Saturday, May 31, 2025 at 5:34 AM

Years ago, the publisher of this newspaper mentioned to me in passing that people don’t read newspapers anymore, that they don’t care and were mostly uninformed. I was skeptical at first, but he was right. They are too busy on social media, getting the type of information that suits them, and not being too particular about whether what they are being fed is the truth or not. Information is traveling at warped speed; there is not enough time or motivation to follow, so most of us remain hollow. A little poetry there.

There are children in Gaza today with their ribs sticking out, and with that hollow look in their eyes and in their emaciated faces. They stare at the cameras or at their parents with lifeless expressions that makes one wonder what they did to deserve this kind of punishment, this kind of suffering. Same for the children of Sudan, from famine, because of leaders who have to win at all costs. In Ukraine, kids are being blown up every day, in schools, in churches, in their homes.

There was a time when we would stop and look and protest and demand action to prevent these atrocities. A time when life meant something, especially the life of an innocent person, and especially the life of a child. Now, they are being bought and sold on the internet; human trafficking is the new slave trade. Human trafficking of the weak and desperate is part of normal life today. Torture and murder and decapitations and all the senseless brutality prevail in our society; and for a paid subscription, you can witness the mayhem that is all around us, live streamed.

When did we become so callous, so indifferent to the pain and suffering of our fellow humans? When did we begin to build this impenetrable wall around our hearts to shield us from our moral obligations to protect and defend the least among us? When did schadenfreude replace empathy?

There was a time when leaders of countries who supported genocide, or the trafficking of drugs or humans or arms, would be called out. They would be ostracized and sanctioned and made to pay for their crimes. Even Isis is rearing its ugly head in Syria once again without getting the urgent attention it deserves, as they bomb the innocent. Instead, we live in a time when everything is transactional, the hell with ideals and morality and righteousness!

This indifference is manifesting itself because there aren’t any moral leaders left in this fractured and conflicted world. The most powerful countries have turned their backs, and in some cases, have aided the perpetrators of chaos and destruction because it benefits them. We have lost our way. We have become the thing we dread most, an uncaring and insensitive society. We have become selfish and defensive and closed off from the rest of the world. The days of a campaign for Human Rights are disappearing before our very eyes. We have become our own version of a “let them eat cake” society. Wat a ting!

The people in Gaza are starving; the same with the Sudanese. The people of Ukraine are being blown to bits every day. Venezuela is claiming territory that is not theirs to claim, just as Guatemala is doing to us. The United Nations is a paper tiger, powerless to protect or defend or correct the course of a world that has run amok, off kilter. In America we have our own version of los desaparecidos, the disappeared. Leaders can be bought or bribed or blackmailed by oligarchs. And the beat goes on …

And no one gives a f*#k! No one cares!

Glen