Back when Maron and Riley had "Morning Sedition" on Air America, they did this thing called The Liberal Confessional, where Maron would 'confess his liberal sins' to Riley. It was usually funny, and often incisive. I remember one when Maron's confession was, "I'm really a lazy-ass about recycling." I could relate to
that one.
But I've got a really big one. So, I'm here, confessing my big fat liberal sin. It's this:
I'm finding it very, very hard to give a crap about Darfur.
More on the flip.
I skip the Darfur diaries. I skip the pleas for help. And it's not just Darfur. Couldn't work up the energy to care about the plane crash in Russia. The lovely diary about the man in India that was arrested and tortured--I read it, but shrugged my shoulders. Lebanon? Israel? Let them blow each other the fuck up--what do I care?
If it didn't happen in these here United States, I can't make myself care anymore. I'm turning isolationist. I've never been isolationist. I don't like it one bit.
What it is, is cynicism and fatigue. The fatigue part has to do with two things: there's always something bad happening somewhere; and don't we have enough problems here? The first one, and I know it, has been exacerbated by Iraq. Can't we just keep our noses out of these hellholes? All that money, all those lives? Don't we have enough to do here?
The cynicism part? Well, that just gets worse every day. Look, not only are we sticking our noses in lots of hellholes, we're also fucking many of them up. Not all of them--Bosnia comes to mind--but many of them. Iraq is just the latest example. Does anyone think this government has the capability to do anything to help Darfur? Nope. These morons will just make it worse.
I've tried. I've tried to care about Darfur. But when I look at what a clusterfuck we've made of Iraq, and when I look at how many problems we have right here at home--I just can't do it.
And I hate that about myself.