Not to seem callous, insensitive, heartless... whatever... but it's interesting to compare the four score of people killed in Iraq today with the orgy of empathy going on in America over the 'Batman' shootings. It was sad what happened in Colorado, troubling in certain specific ways - but all this 'nation in mourning' and 'national tragedy' stuff is absurd, especially when set beside truly horrifying violence - and not simply a brutal level of violence that dwarfs what happened in Colorado but a violence that is also accompanied by the very real threat of quite disturbing political, sectarian, cultural upheaval that could potentially escalate into regional war depending on what happens in Syria.
I'm wondering if Americans in general have indeed become this addled by simplistic sentimentality or whether this is just the media engorging itself on a 'compelling' story and accordingly driving up the ridiculous hyperbole. Still, Obama has turned it into a 'tragedy' requiring presidential attention - but is that him just playing politics per usual, or do Americans actually believe that the nation has suffered such a grievous wound here that of course the chief executive must go all weepy in communal consolation? Ya know, the Japan tsunami was a national tragedy - this is nothing compared to that - it's of course horrible for the people involved and your heart goes out to them - but aside from that this is a tiny blip on the radar of existential dread.
I find myself being less interested in what Colorado has to say about violence in America and the attendant issue of gun control and more interested in what the response to the violence reveals about the American character of today. Is this really the same nation that endured the slaughters on Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima, that stood with solemn humility beside Lincoln at Gettysburg? If I was a Marine who had crawled door to door through the carnage of Falluja I'd be shaking my head with uneasy disbelief at the drivel spewing forth here in the name of a callow sympathy. Is this what we've become or is this just what the media wants to believe we've become? And if the media and narrative makers have decided what they want us to be, is it still possible to resist becoming the thing they've chosen for us?
