It just seems awfully easy to stand on your doorstep and clap (& other acts of public do-gooder confirmation). It’s a lot harder when not in times of national crisis to actually show up and do practical things. I get that morale may be important in times like this (or not, not really sure, has anyone studied this?), but so is doing things, and doing them for groups who get less publicity.
I was talking to my son about this, but he disagreed and said that optics matter, it helps educate people and whatnot. To me, though, it too often comes at the expense of action that actually affects change. Where I live, for example, the government periodically issues apologies to Indigenous people over whatever historical wrong is being highlighted. Then it’s dust hands off, job done. Does their housing improve? No. Does their education, or the water on reserves, or their rate of unemployment? No. Similarly with the masses of mentally ill and addicted homeless here. Lots of posts about how Margie has feed the homeless with sandwiches hand-delivered, or served birthday cake at the shelter. That’s nice, but I’d like to see Margie put similar efforts into addressing the reasons people get addicted in the first place.
If makes the do-gooders feel good, but does it fix any of these things long-term? Nope. A bit of both I could wrap my head around, but it’s 90/10 & so just gets on my nerves.