Friday, May 24, 2013

The Ultra-Terrifying Terrorists of Boston and London

The Boston Marathon bombers have enjoyed a great deal of attention lately from a considerable number of U.S. police units, all of which do their best to establish a connection to a vast global network of vicious terrorists who seek to destroy us all.  However, no matter how lofty the ostensible goals of the Boston bombing, the fact is the brothers were two-bit criminals who weren't even any good at it.  (CNN:  Official: Dead Boston bombings suspect involved in 2011 slayings)

In the above reference, it shows that one of the Boston bombers was involved in a triple-murder whose purpose was the theft of drugs although in that theft they left behind thousands of dollars and three dead bodies.  Anyone in organised crime would just roll his eyes at the incompetence of it.  They pull off bigger and better crimes than that every day and they don't even make the paper.

Similarly, the murder in London was horrifying and a tremendous loss for the family but was trivial in the context of global terrorism.  The news channels have done an excellent job of terrifying people that they could be walking down the street and then be murdered by someone with a meat cleaver.  No-one seems to ask if they have ever heard of this before of if they are ever likely to hear of it again.

For some while it has been fashionable for American religious fundamentalists to shoot up abortion clinics and abortion doctors but you never saw the hysteria that has surrounded these latest incidents and you certainly never saw the government call out the Army, the Air Force, and the Boy Scouts to investigate and wage war against fundamentalist Christians.

When people are questioned regarding the priority of coverage of a single murder and the lack of it for corporate killings (e.g. West Texas fertilizer plant explosion, Union Carbide in Bhopal, India, etc), the response is typically that the latter, notwithstanding the extraordinary and deliberate negligence of the owners, was manslaughter, just an accident, doesn't count.  That the latter is considerably more widespread and more deadly than anything all the terrorists combined have managed shows a remarkable and quite callous indifference to the lives of those affected.

Similarly, if you ask the same people about their fear of drunk drivers who kill every quarter in the U.S. more people than died in 9/11, they just shrug.  Accidents, they say.

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