We are an international community of LookyLoos, slowing down to look at a disaster from a safe, yet still visceral, distance. I don't even need CNN to do it. I can watch Hawaii TV stations on my computer and see the little tsunami waves rush out and rush back in, with white water for special effects. I am slightly nauseated by this whole spectacle.
By spectacle, I don't mean the tsunami in Hawaii or the earthquake in Chile. I don't even mean the devastation in Haiti, the snowpocalypse in DC, the fires in California, the Mississippi floods, or whatever other natural disaster occurs across the globe. By spectacle, I mean the way we act: looking for death and collapse, being ever so slightly disappointed if nothing much happens.
I don't mean that nothing much is happening to the victims of natural disaster. Their worlds are being devastated. And we watch. Some people are into helping, folks like @watergatesummer and @lmzadi1, God bless these tweeps. Some are actively praying for those in need, like @Underdad. But most of us are watchers, deceiving ourselves that our tweets are meaningful.
I am condemning myself more than I condemn others. In all things, it is time for action. In natural disasters, we must donate money or volunteer at the Red Cross. In politics, we must also donate money, as well as make phone calls and sign petitions and call elected representatives and knock on doors and defend our point of view no matter how idiotic or reprehensable the attacks.
You see, there are only two things we can do. We can assent, or we can dissent. We can say "Aye" or we can say "Nay." There is no such thing as "Abstain." If we do not act, we are saying "Nay," and the result is...nothing.
Media feed on human nature and run all the way to the bank. I guess that's all it comes down to, as bad it sounds.
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