Triage

Like everyone else online, I was blown away by Al Sharpton HERE:

"There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you. It amazes me when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relegated] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners."

But I don't know that I can go along with the Rev when it comes to being "amazed." When I read this quote, it made me think of my training in the Air National Guard. I was a medic, and one of the things we worked on was triage. Some of you all have heard of triage in a hospital - in a hospital, it basically means "worst come, first served." If I was in a waiting room with a paper cut, and there was a guy next to me that was shot in the lung, then the guy with the lung obviously gets seen first.

But in combat, the OPPOSITE is true. If a medic came upon the two of us (paper cut, collapsed lung) protocol stated that he would treat my paper cut first. Why? So I could be patched up quickly and sent back to fight. The guy who was shot, well, he might die, and even if he doesn't he's not gonna be going back to the front lines anytime soon, so he's gonna hafta wait. And if he dies in the meantime, then that's the way it goes. That's war.

Flash-forward to today. Something so inconsequential as working people into a frenzy re: making sure gays don't marry, well that's easy. Have some meetings, mobilize, cut a bunch of checks, and prey on the lesser angels of people. Rage against indecencies, quote the Bible and make sure people are worked up into a froth? CHECK!

But things like police brutality? Poverty? Racism? Ugh....geez, that's gonna take a lot longer. Sounds like a lot of work. In the meantime it's a LOT easier to get these people worked into a froth about gay marriage, have them give us a TON of money, and then send them back into the battlefied, where they can collect MORE people and MORE money. The rest of the shit? Thtat'll hafta wait.

Not complicated to figure out.