I don't know if it is our "responsibility," per se, but I think it is deplorable that we spent so much time talking about the problems in Sudan and Darfur and Uganda over a decade ago... and then proceeded to ignore it until now.

I think of what happened in Rowanda, for instance, and it disgusts me. Why didn't we intervene then? I hate to think it was because there is no "profit" in it. What have we become?

I don't know why the world is becoming very apthetic these days.

The excuse? Greed.

We would need a world-wide union of nations... maybe... a United Nations...

good idea, except they can't do anything at all...

the UN is dead in 5 years.

What ever we do is out of the realm of possibilities that those your political persuassion will become guilt ridden when someone being helped gets killed by a military truck carrying food, and then say we did it for oil or imperialism or greed or ALL? Pardon me but I'm very cynical about your motives. Please don't think I say this snidely. I'm sincere and desire feedback. 

On April 27th someone i subscribe to posted this. http://www.xanga.com/ArgumentsFromtheRight ... , which is relavent to your post here.

How long will it be unitl George Clooney Toons is soured on this and berating it like all those on the Left berate our efforts in Iraq? Of course it's not the same but so often I see so many think because they are good with a fly swat that everything is a fly. Correct geo politics demands different methods with the same guiding principles.

I grow weary of the same discussion over and over again : / 

This is coming from a righty on the left... I'm the middle... I hold no side!

More reflections... questions meant for thought on the subject; not to imply I have an answer.

Did we forget about Darfur, Sudan, etc. because we didn't care... or because human rights violations elsewhere stole our attention... Or was it an unpopular political position at the time to provide foreign aid? Does the sudden surge in (re)awareness of these tragedies take our attention away from others?

I have to say, I find the overwhelming presence of apathy from those that have responded quite disturbing. Apparently, my concern about genocide and crimes against humanity merit a questioning of my motives. Well, I have to say, Creed_of_Kings, I was baffled by your question. My motives?

When I was a girl, I learned about the Holocaust, and I thought we were above and beyond letting that happen to people again. I was brainwashed in school to believe I lived in a nation that actually meant what it said when it signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (please see our country listed as ratifying this treaty). If you understand what that means, you'll understand why I'm disturbed by your question.

My motives are that people be aware that genocide and crimes against humanity are happening right now, that they be as concerned as myself so that they may take some sort of action, ie. speak to others about it and write their Congresspersons, such as I have already done. I am, in fact, so disturbed about the current crisis in Africa that I am currently brainstorming as to how I can be more effective against it. Speaking to participants in this forum was just one step.

My apologies to any "weary of the same discussion over and over again." You should know that I grow weary of my own ineffectiveness in my ability to produce critical thought and constructive action of participants in this forum.

Simone: I was writing one of my usual long long posts about that, but i realized that it was mainly a digression from the subject you suggested, so i threw it all in the trash bin and i am beginning this one with all my good intention to keep it short and to try not to go out of theme

My eye was hit by the word "freedom" you used in your post.
Although i consider individual efforts morally laudable, i believe that the answer of those tragedies you mention can be only political. Individues and little organizations cannot infact solve them. (By the way, isn't the relation between our nation and the rest of the world exactly the task of the governments?).
So, it needs the efforts of powerful governaments towards peace and justice in order to induce the situation in those lands change, by mean firstly of diplomacy and, if not enough, by military power used for keeping-peace programs.
Nevertheless i am a little pessimistic on this point because i believe what i see is that our governaments' goal are not those, but instead, the affluence of their economies (i include also Italy although it is not exactly a "big power", because it belongs to an alliance which can by right be considered a "big power"). So, the reason for which our governments don't care about those countries is that the solution of those dramas wouldn't be helpful for our economy.
Sure, USA (and Italy) is a democracy, so, by mean of the vote we can change the people that drive our governments, and that is actually our freedom upon this subject.
But, it doesn't take an expert, to me, to find out that the real architects of the politics are not those people, but instead the companies that sponsor them.
I won't ever believe that stopping genocides is a goal of a big company of the ones that sponsored the election of Bush. And they sponsored it because they knew that Bush's politics would have been favoriting their business, maybe by mean of a war to keep the control of oil.
Nevertheless i would like to point out (before Bush's supporters jump on my head) that i believe that also those companies that sponsor the Democrats are driven by similar interests, and it is not also their goal to stop any genocide in any Darfur, Uganda or Sudan.
So, yes, American people can choose between Democratics and Republicans, but can they really choose between sending troups to Iraq (the goose that lays the golden egg) and sending them to Darfur, Uganda or Sudan (the hole in the pocket)?
Do you think that those companies would prefer to have their money (with a surplus) back or to declare those money lost forever and plan to spend some more for the election of the candidate of that party in the next elections?
Do you think that for them, sponsoring one electoral campaign is a monetary investment or they care much better of the peace and justice in the world?

Just to show everybody that i am not being, in this, anti-American, i would say that also Italy is not different, although the games are driven in a different way with different rules. The goal of our politicians is not so much to directly favorite any company (even though that's also a component). Instead they tend to follow like sheeps American politics, being that our economy strictly depends on the wellbeing of that economical alliance.

The real difference, i believe, is that I, as an Italian, am very critical about my democracy and political freedom.

That freedom is the one that we have to conquire back, because without that we cannot really decide anything about the world.

(wow! i look so damn solemnly prophetical in this last assertion!)

