A Social Experiment
I’m contemplating a fundraising activity for a little experiment.
Many people seem to be offended by the failure of Canadians rescued from Lebanon to express what they feel appropriate degree of humble gratitude when their country rescued its own citizens.
So I propose a little experiment. It’ll take some arranging, but it’ll be fun.
Let’s take a really grumpy blogger. Your choice.
Let’s start lobbing some bombs into his/her city. We’ll carefully spare the blogger, but we’ll try to kill or maim at least an acquaintance or two.
Let’s urge them to leave their home city, but bomb their airport, bridges, and exit highways.
Let’s feed them vague, contradictory or erroneous information about what we’re preparing to do for them.
Then let’s suddenly tell them we MIGHT be able to get them out of danger. They’ll have to leave most of their friends and some family members, but we might be able to help them
Let’s keep them in a state of terror for a couple of days, guessing about whether or not they’re going to get away.
Then all at once let’s warn them urgently to congregate en masse for an uncertain period to queue up for possible exit. Then without briefing them, we’ll then cram them together in the hold of a ship without food, water, and medical supplies, during one of the hottest summers in Lebanese history. Tell them it will be a short, four hour transit, but take twenty. Let them puke, faint and piss in the hold without telling them how much longer they’ll be there. Let them watch their terrified children puke and collapse in the heat.
And when they get off the boat…exhausted, sick, dehydrated, in shock from the complete upheaval of their lives, grieving for the friends and family left behind and still in danger, uncertain about ANY aspect of their own future…stick a camera in their face and ask them how they feel.
I have the strangest feeling that their first response will be not a beaming: “I am SO happy, and SO grateful to the people of Canada for this wonderful deed.”
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I don’t fault the Harper government for taking time to respond to this. No-one saw it coming, the task was almost inconceivably complex, complicated by ongoing warfare, security considerations, and mind-boggling logistical needs. Honestly, I think our government did pretty well under extreme pressure, and the effort gets more organized hour by hour.
But I am sickened by the viciousness of the smug, small minded “Canadians” who feel compelled to pass judgement on fellow citizens who are exhausted, terrified, disoriented, and uprooted. I don’t care what your political or religious affiliation is: you don’t help people who are in trouble so that you can bask in their gratitude. You help them because they need help. Their response under extreme stress is irrelevant.
Listen, critics: I understand it’s difficult to have much compassion for people when the toughest thing you’ve had to deal with in your life is a hangnail or a slow internet connection. But at least have the decency to keep your mouths shut and refrain from broadcasting your narrow-minded nastiness to the world. You’re embarassing the Canadians who support the rescue - not for the praise or the thanks - but because it needs to be done for our fellow citizens.
I understand it’s difficult to have much compassion…
I think you hit the hammer on the nail here Balb. Many on the right seem to have no compassion for people, other than those killed by terrorists or cop haters. Other than that, there is none. I even saw some people commenting on how the government shouldn’t be doing anything for those in Lebanon because they weren’t real Canadians etc… It was gross. Being compassionate takes being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Apparently many on the right would rather judge, rather than understand.
Set up a donation page, let’s get this experiment rolling.
You’re right, the pressure on the embassy staff in Beirut must be overwhelming when 40,000 or so people suddenly want to leave. There is no way anyone could ever have an adequate contingency plan in place for that, whatever government is in power is irrelevant under those circumstances. Seems Canada isn’t doing too bad compared to other countries anyway.
I still think however that Harper’s gracious offer of his jet only complicated matters. Nice idea, fly in and heroically pick up a relative few people and show the world what a great guy you are. Perhaps he still isn’t used to the idea that he’s a head of state now and the logistical problems that go with that. The embassy staff must have freaked when they found out his plans and had to find a couple of hundred people to make it work. As if their job wasn’t hard enough already.
Let’s start lobbing some bombs into his/her city.
A city that has grumpy bloggers? Hmmm…now, now…just which city might make a good candidate…let’s see, let’s see…
I can think of a couple of cities, of course in Canada it depends on what part of the country you’re in. I grew up out west so I’m pretty sure more than few would pick Toronto. Damn, I live downtown too.
I have not faulted Harper of the CPC for this either, but as I pointed out on my blog, these contitions should not continue in future trips.
Food and especial water are the absolute minimum basics, water especial so.
I have one wanker at my site that feels people should expect it to be perfect. According to his definition, perfect means food, water and basica medical. Right now we are very lucky that people didn’t die in transitt. Heat, lack of water and motion sickness can kill the young and elderly very quickly. Hopefully Harper will make sure that all the ships we are using will at least have food and water, especially water.
>Many on the right…
Off we go again.
Decision point. Shall we talk about the matter at hand, as raised in the thread: or shall we accept lrC’s attempt at diversion, and talk about whether some commenter make unfair generalizations about “the right”, a topic lrC would clearly prefer to chat about, but one of minimal interest to me.
I vote (a), but it’s up to y’all.
I think there is a small town in Saskatchewan that we could use to set this experiment up. And a certain someone could write about their experiences….
Actually, I’m looking forward to being criticized for something Lowell Green said this morning.
There’s nothing else to say about this. The griping about the “ungrateful wretches who should be sending me thank you notes since my taxes personally paid for the Champagne-flight back from Cyprus” is juvenile. Like listening to a conversation on Laguna Beach: “That ungrageful skank…I’m going to so pull her hair.”
They all need to be grounded; no Internet for a week (Peter gets a whole month…his whine was particularly shrill).
It’s an Honour
I thought that I should perform the volunteer service of crafting a commemorative plaque to celebrate this occasion. I’m such a lucky blogger:
I’d also like to issue the commemorative plaque to Dust My Broom and Canadianna for their eff…
Does anyone know what he’s talking about?
By the way, this would indicate where our little wingers got their talking points. From Rove to Limbaugh to the Pajamliners up through the 49th parallel into our own space in the blogosphere.
Canadian righties; if they ever manage to craft an original thought, I might just drop dead.
[...] I don’t usually do the cut and paste blogging but Balbulican has managed to write exactly what I was thinking. [...]
(c) Discuss the matter at hand, but try to do it without dragging in irrelevant diversionary claims and then pretending they shouldn’t be discussed any further.
I guess when thousands and thousands of people are being killed, someone has to pretend the issue at hand is not being discussed.
It’s amazing how hard some people will work to make themselves appear completely irrelevant.
I’m in awe, quite frankly.
“I guess when thousands and thousands of people are being killed…”
Workin’ up a little outrage, I see.
Peter Remple, the mean, 13-year old girl of the blogosphere. God, I hope his lips were pursed when he said that.
>Many on the right seem to have no compassion for people, other than those killed by terrorists or cop haters.
When you write that or allow it to pass, you’re not really interested in discussing an issue; you just want to commiserate about your point of view in an echo chamber.
[...] This is a post that I promised my friend, Balbulican. Balbulican is a diver of the experienced and knowledgeable sort. I spent a few days, prior to our honeymoon, in email conversation with him about Bonaire - specifically regarding diving in Bonaire. He is a WEALTH of information and he should get paid for doing this stuff, really. An encyclopedia of knowledge he is. [...]