|
07 July 2005 - 12:04 This may offend some Americans. My apologies to those it does. We have an american who works in the office here. By all accounts an intelligent and well mannered one... His response to today's events were: "Well fuck - is that it? Only 40 dead...?" ...And then went off on some tirade about 911 and the numbers associated with that. He didn't know I was behind him. And he didn't know my twin brother lives there and that he lives and works extremely close to three of the incidents today. He didn't know that my brothers pregnant wife walked through one of the affected tube stations within an hour of the detonation. I guess that's not even the point. His first thought at the initial death toll was that America was still leading that particular record. He was almost proud of it. Anyway - I shook my head, and somebody asked me if I'd heard from my brother... Which I had. I called him first thing this morning when I heard. He was actually quite nonchelant about the whole thing. He said he knew it would happen... it was just a case of 'when', not 'if'. He said that most Londoners were, at some level, prepared for this. Back to Mr America. Is this how it's going to be? A constant comparison to validate and elevate themsleves as the worlds greatest martyrs? It strikes me that without that badge, the U.S. might just be the same as the rest of us. And clearly that just wouldn't do. Gone was the solidarity for human race, and once again it was "America vs the World" ...or in this case "America's dead" against "London's dead". It's a completely sickening attitude and one which I had to bite my tongue at. The thought that something doesn't matter as much because only a smaller number of mothers lost their children, or only a smaller number of people may never walk again makes me want to puke. All over Captain America. I know that this isn't representative of every American out there. Perhaps this isn't even about America ... it's just a knee-jerk reaction to the comments made by one. I just hope to hell that he's the only self-righteous, insensitive, closed-minded fool I meet today.
   My life is rated NC-17. What is your life rated? |
