Yesterday in casual conversation, the subject of Bud Dwyer, the politician who killed himself on live TV came up. I searched him online to refresh my memory on the details of his situation. I was amazed to notice my search engine picked up so many emo tiny booper sites obessessed with things like this, even sites featuring unedited clips of the actual suicide video, followed by comments along the lines of, 'Yeah, that is a good one, but there are much better suicide videos released since then'. Pretty f-ed up we have so many of our youth so obsessed with suicide and death. Even to the point that watching suicide videos seems like an amusing past time (unless I am misunderstanding the nature of their comments).
Later in the evening, I was watching this documentary I have been told a million times I need to watch, but had just never gotten around to it, it is called The Invisible Children and is about three guys who travel to Uganda in search of some exciting story to tell, and once there they learn about the Lord's Resistance Army and the terrible impact they have on the lives of so many people in northern Uganda. Their 50 minutes documentary focuses on the young Ugandan children and their lives of constant fear of being abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to become soldiers. The children are afraid to sleep in their homes in the villages at night, so they all gather in the city streets to camp out every night. They do their homework by candlelight, and many of them have already experienced violence at the hand of the rebels, either having watched family members or close friends be killed or abducted. The rebels abduct children, and indoctrinate them to be soldiers. They start by forcing them to kill and watch others be killed before their eyes. Blood, violence and death becomes such a common day thing to them, it is nothing for them to hold a gun to a child's head and pull the trigger. One of these young soldiers, just a kid, explained how he has to see blood, when he goes too long without seeing blood, he gets a headache. Like an addict with an unfed addiction.
Yet, this documentary shows those same frightened kids getting up every morning and still smiling and laughing, dancing, playing and enjoying life, despite the horrific violence and fear they are faced with on a daily basis. They still take their school seriously and dream of growing up to be doctors and lawyers.
Kind of an interesting and disturbing contrast. In America we are surrounded by prosperity and many of our youth spend their time obessessed with death, while in places like Uganda where the youth are surrounded by horrific death, they spend their time focused on life. Which is exactly why I believe in American exceptionalism! USA USA USA... errr... hides head in shame...