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?

wishitwaswarmer I didnt say that UK would have pulled out etc etc. My point was not that syria would have done that. I am saying that the countries that we more readily relate to are inflicting pain upon other countries and their people (including mothers and their children). We tend to blank that by making excuses such as 'their government oppresses their own people' or 'their government is corrupt' and put it out of our mind. Yes those points are true but is that really the full story?

I am questioning how complicit our governments (UK, USA etc etc) are in other people's misery. It is an awful truth. Take Rwanda for example. Inaction for some time on our part (the West) cost a lot of people their lives. They were savagely butchered. We live in a global village and we need to be more outspoken about everyone's pain rather than just a select few (and this statement is not referring to today's tragedy at all). Because every child should count, but unfortunately doesn't. :(

I don't think the OP was being American bashing, there are obvious policy flaws that need to be addressed. I just can't imagine that on the night of the Dunblane murders somebody on Mumsnet was starting a thread saying "Am I being unreasonable to notice that the killings in Dunblane are HUGE NEWS but children are dying every hour in Rwanda?". Not necessarily that people weren't thinking that but that they had the sensitivity to not start a thread about it.

Well I'm of the opinion personally that if this had happened in France Germany Italy etc this thread would not even have sprung up.

It's the same old accusations that as our media are covering this heavily this means somehow we all think American lives are worth more and we need to be disabused of this notion.

American gun laws may be relevant but it's foreign policy? Not today.

Pickled American foreign policy is very relevant today and every day. In fact every hour, minute and second of it is deciding some child's fate. It's impact is felt across many corners of the world. Many result in deaths of children whilst their mothers and fathers look on helplessly.

It hasn't any impact on those children who were shot by an individual with mental health issues. None whatsoever. They are total innocents. They are nothing to do with the American government or its foreign policy.

I think this is coverage because it happened in a school. Certainly the school killings in China got a lot of coverage, as much as any in the US.

Its not more horrible than the death of others, its just more immediate for most of us, we think of schools as safe places. There's plenty of coverage of Palestinian children being killed too.

They are nothing to do with the American government - Eh??

They are plenty to do with the American government's approach to firearms and to mental health care - as every American news medium has acknowledged.

It doesn't matter what day it is, someone, somewhere, has died horribly. All this 'waah, blaaah, how very dare you?' stuff is purely demonstrating that some deaths are more important than others. It makes you wonder why some discussions are seen as more unacceptable than others, really.

It makes you wonder why some discussions are seen as more unacceptable than others - Yes, that's what the OP was wondering really, wasn't it.

I don't think any discussion is more acceptable than any other but I do believe there are appropriate times to discuss things. I used Dunblane as an example earlier, the night it happened would it have been ok to say "wah wah children died in Dunblane but they're dying everyday in third world countries"?

This absolutely would have made the news in the us if it happened in the UK. I sorry you are being forced to hear about the lost lives of 20 little little children.

Yabu ; who actually thinks of the difference between one child or another in a circumstance like this. None of them is more sad than the other but to be so cold to actually try and make comparisons , well shame on you op. I am near Dunblane and that horror was inconceivable, I am so heartsick for these poor families.

Why not start a thread to just simply ask why you don't hear more about children dying in 3rd world countries, there always has to be some fucking anti us bull to go with it on mums net. pathetic. always same people too.

For those of you really to stupid to know why it is news in the UK, the answer is we are both English speaking countries. Millions of British living in the states and vice versa. I many people, have family on both sides

I think it is disgusting to make these comments today. Of course no tragic death of a child is worth less than another. I do not consider the reporting of this any different to the reporting of Dunblane. The reason it is media worthy is that it is about killings of supposedly safe children who could have been yours or mine.

Maybe I am being oversensitive, but that school looked so much like my children's elementary here in Virginia. I have often worried about the safety of my kids because of the stupid gun laws here and the ease of access to the school. If reporting this daily for weeks helps in any way make our schools safer or guns harder to access, so be it.

As to the kids in other countries, those are tragedies too. But not on a personal level for most of us. I couldn't envision my child being torn from my arms and dragged into life as a child soldier, but I am all too able to imagine the horror of a phone call from the school and a situation like this. So that is why the media are obsessed.

Well, this is not really true. Syria is in a state of war, whereas a school setting is SUPPOSED to be a place of innocence and safety.

That is the difference.

And, instead of blaming the West the whole time for the actions of the Middle East, how about educating yourselves on the very serious split of Mohammed failing to name a successor? All conflicts in the ME arise from this, truly, civil war.

ie, why is Syria in a state of war?
why are there vicious crackdowns in Bahrain?
why did Saddam Hussein have to be such a bastard, and why did Iraq fall apart when he was deposed (and the Americans stupidly disbanded the army)?
Why does Iran meddle in both Iraq, and Lebanon, and Palestine?
Why is there conflict in Afghanistan, spilling over into Pakistan?
Why does Saudi Arabia ally themselves with the USA?

Muslims themselves externalise this split and project it on USA and the infidels - don't be a useful idiot and join in.

The language of Syria is Arabic.
How many people here speak fluent Arabic.
And how many of us have relatives or know of people who live and work in Syria?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria

fwiw, I know of someone who works for the Japanese media. Does she speak fluent Japanese ? No she does not. She has to have a translator.

That is all bound to make a difference in reporting imo.

I am really sorry. I honeslty didnt think I was being so awful. You're all right. I didn't think.

It was too soon and I was feeling a bit crap, so I just posetd without thinking it through. But please don't make personal comments about me - we all amke errors of judgement

Garlic - nice word twisting but that's not what you were driving at really was it?

Were you really trying to have a discussion about mental Heath treatment or gun laws in America?

always same people too. ?? I don't think I've started a thread like this before have I??