A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Monday urged the United States to stop its political stunt of the temporary easing of sanctions against Syria, demanding an immediate lifting of the unilateral sanctions on the tremor-stricken country.
Speaking to a regular press conference, Wang Wenbin made the remarks commenting on the six-month sanctions exemption issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for Syria-bound humanitarian aid on Thursday, three days after massive earthquakes and aftershocks struck Türkiye and neighboring Syria.
I’m not about great/evil man theories and whatnot, but genuinely, whoever is in power fighting to keep these sanctions up is pure evil and, frankly, genocidal. Obviously can’t be that shocked given what they have done to DPRK and Cuba, but whenever I think about being someone in that position it makes me sick. How can someone know full well they’re starving literal masses of people and sleep at night? Fucking babies are stuck under thousands of pounds of rubble and all they have to say is “keep it going, anything to hurt Assad”.
I’d imagine many of them are so delusional and indoctrinated by their own bourgeois propaganda that they’re physically unable to empathize with people facing actual hardship
Pretty sure you just described the majority of the US…
I don’t think it’s true that most Amerikans can’t emphasize with others’ suffering, they just choose to ignore it (e.g. homeless people) or just aren’t aware (e.g. the effects of sanctions)
maybe I’m being too optimistic, though
Is choosing not to empathize really any different from not being able to empathize in the long run? Neither will result in caring for those that suffer. The only difference is choosing not to is actually worse. It’s like saying “I could have reached my hand and pulled up this drowning person but I didn’t because the paraplegic sitting next to me didn’t try either.”
Personally, I feel they just turned that switch off. Any time they might feel guilt or empathy they replace it with anger or the belief that whoever is hurting either isn’t human enough for them to care or deserves it. This is the whole point of tribalism and racism. To remove your ability to care about hurting others outside your little circle, and the smaller capitalism is able to push your circle the fewer people they have to worry about actually giving a shit about anyone else.
It’s like the Ohio train. Want to take bets on how many people outside the effective range are more relieved they aren’t affected then they are worried about the people that ARE? And if they ARE more concerned about the situation is it concern for the people or concern that “what if it happens to me?” The point being, there is a fundamental lack of empathy/caring for other in this country. Those that do are nearly driven mad by it. That’s why we hide away in places like these trying to find at least one other person that actually gives a shit.