Outrage hits everyone differently.

One does not equal the other.

and honestly, people are fine as fuck when it comes to seeing a range of people dying that are "over there" in some other place - whether in our own country or other countries. If it's not smack dab in front of them, it's not happening or impacting them.

We often fail to realize or understand that a concern for one or more stories may be illustrated in many ways-- written responses being merely one of them, reading a news story without response or comment may be another. We do ourselves a disservice when we pretend the one is a more valid evidence of concern than the other.

caused by terrorists.

but I often don't hear a lot of condemnation of terrorists - for example, 3 terrorists killed over 5 people in India last week by crossing the border from Pakistan. where's the outrage?

what about that?

I mean, I don't have a good solution. I'm not a big fan of US imperial war adventures, but I also can't see just ignoring ISIS. They are just too horrible--in ways that even Al Qaeda wasn't.

But, if we are going to engage in war with ISIS, it behooves us to at least acknowledge what we are doing and what the consequences are, including a bunch of innocent people killed by OUR bombs.

I understand the Cecil the Lion thing. It's easy outrage. Dealing with ISIS or our responses to ISIS isn't so easy.

here's what I would add:

- ignore isis and they will continue to murder tens of thousands and then conduct terrorist attacks in other countries

what choice is there but to fight back - but in doing that we still need to protect the innocent life - but we can't not do anything.

at least for some of us.

People are concerned about many things, and we have the capacity to respond to a multitude of problems at the same time. Its disingenuous, irresponsible and thoughtless to accuse anyone who reacts with care and compassion to the tragic and senseless slaughter of wild animals, andf not being appropriatly outraged at human suffering as well.

We seqem to be doing a better job of mutitasking our compassion quotas than you believe is possible, yeah?

Granted, I'm just looking at posts on a discussion board. But when it comes to dead Arab civilians at our hands, I don't even see "That's terrible" or "That's a shame, but..." responses. Just silence.

General forums are very fast paced and many relevant topics quickly get lost as they move down the que. This isn't a measure of interest or importance, but merely a snapshot in time.

Most of us have lived their entire lives with news of fighting, atrocities, and death in the Middle East being literally (or as close as not to matter) a daily occurrence. People being killed in fighting in that region is about as common as the sun rising, and they're often non-combatants. It would be vastly more newsworthy if a day went by with no one dying in fighting there. Sure, its utterly commonplace nature actually makes the killing more horrific when you think about it...but it just doesn't get people's attention. Most people get upset about it when they stop and think, but they don'tstop and think much of the time, because it's an "in other news, water is wet" situation.

Well-loved* members of a threatened species being killed by assholes isn't an everyday occurrence (actually, it may well be, given how bad the poaching problem is). It's newsworthy, and it's something people notice because it's not something they read every day. The relative lack of response to an event much, much more common doesn't surprise me.

* I also think that even on a liberal site like this, there's a fair bit of at least subliminal resentment of Islamist violence...and that creates a psychological situation in which sympathy is harder to come by...even when sympathy for non-combatant civilians is called for. This isn't the Free Republic, so we don't get responses like "good...nits grow into lice" and other such vile responses (like you actually see in conservative forums). But I think there's some of that sort of thing going on, on a subconscious level. I have to monitor my own feelings in this matter, as I tend to be no big fan of what I consider to be a profoundly anti-feminist Islamic culture. I have to make sure that my dislike for institutionalized misogyny isn't projected on to individuals who bear no real responsibility for it.

The purpose of killing the lion was to kill a lion.

nailed it.

thread winner imo

in the business of killing people. It has become intertwined with corporate mega financial entities developed and dependant upon "This." In plain language death = big Business. Also death = big donations to politicians who brag about getting these big business to locate their death delivery systems in the politicians district.

"{This" has also become intertwined into the job's numbers that would be significantly reduced without "This." In plain language Death = jobs.

We fought "This" in the streets during the Vietnam conflict and the government was OK with the deaths of innocent lives that were gunned down on our college campuses.

That is when cops learned that killing by those in authority is OK and the militarization of the police force began. And the militant cops learned to hate common citizens and they also learned that murder at the hands of the state of the common people was fine.

This is why we have a police force who now see their lives as having more value than unarmed 12 year old kids and are now OK with being trained that all people are criminals and the easisest solution to any problem with the public is death.

That is why we are reduced to outrage over a 1%er who goes after a defenseless lion. That is all the power the government allows since the government is not the target for the outrage. We are beaten down by the goverment who made "THIS": a part of patriotism, love it or leave it creed. And if we complain then the government law enforcement machinery that is place will label us the criminals or just decide that we can be the target as easily as those poor kids.

The deaths and displacement of millions, the persistent racism, the completely unchecked war on womens' right to choose, and many other issues are increasingly matters no one has the power to do much about. Read the threads here, and the common thread is political and societal impotency. Government is unviable (by intent, it seems), political paties are reactionary or inactive, the innertubes are where any pop-up injustice can be matched easily with ethnic cleansing with a lion being shot with a school shooting with the heartbreak of psoriasis.

So we look for anything to rattle the bars of our own cage. The only question of the hour is how to quickly brand your outrage and its "enemies" sufficiently to force all manner of other outrage into the hopper. But be quick: another is on the way.

We celebrate the demise of MSM and its carnival of legitimacy. But nothing has replaced it.

damage of the wars that we or other entities start. Do you really think that the deaths related to ISIS are the first collateral damage deaths? Americans were killing innocent civilians back in the first Gulf War. What about the massacres in Rwanda? What about the regular round of mass shootings? Conservatives, "pro-lifers" are only pro-birth not pro-life. They don't care one whit what happens once a baby is born.

It is a fact of life that there are this planet experiences tremendous loss of life on a regular basis and the human race, as a whole, just does not care of it. I took an environmental class back in the early 70s and one chapter dealt with human population grown rate. As of the time the textbook was written the single event causing the greatest loss of life was the bubonic plague. At the time the book was written, if the planet experienced the same volume of loss of life it would have taken only 3 months to gain that loss back with 9 more months left in the year to grow the population. With the population of this planet, people are considered expendable. There will always be more people unless we manage to do so much damage to the planet, environment, plant & animal life that it becomes uninhabitable.

Humans by their very nature are a destructive species. I can't do much about the loss of life due to drone attacks but I sure as heck will speak out for animals, because humans are the only entity that will deliberately make another species extinct and that is just plain wrong.

valid issues are constantly presented by a segment of DU as some Thunderdome bout 'This Vs That'. I do not get where it comes from. 'Social justice vs economic justice'. What the fuck is this binary, conflict based language all about?
You use it, so please tell me.

And the 120+ people bombed in a mosque in Nigeria while praying...

And the 300k people Assad has killed in his civil war...

And the list goes on...


So just deal with it -- I post stories I feel are important but get shoved off the front page without even a rec, too...

reponses. Humans are strange.

although it can be exhausting.

War gets a pass because money.

Lion killers in the news help us forget that for a while.

Then, another distraction will come along to soothe our national psyche.

Look! A Kardashian is getting a new show.

Collateral damage in the pursuit of eliminating/defeating ISIS is tragic but deaths necessary to achieve a more noble cause. (That better men might live) Presumably these casualties are being kept to the minimum level necessary to achieve the goal. Whereas what was the Public/Societal good in the shooting death of Cecil?