The Practicing Progressive

Where is the outrage?

On Monday, the front page was filled with expressions of anger and indignation at the bonuses allotted to AIG. Newspapers around the world reported on citizenry up in arms over the millions of dollars being allocated to executives who, in the opinion of many experts and not-so-experts alike, were more deserving of eternal damnation rather than year-end bonuses.

On Monday, generally lost amidst ads for the latest fashions or zero interest car loans, was the announcement that humanitarian aid organizations were being systematically expelled from Darfur by Sudan’s president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in reaction to the International Criminal Court’s decision to indict him for crimes against humanity, genocide and murder. Estimates are that a minimum of 300,000 people have died in Darfur as a result of the policies handed down by the Sudanese ruler. Over a million people now depend on the aid groups in Darfur for the barest of life’s necessities. It is abundantly clear to those familiar with the tragedy continuing to unfold in Darfur that this expulsion is simply another means of human extermination, slower than government-backed raiders wiping out villages but just as effective.

On Tuesday, fearless and brave legislators spent their tax-payer supported day passing a patently unconstitutional bill designed to tax 90% of bonuses earned by executives working in industries that received federal bail-out funds. Congressmen and women of every stripe strode boldly to the microphones and declared their determined defense of all that is right and noble. Representative after representative made sure their mugs made it to the front page of their local newspapers proclaiming their virtue and extolling their moral courage.

On Tuesday, somewhere after the weather but before the comics, two paragraphs were spent describing how the Dali Lama was disinvited to a South African peace conference. The host country felt the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists, a committed pacifist, would distract from the theme of the meeting of Nobel Peace Prize winners and others, namely peacemaking.

On Wednesday, in response to the great hue and cry from America’s masses and breathlessly reported (and encouraged?) by its media, the front page reported that President Obama ordered the Treasury Department to pursue “every single legal avenue to block these bonuses.”

On Wednesday, a summary of Pope Benedict’s address to an African continent ravaged by AIDS could be found on page 6. The pope declared that the use of condoms actually promoted the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. His conviction in this matter reveals an apparent ignorance of the plight of healthy African wives married to HIV-infected husbands among other papal idiocies. Rebecca Hodes, of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, an anti-AIDS organization, responded to the pope’s remarks by accurately declaring, “…his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans.”

On Thursday we could read through the glass on the newsstand that Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, demanded CEO’s of beleaguered and bailed-out businesses must show remorse ala Japanese corporate leaders, some of whom have recently committed suicide in response to their apparent failure to please the public.

On Thursday you had to rifle past the ads to read of Israeli soldiers complaining that government sanctioned rabbis were urging the combatants to see the conflict over Palestine as the God-blessed over the God-damned…and you can guess whose side God was on according to these clerics.

On Friday, banner headlines and a big photo announced AIG’s chief executive’s appearance on Capitol Hill where he was subject to a series of tongue lashings by politicians whose own fiduciary shenanigans and numerous infidelities have brought no little shame to their once hallowed chambers. AIG CEO Edward Liddy read examples of death threats to his employees and their families.

On Friday, page 16, the following paragraph appeared: “The Department of Defense has identified 4,252 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American…ANSONG, Theophilus K. 34, Petty Officer First Class, Navy; Bristow, Va.; amphibious transport dock San Antonio.”

Where is the outrage?