On October 4, 2012, after a Syrian bombing kills five women and children in a Turkish border town, has CNN interviewing former Nation ‘Supreme’ Commander, Wesley Clark, as their media an expert. Clark states that the killing of Turkish mother’s and children, “It happens…..civilian casualties.” Citing it is a part of a broader conflict and how strategies are at work in the region, the reasoning behind the patriarchs in NATO, and humanitarian organizations conglomerates such as the UN, are that they cannot be mobilized as of yet.

‘The powers that be’ reasoning; it is not a full scale war or enough refugees to merit the spending of their coffers sitting at millions and millions of dollars in their organizations. You and I, ‘we’ gave them our inner authority, emptied the insides of our pockets for the experts in violence and autocrats to push paper or do critical analysis to make sure the situation fits the definition to merit the slightest intervention.

Media displays the horrors of yet another war. You could substitute the Syrian peoples with that of the Balkan War survivors. Meanwhile, the axis of resistance which refers to Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza continues to erupt. Whole countries recovering from ethnic hatreds, wars and violence surely shudder at each image flying past on their television sets or in more removed countries it’s their smart phones, ipads or laptops.

Ho-hum is the reaction to the war images if it is not as succulent as the graphic bodies in a fine spray of red rain and bomb shrapnel. We are addicted to following fresh bodies, bombs and bullets. Just like garbage once in the trash can or on curbside for pick up – very few think of where it goes- the aftermath. You see, being a bystander is so much more rewarding sitting in front of our televisions, ipads, laptops or smart phones. We can pretend we are just being more informed while our physical bodies grow limp and our capacity to respond and act atrophies. We believe someone else will do it. We believe the outside authorities are the truth.

Nowhere in media do I see the ‘real’ cost in human lives. There is not a single article on collateral damage, the cost of homes destroyed, and the maimed and lame limbed individuals that can no longer feed their families.

I notice how it is our homes, our families in the bulls’ eye of mass destruction weapons. The bystanders feel euphoric that is not them or their homes on fire. They have media images and reports to prove that false sense of safety. Bystander living is the end all.

It is the end all of life on this planet. The term “we, the people” is no longer able to respond as a community.