In the Arms

I know I'm a coward and I'm not proud of that, but lately fear has taken a stronghold on my being. Last night on the news there was a story about two joggers in Queens who were mauled by a pack of wild dogs. The fear and the guilt always come together: fear that it could happen to me, gladness that it didn't, and guilt because I wouldn't trade places with these people in pain.

There are a whole lot of people in this world that I wouldn't trade places with. It's so easy to accept the luck of the draw light handedly, that you weren't born to be a frozen and starving Afghan refugee, or even one of the 911 victims, since _your_ life is all you know. It's easy to accept these things and it is also the hardest thing in the world. You have to go about your daily life, unencumbered by constant feelings of empathy towards everyone who is in pain, while you are enjoying your morning tea. You wouldn't be able to go through your life if you couldn't place certain thoughts aside.

This all sounds so simplistic. I know I'm retarded when it comes to certain pieces of knowledge about life, but when I was younger, I tried to be empathetic and compassionate. Now all I see is a food chain, and you're damn lucky if you don't get ripped to pieces, or a radioactive shower voids the possibility that you would ever produce a healthy child.

I don't know how people in countries which have been war-torn can create and admit a child into that world. At this point I don't know that I could give life to another being into this world... and it's America. It's so easy to say that and admit that geographical nomenclature means more to life than nearly every other factor.

Do you think America served to ease the global mind that a place could exist that was free from pain and provided some measure of stability and security? I know in Guinea people would stare at me in disbelief when I would tell them that the US had problems with poverty, disease, &c.

As my elderly friend says, as an immigrant from Austria: the propaganda surrounding America was "A Golden Land," by which immigrants were used and abused. She was an educated person and perhaps expected more from the "American Dream." It's funny though, I would meet people in Guinea who were city-people, better off financially than the average villager, and their *dream* was to drive a taxi in New York. You'd have to see the glimmer in their wide-and-bright eyes when they spoke of this.

These feelings of fear and guilt started before the terrorist attacks, but they were accelerated by those events. I don't understand humanity well enough, as I still find myself in disbelief that people can allow others to suffer, and not be willing to make compromises and adjustments in their lives to alleviate the suffering.

Will the war in Afghanistan never be replaced by a war on poverty, a war against oil power (corporate power, in general), a war for the people?

How can people be so smug and so stupid?

Or am I stupid? Not understanding economics enough, not knowing enough about people. I believe that is it. And I am helpless.