I just watched Waltz with Bashir. And I am under shock. How much human inflicted suffering! From the actual massacres to the post-traumatic stress syndrome of the soldiers involved. Lives destroyed. When I was a little kid, I supposedly swore that nothing like the Holocaust would ever happen again. Yet, where was I when those massacres happened? When did they even happen? I didn’t even know about them until this movie.

I started reading Peter Unger’s book “Living High and Letting Die.” It’s subtitle is “Our Illusion of Innocence.” He writes about children dying all over the world while we worry about the latest software upgrades or the coolest party to go to. There is so much more that we ignore and pretend to be innocent about. But what to do? What can we do in face of these massive inequalities, this disrespect of life – human and otherwise – for the profit of the few? How can we change all that and maybe safe the planet while we’re at it? It’s overwhelming to think about our global responsibility. Yet, it’s hard to deny, too, because everything we do, everything we buy, has an impact somewhere else. Sitting here at the computer typing has an impact. The energy it uses. The children who might’ve been involved in its assembly. It’s all interconnected; something we love to deny. Is that what we need to realize again? That we’re all interconnected? If I play music loudly, someone else will hear it? If I double-park someone else will have to drive around me? These are the little things where we ignore our interconnection but that’s where the realization has to start. We have to start somewhere. Buy local. Buy from non-chain stores. All that good stuff. But that’s not enough. We cannot hide behind our claim of innocence and deny interconnection world-wide. What massacres am I ignoring right now? And how do we get the masses to start waking up?

---

---

Share this post with others: