I hate this kind of message on my Facebook wall, and it's all I can do not to reply with my usual charm:
I hope all you runners and friends and family of runners at Boston marathon are all safe and sound.Really? So you're not a drooling psychopath who takes delight in the destroyed life and limb of others? Who knew? What do you need from me? A 'like'? Attention? A hand-job?
This kind of thing is more useful:
Retweeted Sesame Street (@sesamestreet):Advice, take it or leave it. Adults too shouldn't glue themselves to the screen for this type of tragedy that there's nothing you can do about, and frankly doesn't have anything to do with you:
Our hearts go out to all those affected by today's tragic events. We recommend not exposing young children to repeated images in the news.
- car accident news affects you more, as that's more likely to kill you
- the Fukushima incident too when it happened, because you should have been thinking about leaving
Besides, the news in the first twenty-four hours is nothing but gore, without anything but speculation.* What you won't get in the first day, or very often never at all, is the cui bono.
Who gains by a seemingly random attack on civilians? There is no such thing as a random attack. Even crazy shooters have a history. There is no such thing as a random bombing of two locations in the same city, one at the finishing line of a major event. Nihilism? That's not enough motivation to put a bag over your own head. The only point is to instill fear. Who gains from instilling fear...? Answer me that in a half year when this bombing somehow becomes a pretext to drag the US into a war with Iran or N.Korea.
Cynical? Suspicious? Maybe I'll be wrong, but if you are not cynical and suspicious, you're history's bitch.
*Except when odd bits outside of the official account slip through, as in '911'.
What I hate even more is the people who try to piggyback on disasters. You know, the ones who'll come out saying shit like 'I ran the Boston Marathon in 1958... that could've been me!'
ReplyDeleteI want to punch those people.
The ones who shit me are those who suggest it's karmic payback for U.S. bombings in the middle-east, like only the U.S. should have bad karma. It's fucked up everywhere, folks. I get disgusted by news of a U.S. drone strike killing family members at a wedding and wish it would stop as much as the next guy, but nobody has a monopoly on indiscriminate bombings.
ReplyDeleteI essentially agree. If you are fighting against various American occupations and atrocities you don't bomb civilians, you bomb legitimate targets (even though the US does not honour the difference). Americans don't have to like it, but military personnel are legitimate targets, abroad and Stateside. I think the argument is there that corporate targets are too; however, that weakens to mere bloodlust when you talk about mass bombings that harm civilians.
DeleteBoston was none of these, and may be domestic, a la Oklahoma city - and even this has much to do with psychoses from what's been done to the class of Americans who 'do the dying' for the 1%.
Legitimate targets are the adult 1%, especially if their business has any connection to war profiteering. Not hard to extend this to the 9% who serve them directly. Yet the 1% never get harmed. It almost looks like a conspiracy...
This has domestic written all over it. America is a society with a lot of disgruntled people, so have your pick: screwed over veteran, working poor, mentally ill person fucked over by the system, racially profiled people who are constantly frisked by the police for no reason, the usual mass-shooter type who decided to go about it another way and so forth.
ReplyDeleteI heard on the news that they had a 'Saudi' man in for questioning, sad that the terror=Middle East stereotype is still alive and well.
No one is allowed to say it, but I bet there were a lot of people who were pissed off after running for four hours and finding that some bastard ruined it all just at the end.
The race-baiting's something, eh? Poor 'Saudi' was doing what anyone would do: running the fuck away from a bomb.
DeleteWho's responsible? Could be these proximate causes: blowback from oil-wars, disgruntled veterans or other American disenfranchised, right-wing nutters with too much Fox on the brain, and more. Ultimate cause? Easy: 1%.
"I heard on the news that they had a 'Saudi' man in for questioning"
ReplyDeleteYeah, they tackled him. Forgive folks for erring on the side of caution. Some plane passengers did that (hesitate) and they ate the side of some buildings for their hesitation. The fucking dude will get over it. I woulda done the same thing and if anyone looks sketchy and moves towards a cockpit on a plane I'm on I'll jump them even if they are white and have "Mom,Jesus and Apple pie" tattooed across an American flag.
"sad that the terror=Middle East stereotype is still alive and well."
15 outta 19 Hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Are they all bad? Surely not...should everyone just forget? No, I'll let dittzy we are the world folks like you wring your hands at the shameful stereotyping...you must not live in Japan because it happens here ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
"Dude will get over it." That much I'll agree with, Chris. That's a nothing in the midst of that atrocity.
DeleteActually, I'll agree here too: "if anyone looks sketchy and moves towards a cockpit on a plane I'm on I'll jump them even if they are white and have 'Mom,Jesus and Apple pie' tattooed across an American flag."
That's the problem though: who looks suspicious to us? And how much connection does that have to the real dangers in your life? Humans are piss-poor at assessing risk. Who's a real threat to my children? Drivers and relatives, if statistics are to be believed, but instead parents freak out about the dark people in the neighbourhood and the male teacher who's smart enough never to even be alone with your child.
"if statistics are to be believed"
DeleteThey are. Your child and you are far far more likely to die (if violently) at the hands of someone you know. They start investigations from the inside out for good reason.
I can't trust anything but my gut. If something feels wrong I gotta trust it. Heard too many folks say "I knew something wasn't right but I ______ anyway, I shoulda trusted my gut"
What kinda primal instinct is that feeling? I don't know but it's that or the media and I'm not gonna be a fucking drone. I believe some of what I hear and most of what I see...with my own 2 eyes