may one day plague us or the fact of suffering as a result of national policy or waste on other things we spend our money on. These videos allow us to feel like “we can all just take it for granted that we really are nice! We really do care!" Even if our bleeding hearts can only do so for the length of a YouTube clip.

To me, lazy and superficial trump happy-go-lucky show of solidarity. Let's find a way to help 'disease' before a teary-eyed ALS patient is used to distract us further.