We Are Not A Village

On Saturday, a rogue member of the United States military left his post to go to a small Afghan village in the dark of night where he broke into four small huts and murdered 16 people including 9 children. This isn’t a tragedy, this is a horror. The tragedy is that this horror is no longer unique.

CNN and other mainstream media have already begun their entertainment-driven in depth analysis, dissecting every minute detail from every conceivable angle. Air time must be filled and an audience entertained. Psychologists are produced to comment on post-traumatic-stress-disorder.  The military base at which the serviceman served is analyzed, as much as can be learned about his family is revealed and endless repeats of comments from the military, politicians and Afghan leaders and citizens are  replayed like the halftime highlights of a football game.


Even videos, like the one posted here begin with a commercial because no horror, no loss of life can be allowed to interfere with the business of doing business,. Nothing is sacred and especially not human life.

In the end, nothing is learned, nothing is changed, and nothing is resolved. The following day will be a continuation of how we lived the day before.

Political and military leaders are speaking out using words like 'shocking', 'tragedy' and 'rampage'. They were once again caught by surprise just as they were caught by surprise when marines urinated on dead members of the Taliban, the ensuing violent protests by a people outraged and two American officers were shot in the Afghan Security Headquarters in retaliation for American soldiers burning copies of the Koran.

It isn't a secret that these horrors happen but our societies never anticipate them happening and is never prepared when they do. We stop for a moment, express our concern but we don't seriously consider the root causes and attempt to take measures to prevent these horrors. They always come on us unexpectedly.

This is not a condemnation of the U.S. military, this latest horror simply exemplifies the society in which we now live. These horrific events are not exclusive to the U.S. military or any military for that matter. They happen in war zones, in schools, in homes and in offices. They happen in democracies and theocracies, dictatorships and monarchies.  They happen when it is least expected and with increasing frequency.

They happen because we are not a village.

Terrorists kill. The military kills. Parents kill. Criminals, neighbours, colleagues and drug gangs kill.  Even government kills in many countries and places like China and Iran, routinely execute people in the same numbers and with the same expediency as was seen in France during the Reign of Terror. Just line 'em up and move 'em out.

Life is cheap.

In our conceit we debate abortion as if we know with certainty when a life is or is not human. We discuss euthanasia with the compassion of convenience that is lower than anything we might bring to putting down a pet. We give more support to causes to save environment and to groups like PETA to save animals than we do the sanctity of human life.

We are arrogant and indifferent.

We have built a world that puts a higher value on a new Apple iPad and the cost of gasoline than it does on human life. The discussions online are about politics, technology and criticisms of those who annoy us or with whom we violently disagree. Somewhere, in that clutter of shallow discourse is the odd comment about the latest horror or atrocity but within moments of the comment, it is back to the real business at hand.

We blame government because it's easy. We blame the system because it's convenient but we never blame ourselves. We never stop and look at what we each are doing to the world we think we want. It is always the responsibility or fault of someone else.

Hillary Clinton wrote that ‘it takes a village’ to raise a child and many on social media like to think they are part of a global village but we aren’t. Villages are filled with people who care for and who protect each other. Despite their daily disagreements and tasks, they never lose sight of the fact that the success of the village comes from unity.

Their priorities always start with the village’s obligation to protect every member of the village, especially its children.  It is a simple concept where recognition of the need to work daily to provide food, shelter and safety coupled with respect for others is how unity is maintained. Children are protected by the village. The poor are fed by the village. The infirm and the ill are cared for by the village. Individual accomplishment is encouraged and celebrated, those who struggle are helped by those who succeed.

It is not communism. It is something else.

It is something that we, for all of our sophistication, no longer understand. It is a sense of community, an understanding of belonging to something greater than ourselves, a unity which not only protects us but gives us the freedom to live our individual lives.

We are not a village. We are a world of self-absorbed clusters of hate, economic class, ideology, hypocrisy and intolerance for anyone and anything not part of our current cluster.

In the past month, three children were murdered by their parents. There is more horror coming but we are not prepared. Our children are either bullies, the victims of bullies or merely observers of bullying. Whichever they are, they have learned that indifference or anger from us. We have taught them well. Too many of our children give up and teen suicides are increasing as we debate the trivia of the day or scramble for more money to buy more things.

Life is cheap. We no longer consider the lives of anyone but those closest to us to have much value. We are too busy for much more than a passing comment over the death of nine children. They weren’t our children or even the children of those near us. They were ‘their’ children and their lives are cheap. We don't even have time to stop and reconsider how to stop the carnage of our own.

We live in a world where we devote more time to discussing trivia than to children at risk. We live in a world where abject poverty exists in the richest countries in the world. We live in a world where excuses and vested-self interest reign supreme.

We will see the horror of that Saturday night in Afghanistan again and then again because we are too sophisticated to remember how to be a village.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

The PETA Hypocrisy

I want to talk about PETA today or as the acronym spells out; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I’m going to put aside, for a moment, my own personal bias about people who put things and animals ahead of the welfare of other people and just look at PETA and some of its attitudes and practices.

In the video below, a PETA spokesperson debates the NRA. I have no particular fondness for the NRA and personally believe there are too many guns around although I have no issue with legal ownership and use of a firearm. But this debate was interesting, not because of either of the participants but because of a simple question asked by a member of the audience. Take a look and then we’ll talk.

