I recently wrote a brief message about outrage.  Needed a few more than 140 characters to get my thoughts out.

Lots of people are outraged these days.  Or at least they appear to be based on status updates, tweets, and depictions from cable news streams.  I often wonder why people seem so mad?  Most of the outrage has some root in politics.  You might hear sweeping statements like: Obama is ruining our economy, or, those Tea Partiers are reckless morons.  Sometimes it stems from politicians defying thought or reason and acting like… well… politicians, such as when many Republicans suddenly find military action deplorable and irresponsible, while many Democrats now defend it.  

Politics.

And political outrage. It’s hard not to get caught up in it. Currently there are many thoughts swirling in my brain on this topic, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about here.

I wanted to talk about the Casey Anthony verdict.  First off, I am in no way taking any stance on her guilt or innocence.  How could I?  I had to google her name yesterday just to figure out who she was.  I scan the headlines of major news outlets every day, but somehow this slipped by me.  Quick internet research informed me that her daughter was killed in 2008, she was a suspect and was acquitted yesterday.  Also, people were MAD about this.  Various friends, my cousin, and even Giada De Laurentiis were all mad.  Rightfully so.  A little girl was killed and we have no one to punish.  Or even worse, perhaps the person who did it will avoid punishment.  Either option, disturbing.

Recently I came across several stories about people living in Iraq.  These were not news reports of bombings or military operations, but accounts of regular citizens and their experiences living through a war.  Each story involved death of a loved one, injury, displacement from a home, and extreme uncertainty and fear.  I’ve heard many news reports over the years and the facts and figures blur together.  It may sound trite, but the human factor from these reports is often lost on me, and these personal stories have made me examine the role I play.  How many children have been killed directly or indirectly by my country’s actions?  How much of my paycheck each month goes towards making missiles?  Are they making me safer?

So back to the Anthony trial.  People are outraged by the 2008 death of a young girl and a potential lack of justice. (Again, rightfully so.)  But few people seem to be as mad about the (most likely) thousands of deaths of children in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya resulting from US-led military action.  Why is that?  I honestly have not spoken to ANYONE (Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Apathetic) of the opinion that our current wars are still justifiable or useful.  But we’re still paying for them!  If suffering Iraqis is too abstract, there are still the thousands of American soldiers continuing to be separated from their families, injured or even killed. Oh yeah, and that debt crisis.  Is no one mad about this? 

Hypothesis:  I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and came up with one potential explanation.  Perhaps the media controls our outrage.

Data:  Currently on cnn.com the top 7 headlines (out of 20) are about the Casey Anthony trial.  Zero are about our current wars which involve at least 150,000 Americans and over $10 billion dollars every month.  Out of sight, out of mind.

I clearly have no answers, I just find it interesting the things people get outraged about.

Why do you think Americans are outraged about Casey Anthony and not our multiple wars?