Bewildered

The senseless slaughter of Cecil the lion was shocking and abhorrent. It was a horrific act carried out by a heartless coward. Walt Palmer is a dick and he definitely should be held accountable for his actions, regardless of whether he thought the kill was legitimate or not.

Justice should be served.

What I don’t really understand is the level of the public outrage; the volume of the screams for vengeance and the righteous indignation against this particular act.

The social media sites are ablaze; people are freaking out and are genuinely incensed about this story. Mr Palmer is receiving death threats. His home and workplace are under siege. His family and even some of his employees are under “attack” verbally, emotionally and psychologically for the act of this one stupid man.

All I can think is that there is so much more going on in this world to be pissed off about!

Seriously!! There are innumerable injustices and insidious acts of hatred and violence being carried by humans, against humans every fucking day!

So where’s the outrage? Where are the angry crowds? Why isn’t Facebook innondated with posts about all of the other evil, scandalous, monstrosities going on in the world?

According to “Gun Violence Archive” (and online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 1,200 media, government and commercial sources daily) there have already been 28,953 gun related incidents in the USA, since January 1, 2015. There have been 7,421 deaths,caused by guns in that same period. The loudest voices I hear on this topic are from those people screaming about their Second Amendment Rights to “bear arms!”

The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reported there is an average of 293,066 victims of rape and sexual assault each year. And that’s the number of assaults reported for victims over the age of 12! What’s Joe Public saying about that? I read a lot about how women should/should not dress; where they should and should not go; and how they can better protect themselves against being raped! I don’t read a lot about how we need to change a culture where rape is thought of as something that victim can and should somehow prevent! WTF?

On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide. This is reported by NCADV (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence). Who’s standing up for these people’s rights?

Where’s the public outcry for the 100-140 million girls and women worldwide, that WHO (the World Health Organization) say have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation; (the practice of partially or totally removing the external genitalia of girls and young women for non-medical reasons.) Or the estimated 142 million girls who will be forcibly married off, while still considered to be “children” before the end of this decade!

Who’s losing sleep for the 795 million people in the world who do not have enough food to allow them to lead a healthy active life? Or the 783 million people who do not have access to clean water? There are close to 2.5 billion people who do not have access to adequate sanitation! WTF?

I understand that Cecil’s story was emotional and sad. He was an amazing, majestic, beautiful, innocent animal who deserved better! His life should not have been ended by an egotistical asshole, looking to get his rocks off by (supposedly) hunting him down and killing him… but I’d like to see some of this anger, outrage and venom directed towards some of the world’s other injustices.

I’d like to see humans caring as much about other humans, as they seem to about animals. If we could somehow raise our consciousness to a higher level of love and compassion for each other… maybe the animals would reap the benefit as well.