Rant-tastic

[keaalu]

I consider myself to be a fairly moderate person; not a lot really shocks me. I used to watch the “VCL Horrors” community out of a sense of sheer morbid fascination, and because it was a source of vague amusement to look at all the atrociously bad porn/angst/whatever, but it was never so OMG VOMIT! as a lot of people tried to make out, so...

This, however, made my blood boil.

I could happily rant for pages about this – not the whole “cutting the human population down to size” thing, but the disgusting way these people were behaving about Africa. Sure, I’m a liberal leftie and I hate to see anyone or anything die needlessly. I’m sure someone must have made an original post with the intention of a joke, even if it WAS in excruciatingly bad taste. It was rather the fact that so many people have agreed that Africans are all lazy useless idiots who DESERVE to starve to death!

If I had said this about New Orleans, I’d have been lynched. If I’d said “well, the people killed by the flooding in America this past few weeks will have helped towards the 2 million!” I’d have been verbally slaughtered. (I hasten to add I don’t mean I wanted to say it, rather am making a comparison.) But because it’s happening in Africa then it’s fine. Who cares about Africa? They don’t make any cool television programs, they don't supply us with inordinately cheap goods, they don’t add to our technological distinctiveness, so they don’t need to be added to the USA-Collective.

The people in VCL Horrors (who I thought were equally moderate, considering individuals) all seem to subscribe to the same “dumb Yank” stereotype – the whole “world outside my borders? Where?” mindset. Nobody seems to have cottoned on to the fact that many of the problems in Africa are of WESTERN ORIGIN. They’re all poor, because they have MASSIVE debts to the “developed countries” (The US and the UK included) which they can’t pay off. What did you think Live8 was for, for chrissake? Did you all just sleep through it? The famine in Ethiopia in the early 1980s was probably caused by “global dimming” caused by, guess what! Western pollution. They don’t tend to use condoms and have large families because, guess what! Western religions have indoctrinated them all so much that they believe contraception is a sin and it’s God’s will for them to have large families! That’s if they can even AFFORD them.

No, I'm not trying to say Africa is perfect. I'm not trying to say they're innocent victims. But christ, people, look at the bigger picture for once rather than what YOU can get out of it.

You want 2 million people to die? You want the human race to become extinct? Fine. You start the ball rolling, There’s a razor. Don’t worry about taking your time.

(Apologies to any Americans reading this – I’m not trying to blanket-bomb. It just seems to be US citizens being the most outspoken about “fuck Africa! What about ME?” from where I’m sitting.)

Comments

[holophote.livejournal.com]

Not so much in the post, but in the comment a couple of comments down. :)