Compassion fatigue

Other people's grief
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

Shorter Tom DeLay: "And the Lord said, cursed are those who are swept away in tsunamis."

Really, the guy is an amazing piece of work, quoting Matthew 7, verses 21-29 at a prayer breakfast yesterday:

"Matthew 7:21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works?
23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
28. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
29. For he taught them as [one] having authority, and not as the scribes."

Thanks for caring, Tom (and thanks to Atrios for the link). There's nothing quite like using Jesus to lend support to your own callousness.

DeLay is not alone in inferring that enough's enough when it comes to compassion for the estimated 150,000 killed by the tsunami on Dec. 26. Digby notes that you'll find nary a plea for contributions on the websites of our paragons of moral value.

And here, for example is the Putz:

Columbia, Md.: I can't stand it when CNN pre-empts your show. Your show is the only thing worth watching on the network [sic]. Seriously, was 23 hours and 30 minutes of Tsunami coverage not enough that they needed those extra thrity minutes to tell us the same thing over and over again? Your show probably would have covered the Tsunami coverage anyway, but at least we would have had a different angle to the story for thirty minutes.

Howard Kurtz: Well, thanks for noticing. CNN has gone all out on this disaster, it has the global work force to do it and its ratings have benefitted. But as I said on the air later in the day, it's awfully hard to take wall-to-wall coverage of this story, in part because relentless death and destruction is depressing. I think the network should make some time for other news stories if only to give the audience some moments of relief. [my emphasis]

Digby also quotes from Limbaugh's show a caller who refers to some photo the wingnuts are circulating, showing someone, supposedly in Sri Lanka, wearing a bin Laden t-shirt and says that she just doesn't think we should give money to aid "the cheerleaders on 9-11." After all, wearing such an image should warrant a U.S. bombing run, not an airlift to give them our "stuff." Sri Lanka is not, of course, a Muslim country, but don't let a mere factoid stand in the way of righteous anger.

Frankly, I don't know what's going on here. Digby is certainly correct in writing that the base of the conservative right is not rooted so much in ideology (they have none at the moment, other than the ideology of maintaining power), as it is in tribalism. A powerful sense of us versus them-ism that has been building for decades and reached its validation point for millions on Sept. 11, 2001.

But that doesn't go far enough to explain why there has been so little attention paid to Colin Powell's fears that there may be as many as 4,000 Americans lost in the disaster in Asia. Aren't they one of us? Or does working -- or worse, vacationing -- in Southeast Asia somehow make them suspect?

Perhaps part of what is driving this turning away, if you will, is a sense that there's just too much bad news. As Howie says, "relentless death and destruction is depressing." For millions of Americans, they reached a point where they just turned it off. It's why a president with the lowest approval ratings in half a century is about to be inaugurated for a second time. It's why so many Americans blame the press covering the war for the wheels coming off in Iraq, rather than an incompetent administration that failed to plan for the occupation. It's why Bush so easily reprised his "The Pet Goat" role and did not respond to the disaster for three days (and then, in part, to bitch about a UN representative's nudging that some wealthy nations were being "stingy"). Bush can't be bothered with bad news, either.

If they can just turn off bad things happening elsewhere, or better yet, if they can find Scripture that bolsters their worldview that says that these people are getting their just desserts, then they can forget about them and return to regularly scheduled programming which focuses on their own victimhood.