Displaced Reactivity

Call them migrants, immigrants, refugees, resettlers, illegals, aliens, asylum seekers, the stateless, the displaced...whatever you want, they all fit under #HumansWithoutHomes...and there are now over 60 million of them Worldwide due to conflict, war, or persecution - not to mention those who flee areas due to drought, disease, flood, famine, or other natural disasters. And of course everywhere is shoring up borders with a governmental claim of an 'inability' to absorb them, adding that these people "aren't our problem".  Oh?!

Interesting.      Unsettling.      Infuriating.       Exhausting.

SOURCES: UNHCR/US News 

These numbers are the equivalent of nearly a third of the US population, about 20x Jamaica's population, or pretty much all of the United Kingdom...for some comparative perspective. How can this NOT be our problem???

SOURCE: Internal Displacement article from Aleteia

I remember screaming in online posts 5,6,7 years ago or longer when the prices of wheat, water, and milk were riZing to an all time high  and what that signaled. And before that when "I Am Not A Plastic Bag" totes sparked off the trend to get people to think consciously about the environment.  Note - we needed a fashion trend for that and now EVERYONE has a brand tote to prove their environmental concern!   Yeah, the dots started to connect ALL the bullshit of how we got here.  Consider the spiritual spanking we all faced, again: that had we not been busy fighting for more precious resources, or to be better or right about some ideology or another, that we wouldn't BE in the position of waiting for rain to fall, or fleeing floods caused by melting ice caps, or arguing over amnesty and border control. There would not be millions of people gathering at all the shores and ports of the world with nothing left to lose who are hungry and desperate. If this all seems like an imaginative leap to connect all our world challenges then we're still very much asleep.

The critical mass of awakening protests that spread world over in 2011 exposed the dirty panties of many a covertly powerful and exploitative system to the average Joe, but here we are in a world of leaders who still fight the ones that push to make life a little more fair for the masses. I never thought I would live to see the day that I hardly watch, read, or discuss the news anymore, or no longer blast a statement in my little corner or on my blog.  I confess, I've been stunned these last couple of years into a strange silence which is troubling. 

Information overload?  A bit.  But I won't say it's all that.  I saw someone call this 'compassion fatigue' the other day.  I'm not sure if that's it either.  More like helpless, displaced reactivity is more like it. I literally don't know what to do.  But here I am in what is now a rare blast of exasperation because no headline is a simple one - they pass through the filters of every other headline or story that I've paid attention to for years; listening closely and witnessing struggles; trying in my own way to understand them.


"Migrant 'chaos' on Greek Islands" is the link below that kicked off this blather...and all I could do was link it to DR/Haiti, Sudan, Syria, Calais, Mexico, Central Africa, Australia, Iraq, Ukraine, Columbia... ... ...  Sigh.

SOURCE: BBC News - Migrant Chaos on Greek Islands

I have had some hardcore chats over the years with members of my family who work for the various arms of the UN and other Humanitarian orgs about the state of the World - and it appears that while there are many reports, there are no institutional answers or solutions, not without us anyway. 
UNHCR, Care, Save the Children, the IRC, Médecins Sans Frontieres, WHO, Oxfam, IMC, Red Cross, AAH, FEMA - etc etc etc et al, are all overwhelmed.  Of course, because the problem wasn't the disasters to begin with!

So all I can say is someone PLEASE explain to me how anyone can possibly believe this is not a collective issue?! -and a spiritually #collective one at that!!   Explain to me how we can come to fully understand that the problem was never a #lack of anything for all the living to enjoy, but rather an #abundance of #greed that created an unjust and fearful fight for #life in the first place.

I know. Heavy.  Like we need anymore heavy.  I just had to let this off here because MY WORD this ish is CRAZY!!
My hope lies in only ONE thing now, our capacity for #Love.

Love can't feed and clothe and house all these poor people, I know that, but it's the only thing that can change the system that creates these desperate and unfair conditions.  Right?!