We're so much more valuable.

32 Americans killed. Horrific. Tragedy. Mass mourning. Presidential call for prayers for the dead & their families.

But America is killing that number of people -and far more- every single day in Iraq and has been for 4 years, a nation of people that hadn't been doing anything to anyone, least of all to us.

Every single day.

But then, we're so much more valuable than those untermenschen. :eyes:

...incident of violence here while most people ignore it there.

If your best friend died in a car crash, you would probably be quite upset.

If my best friend died in a car crash, you would probably say, "Tis a pity..."

We mourn for those that are closer to us or those that we identify with. I hate that we are in Iraq and I hate that people are dying. But I do not have any kind of psychic connection to Iraq.

I live a few hours from Blacksburg. My neighbors are VT alums. I know people with kids there.

As humans, I think, we need to be able to put a face on a tragedy. Think of every movie you've ever seen. We can watch an entire battalion of extras get wiped out, but Tom Hanks' death is the one that makes us cry.

Shame on our media for not showing the horror of daily life in Iraq.

night after night did wake many of us up poor reporting now a days, reporters who keep going over and over the same story, true journalism is dead in this country, Iraq is the forgotten war.

sitting in our big farm kitchen with the TV on watching the war during dinner. It was very sobering & put our daily problems in perspective.

"We should grieve more for these people" is one claim.

"We should try and make other people grieve more for these people" is another.

I think the first is wrong, the second right, because while making people grieve achieves nothing in itself, it will also make them try more to prevent subsequent deaths.

I don't want you to mourn for my death. I do want you to try and prevent it.

When they lost their loved ones it was only natural for them to reach out beyond themselves to others who had also lost loved ones. Cindy Sheehan does the same thing. Violence is violence and it is not unrelated. I thought of that almost immediately when I heard the news about VT. When we mourn these young people it should be very easy to go beyond that to Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan and all other places of violent deaths.

The anti war movement is essentially an anti violence movement.

why is it somehow worse that they are Americans?

An individual can be closer to certain foreigners than to stranger Americans.

And this country is a nation of strangers, too.

Caring is great - I'm sure the families of the victims feel much better now.... I want to know how you think we can make Iraq peaceful so that 32 dead there is as much of a shock.

occupation, had a national identity and called each other Iraqis. The Sunnis and Shiia married each other, went to school and worked together, and cooperated. When we upset the apple cart and introduced massive violence, set up a government based on sect percentages, and started recruiting Shites to suppress the Sunni 'insurgency', we encouraged the violence.

Screw those Iraqis.

Thanks for putting it all in perspective Lynnthedem.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

We feel sorry when those among us get killed, but many Americans really could not care less when people overseas get killed.

It is especially bad when WE feel no guilt or shame for our actions overseas. (By "we" I mean most Americans).

We send our kids off to college and just hope and pray that they'll be safe -- thinking in terms of auto accidents, etc. When something like the VT tragedy happens, every parent in this country gets a lot more nervous.

We didn't send our kids off to college in a war zone. No place SHOULD EVER BE a war zone, but certainly an American college campus shouldn't be one.

Some of us feel for the parents and family of the lost because it could just as easily have been our kids. And I refuse to feel guilty about feeling that way, despite your best efforts to make it so.

Bake

Because we are upset about something that happened right in our face doesn't mean we aren't upset about the war. That is the strangest thing people around here do. Someone can come on and say..."my grandma died last night" and sure as shit someone will start a thread..."well, why don't you care about the soldiers and the Iraqis?" Bizarre. We even have at least one person at DU who has a daughter at Virginia Tech. Give me a break. I have room in my heart to care about all bad things. This is the most illogical thing that happens at DU...the division of caring thing. "If you're thinking about dead grandma/students at Virginia, you must have completely stopped caring about the war." Fuck that.
Lee