An American In Canada: Are We Numb To Numbers?

I don't fault us. Not entirely, anyway. Making us numb to numbers is presumably part of a calculated public relations campaign sponsored by the White House or the U.S. Department of Defence. You just know that some young lawyer with a gift for political spin, sitting in some small basement office in downtown Washington D.C., has polled the numbers about numbers and knows damn well that, over time, a steady sound of counting the dead becomes nothing but wistful white noise, numbers that — even when they refer to murder — no longer have any relationship to people. Just recently, I listened as CNN reported on the Johns Hopkins' findings that clinically suggested 654,000 Iraqis have died, to date, as a consequence of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Were we collectively moved to tears by this news? No. We patiently waited for more dirty revelations about Congressman Foley's sex life. Meantime, in that same CNN television report, some multi-starred U.S. General was asked about the Johns Hopkins' findings. He expressed moderate surprise at the findings' estimate of Iraqi dead — but he was hardly nonplussed. He just shrugged and suggested without emotion that he believed the actual number of Iraqi dead to be perhaps “only 50,000.” Perhaps only 50,000? I wasn't sure which was more horrifying: the multi-starred U.S. General being so far off in his estimate, or the multi-starred U.S. General saying that perhaps “only 50,000” Iraqis were dead as a consequence of U.S. actions, without throwing up behind the podium. http://www.rabble.ca/in_his_own_words.shtml?x=53540

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