to notice that the killings in the USA

[butisthismyname]

Are HUGE NEWS, but the children who are being shot and killed every day in syria, the children who live on the streets and die every day in south america and the children who are dying in third world countries are 'part of the furniture'? I know what has just happened is horrific and sad and awful, but it's just so fucking unfair. It's like the twin towers - OMG the USA is in trouble, lets be outraged ( not negating that but just an example) When will we be as understanding and sympathetic and make what is happening everywhere else in the world as important and newsworthy as this?

I'm in America, from what I've been reading people here are very much aware of the Chinese school tragedy, they are contrasting the fact that no children died in China, because that man didn't have easy access to guns. Hopefully a long hard look will be taken at gun control here in the wake of this horrifying tragic incident.

This thread is in very poor taste.

Quite a few people have, Polka. They are probably more emotionally honest than you. You're certainly demonstrating the very ability to 'not see' things you don't empathise with, which OP laments in her post.

In Syria you're not only dodging bullets and bombs but secret service police and it's hard to get a visa in, atrocoties are also covered up soooooo kind of going to be a tad less footage to broadcast methinks. Or should reporters put their lives even more on the line to get more screen time?Maybe op you coud volunteer.

Really really poor, to use the deaths of these innocent little children to try and score some sort of political point against America, what kind of logic does that at this point?

What utter crap Garlic.

quoteunquote so at what point do the discussion police decree that enough time has passed that a conversation is acceptable? Just so we know?

Unreal.

As Chub said, if you have a whole brain, you can actually care about both.

I said earlier that, rightly or wrongly, I can identify more easily with the USA. I didn't say that I feel more compassion for a parent in the USA than for one in Syria. Just that I can identify more. I don't think that an American parent's grief is harder for them than a Syrian parent's grief. That would be absurd.

Lucy, I was thrilled to see the firearm debate being taken a bit more seriously in the US. For so long, many have been asking "How many more lives must be wasted before America questions its right to carry lethal weapons?" Let's hope Connecticut marks that point ...

... and I agree, lives are being wasted everywhere. I tend to feel America's love affair with guns causes much of that wastage. It is neither irrelevant nor insensitive to express this feeling.

I have just run a search " school shootings" and the American shootings in Connecticut fill the page, run a search for "Chinese school stabbings" and most of what comes up in a search is historical stuff relating to other incidents from as far back as 2010.

So the world's news agencies are going mad to report the American Incident.

Meanwhile Assad's regime is firing Scud missiles at rebel-held areas and may resort to using chemical warfare. And America's main concern.......are any of the rebels linked to outside terrorist organisations and would any new government be "democratic" along western lines and not Islamist. Why? they have no problem standing by while thousands of innocent people are massacred but they are very invested in what sort of government Syria might end up with.

You know that do you solid? You know, without a doubt, that a week from now, a month from now, a year from now they wont google this date, this event to read about what wangs reported, to try to better understand ... just because. This will still be here. How would you feel to read this about your DC?

Every minute of every day someone's child somewhere is dying a horrible, painful death. Sometimes because of a murderous individual, sometimes because of living in a war zone, sometimes because of poverty, sometimes because of sheer bad luck (all the money, facilities, status and power in the world won't stop an aggressive cancer). We all really have to pick and choose what causes we can support and which people (or starving puppies) we can actually help with political action or handholding or whatever.
The OP's right to question why there's such a big splatterfest over this incident rather than others. Posting a picture of a crying kitten on Facebook to show that you are Sad and Thinking Of Them is not actually doing anything useful, yet there is a bit of aculture of being expected to engage in emotional display over some deaths more than others.

I don't see it as anti USA, (I went through the high school system not far from there, certainly my FB is full of this)

It trying to understand the differences, no one is trying to disregard or lessen what has happened in the USA,

blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/happened-syrian-town-aqrab/3426

mothers having to beat their own children in order to stop them screaming for food or water in fear of being killed,

many atrocities all over the world today,like there is everyday, if we had the same representation in media attention would there be so many?

Solid - your charming turn of phrase will thrill them no end I'm sure. To know that you consider the condolances of strangers to be 'grief wank' and worthless. I hope to god you never have to find out how much the support of strangers can support you through a bereavement.

A life is a life. One life is not cheaper than another, nor does it deserve less understanding than another whether we can relate to it or not.

right to question why there's such a big splatterfest over this incident rather than others

Solid - really? Really?

If you google in English then you will get a bias to English-language media.
Internet usage and access to the media is lower in China than it is in the English-speaking world. The Chinese stabbings didn't end up with as many deaths.... so no shit, you got more about the US shootings than about the Chinese stabbings.

I actually AGREE that events in the USA are over-reported in the UK (compared to events in other countries). And yes, US foreign policy is to advance US interests overseas, not necessarly to do what is morally right. But I don't agree that the school shootings should be ignored or relegated to a shorter news slot as a result.
The Dunblane atrocity was reported globally, and I cannot imagine anyone would have said then that it was a trivial story becuase it "only" happened in a posh Scottish village. Sorry, city. Or that it should have been reported less due to ongoing childhood mortality rates in the developing world.

I think you are totally right to question this OP and also agree with you. However, would still like to show sympathy for the parents of those killed where ever it happened.

startail has it right .. It's no more one than the other - but we identify with middle American children far more easily than Syrian children .. It's no less shocking - just closer to home iyswim ...

Speak for yourself......I don't identify more with middle America than I do Syrian parents. What an incredibly racist and discriminatory way of relating to people.

What do you expect people to do when this kind of thing happens?

Confine it to a paragraph-long mention on page 5?

Be realistic. For fuck's sake.

I agree there are a lot of important and interesting issues raised that need further discussion but why anyone would think that today is the right time for these discussions is beyond me. I find it quite shocking that the first thing a number of people thought when hearing about the 27 murders in a kindergarten in America was "what about Syria?". I'm not trying to minimise the horrific atrocities that are occuring/have occured in Syria (which are also extensively reported on) but really that was your FIRST thought? Your first thought wasn't for the children and families in America?

The thing about grief wank is you're not actually doing anything to help the bereaved. You can't because you don't know them and they don't know you. Your FB status update with some cheesy boohoo quote and a picture of a flower is totally irrelevant, it just makes you feel good.
In fact, anyone who isn't a domiciled American can't do anything useful about this particular incident, which mainly happened due to the fact that Americans can pretty much pick up a gun with the weekly shopping; domiciled Americans who look at this news story and feel sad and outraged could channel that into campaiging for banning guns; the rest of the world can't do that. People who are upset by the deaths of children in Syria or Palestine can get involved in political actions and protests, people who are upset by the deaths of children due to famine/pollution in the developing world can get involved in aid action or political action to help in those circumstances. But it's very much worth questioning the cultural vibe that encourages people to snivel over the stuff they can't change rather than to engage with the stuff they could.