They and We

When you see the families desperately stretching their hands to touch the names of their loved ones or making an impression of those names in papers or simply kissing those names imprinted by the memorial pool at the 9/11 site, you see how important it is for these people to have this little emotional solidarity  that the nation actually cares for their loved ones. At this scene, I can't but feel for the families of numerous terror and riot victims of my selfish, callous, cruel nation who would never ever see any iota of justice, let alone a little place where they can come to remember their dead or expect any genuine sympathy from the government or the people at large, beyond the initial political response! In thousand of years of civilization, we, somehow, have mastered the art of not feeling at all for anyone but our very narrow selves. Surely, US as a state doesn't respect the innocent victims of Iraq or Afghanistan but at least they respect their own. We, the selfish bastards, do neither.