Compassion Fatigue

Friday, November 25, 2005, the day after everyone’s favorite warm and fuzzy holiday of Thanksgiving, has welcomed that seasonal party crasher, “The Christmas Shopping Season.” Some of us have barely finished digesting the turkey and its fixings when we find that instead of emptying our bowels of yesterdays fodder we find ourselves emptying our wallets and saying thanks to corporate America.

Many of the so called patriotic wanna bees, with the “Support Our Troops” magnets on their SUVs, show their true hypocrisy on this day. You see many of them have opted to work on November 11, Veteran’s Day/Armistice Day, in order to get the day after Thanksgiving off. They support our troops by working on a day that is set aside for our men and women who served and continue to serve our country, which means us, and choose to support Sony, Samsung, Best Buy, Worst Buy or Any Buy on the day after Thanksgiving. They swapped patriotism for consumerism.

It’s so nice to see many of the unaffected bounce back from the doldrums of the horrific natural disasters and escalating energy costs. “Let’s see, the tsunami, that was three years ago, right? And Katrina, well we gave $50 to the Red Cross, everything’s ok now, right? I was worried we’d be paying $5 a gallon for gas by now.” Much of the country has come down with ADD or has what the Washington Post recently called “compassion fatigue.” But when you venture out today, look around and you’ll find there’s very little evidence of wallet fatigue in what people are wearing and driving and the places so many of us are living in.

Thank God that you weren’t one of the victims of the tsunami or earthquakes or floods or mud slides. You see they’re still picking up the pieces, if they were lucky enoughto find any. Some are looking at the possibility of sleeping out in subfreezing weather conditions. They would welcome a piece of plywood over their head never mind a flicker of heat. Some would kill for the Thanksgiving day leftovers that are going to end up as trash in the next few days. Please don’t forget these people just because you don’t hear much about them in the news. Remember that many live right in our communities, the rich and plentiful USA.

Thank and Give