I'm opposed to cruelty to animals or to people either for that matter and speak out and support efforts to end it.  My issue is hypocrisy. The SPCA has a pretty good batting average when it comes to finding homes for animals that have been abused or abandoned, significantly better than PETA’s in fact but it is PETA that is constantly lecturing the world about animal rights.

In some jurisdictions, PETA, actually kills somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of the animals it takes in and usually without any effort to try and find homes for them. In fact, PETA sometimes goes to various SPCA shelters to "save" animals which it later kills. They number in the thousands. The SPCA, by contrast, has a placement rate in the 75% range. I'll leave it to you to decide for yourself which organization actually works harder on behalf of the welfare of animals. As seen in the video, PETA considers euthanasia is a kinder alternative for abandoned animals feeling unloved than allowing them to live.

Let’s assume for the moment that animals have the same rights as human beings and seeing as how we now agree they are equal, let’s substitute the word animal with person. PETA’s solution, as suggested in the video, would simply be to kill the majority of people who were homeless or unloved.

Isn’t that lovely!

I don’t actually believe that is what PETA would or wants to do nor do I believe they are motivated by a maniacal desire to kill animals but it does underscore the basic weakness in their position. It demands equal rights for animals but even PETA doesn't treat animals and people equally. Clearly, if PETA would not kill people the way it kills animals simply because they are homeless, it doesn't see animals and human beings as equals. If, as PETA suggests, animals have the same rights as people then PETA should be treating animals the same way they would treat people in similar circumstances and clearly, killing people isn't an option they would consider so why is it acceptable to them to kill so many animals? I find it particularly hypocritical considering how much they carry on about others killing animals for food or medical research.

I do believe,  that like too many with a burning cause, PETA has lost its perspective. Consider the reaction to President Obama killing a fly in this video. 

Four children die from abuse in the United States every day but PETA, while quick to condemn the killing of fly, remains silent. For me that is clearly a very confused set of values.

The simple fact is that it is PETA’s basic ideology as much as their practice that is fundamentally flawed. Nobody should be permitted to harm an animal out of cruelty but that doesn’t mean they have the same rights as human beings and flies definitely are not ever going to achieve equality.

Maggie and I have a dog, Jasper, and a cat, Fat Ass. They’re pets. They are affectionate, sometimes funny and good company and we have a responsibility to care for them and treat them well. But as pets, they don’t have jobs, income or go to school. They accept no responsibility for their share of the mortgage, the food they eat or for emptying the litter box. Neither of them can read, write nor work the remote control on the television which means both are reasonably uninformed about what is going on in the big world, which is a good thing because neither is allowed to vote nor wants to.

Basically they live to frolic. Jasper lives for many things: eating, sleeping, running around the yard and treating the world like it is his personal bathroom. He also enjoys being patted, going for drives in the car and having a fuss made over him. Fat Ass merely lives to sleep, eat and poop. She hates the car, doesn't care much for Jasper or I and tolerates Maggie when it's dinner time.

Maggie loves them both and I am on mildly friendly terms with them, well, at least with Jasper. Fat Ass and I never speak and we’re both content with that. Are they equal to us? Not even close but that is no reason to treat them badly. They are living, sentient beings and there is no justification for hurting them but there is also no justification for elevating their status to sharing equal rights with people. They are pets, not ‘non-human companions’.  They are animals and that’s all there is too it.

The next time PETA starts to lecture the world about the evils of killing animals for food it should take an inventory of the thousands of abandoned animals it has killed simply for which it didn’t have the resources, or couldn’t be bothered, to find shelter. 

It needs to stop fretting over the use of animals in medical research and ask itself what alternatives there are to developing necessary vaccines and ongoing research against diseases like cancer and AIDS or diseases that kill animals. Not all medical research is only for human diseases. If PETA can justify killing animals because they don't have a home, how is it that it can't justify using animals in medical research to save both other animals and people?.

Hunting is another big issue for PETA and I have no issue with them being opposed to hunting, many are. I personally am not although I think it is a bit ridiculous to walk miles into the bush away from your truck only to shoot something that weighs as much as your truck. I often wonder how hunters get a 1500 lb. moose out of the woods. But that aside, most hunters make good use of the animals they hunt and hunting for food is as old as humanity. 

Perhaps PETA should be more concerned with people who hunt other people in our cities. I don’t know how anyone justifies that.

I don’t wish PETA any more harm than I do Jasper or even Fat Ass but I wish they’d stop lecturing the rest of us with their self-righteous hyperbole and think about things before they took down a few thousand more dogs and cats. Perhaps instead of killing them, they could consider turning them over to the SPCA in the countries in which they operate. The SPCA at least has a much better placement success rate than PETA and it seems to me that it is something PETA is supposed to want….isn’t it?

At the very least, perhaps PETA should remember it's president's response to President Obama's murder of a fly.

"He isn’t the Buddha, he’s a human being

and human beings have a long way

to go before they think before they act."

Ingrid Newkirk, PETA President

That's good advice Ingrid. Perhaps it's time for PETA to consider putting it into practice.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others