Little Tolerance

[mer_moon]

I find that I have little tolerance for some of the shapes Nationalism takes. If I were Janet of ballad-fame, and my countrymen* were Tam Lin, sometimes the sad fact of the matter is I'd probably let go out of disgust. I think one of the most loathsome shapes I've seen take it is the "Eh, it's happening over there, they'll be fine" shape. The "

Comments

[shweta_narayan]

I know this is your argh, but I really feel grateful for your posting it, so want to say thank you.

As a non-USian in the US, I get this in my face a lot -- the callousness about what happens in India and neighbouring countries, or else if something bad happens the focus on whether the Americans there are okay ZOMG, and shrugs about the actual people who live there.

Or else, ha, the assumption that I agree that jobs going to India are a terrible thing. (It's not like I think outsourcing is awesome, because I think fair wages are awesome and that conflicts; but the casual assumption that those people should not get our stuff gets shoved in my face every few weeks. And would more often if I got out more I'm sure.)

And it gets so... wearying, so disappointing, to hear pindrop silence from supposed progressive idealists in response. So thank you for patching my shredded optimism some.

[winters_queen]

It's usually the 'it's not happening to me, so whatever' attitude really. I know some people in Australia and even though they are far from the flooding, I can only imagine what's going through their minds. There is someone's blog that I read who is in Australia that she's so upset over what's happening to her own country.

Granted, I think so people are so jaded because for the past couple of years now, we've been hammered by something huge. The tsunami, Katrina, the flooding in Tennessee, Haiti, the oil leak in the gulf. We can't turn around anymore with some global catastrophe anymore and everyone is all "give give give". There are people that try to help were they can but when it's practically every year, and in this economy, it's getting harder to give when everyone is getting less themselves. :/

If I were to win the powerball or something like that big, I know what I would do with some of the money. But that's just the pipe dream to work towards.