Dario, Thank you for your well-thought-out response to the question. I appreciate your critical view; although, in the past, I have not always agreed with the Marxist theory you present. Perhaps, that's because I'm not as well-studied in it as yourself. The argument above; however, is well-stated, understandable, and believable. Sad, but believable.

It is quite a shame that our country(ies) lack integrity in the human rights arena. Or we could look at it as our need to survive as a people. Why wouldn't money come first, as money is the blood of our being? But when a desire (greed) for that money becomes so great as to result in the spilling of blood? I don't know if it's so good. I would rather see us not spill that blood and find ways to build our economy by propping up others. But I've heard you say that our wealth is dependent upon the poverty of others. It is with that extreme Marxist point that I don't agree (yet).

Its not really the same topic, it just seems as if we tend to boil down those discussion to the same topics about politics and Iraq :/

I don't think its the forum, I just think I've spent too much time with the same people (not here).

Arguing politics these days is about the same as yelling at a wall. Sure you can say really meaningful things from both sides of the discussion... but the wall never changes :D

piratebuddha, understandable. With this particular topic, it is hard not to involve politics as it involves, as Dario (italian_culture) said, action on the part of our government. Given that our government appears to be preoccupied on the Iraq front, it is also difficult not to compare and contrast our reasoning and motives for doing so.

At the heart of it, would be the question as to weather it is moral to ignore genocide and whether we should ignore it or whether it is an immoral act that we must act upon.

I think this forum is stagnate at this point. I'll either be inviting new participants to get some fresh perspective or making a drastic change. I haven't yet decided.

Simone ~ This is a bit off the topic of the post, but since you have commented on the stagnancy of the forum I wanted to touch on it. Do you think it is possible that Creed_of_Kings did not mean something derogatory in questioning your motives, but rather meant for you to think about the goal or motivation of the question?

Let me explain what I am thinking, at least... Obviously this forum has an "agenda." That agenda is ..... ? To increase awareness of moral issues? Get people to discuss them? Something else entirely? I just wonder if a clearly stated agenda (whether on the site, or just for your own benefit) would help guide you in the process of getting more participation?

Just a thought

Building_A_Mystery, sometimes your words are so eloquent.

However, it is irrelevent. I feel impotent in this forum, like I'm wasting my time when there's urgent business to be done. As I said, I'm pondering the matter over. But I think it's time to put my energies to use in a greater capacity. This has been a grand experiment, and it's taught me a lot. It's given me confidence along with some other projects I've conducted over the past two years. But I think it's time to dig in and actually do something about the topics we've discussed.

If you've found yourself motivated to do something, regardless of what that something is, by this forum, I'm glad of that. It seems self-evident (at least to me) that I would have an agenda to make you think or take action on a particular topic or maybe change your mind in some small way about a matter. To get people thinking, I've purposefully chosen controversial topics and used loaded words in my questions on topics. I wouldn't think that would be so difficult to figure out. Therefore, when someone questions my motives, I can only assume that to be a negative point. However, since much of what's come out of Creed_of_Kings mouth I've considered to be half-crazed, radical heckling, it doesn't surprise me that this rude accusation came from him.

Simone,
I'm sorry to see you go, and I do think you've been effective on this forum. But you've obviously given this a lot of thought, and I wouldn't want you to continue something you felt had outstayed its fruitfulness in your life.

Is it immoral to ignore genocide? Yes. But I also think this has something to do with proximity. If you were around at the turn of the (last) century when the U.S. government was using eugenics as an argument for enforced sterilizations, saw that, and did nothing, that was immoral. If you were in Germany, saw the trains leaving, and did nothing, that was immoral. But this is life, and it's never so simple. We (you and I as Americans) know about certain genocide that's happening in Darfur, especially. I also happened to be at a lecture at the right place and time, and now know that there are concentration camps in North Korea (the lecture was given by a man who had escaped from one and wrote a book about it.) Why is it that people know about one and not the other? I'm willing to bet there are more terrible things, things all over the world, I don't know about. My resources are limited, even if they are less so than many others, and even if I were to dedicate my life to one of these problems, it would not nearly be enough. So what am I to do?

Maybe it sounds doe-eyed and optimistic, but I think at this point that in the face of such an overwhelming and ugly situation, you have to pick your battles. As long as you pick A battle, really give it a go at making the world better and not ignore something that's right in front of your face (like my earlier examples) I think that's the best that can be expected of you as a human. It's all interconnected, and my hope is that if anyone manages to leave a positive mark in one area it will have a ripple effect, so the area matters less to me than the intention. And I also think it's incredibly important work to change people's minds. If you are one person who really cares and really works hard, one person is really working hard. If you are one person who really cares and opens other people's minds to also care about each other (something that I truly believe starts fundamentally with understanding each other--erasing a bit of the "other" part), then potentially you've got a whole bunch of people who are concerned and really working hard.

The part where we decide which overwhelming problems are really crucial and we should make the most concerted effort towards, that's the part I'd think society or governments should play, simply because they have more resources. Unfortunately, more often than not they do a bad job of it. Probably the things Dario was saying are a huge chunk of why. How do we change that? I wish I knew. Maybe the capitalist system makes it inevitable, as I seem to be reading from Dario's critique. Maybe it's the nature of government itself. Which brings me to the hardest part of this issue--that relief truck that runs over a civilian. Our best intended actions will have effects that we cannot see. The things, like capitalism or governments, that have the potential to do great good in the world are also the things that have potential to do great harm.

Because I have no answer, I'm going to ask you the question I struggle with: Not "is it immoral to ignore genocide?" but "Is it immoral to be ignorant of genocide?"