a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
JTHipster  ·  4249 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line.

Maybe its a sign of having spent over half my life living in a country that is telling me I'm constantly under threat of being bombed, but my first reaction wasn't concern for the people who got hurt, it was concern over which oppressive and ineffectual security measure is going to be put in to place because of this.

I sure hope it isn't a North Korean national. There might be talk of war in that case. I'd believe it.

Maybe this is just the bitterness of a dozen years spent hearing empty promises and being told a bunch of shit about how the world works, about everything from my rights as a citizen to how college was going to function, but I can't even feel all that terrible about the deaths. Yeah I know I should feel differently but I don't. Why? In the past year there's been more shootings and high profile murders than I can care to count. We have reports of drone strikes to the point where it feels like they're almost constant. What's a little bit more of it?

I know what will play out over the next few days. The media will call the event a tragedy. They will run reports on the dead and speculate on whether or not the attack was political, they will propose various solutions, they will give a report on how the police are going to be trained to handle further attacks, and as the story winds down they'll give reports about other cities starting similar bomb prevention programs.

At some point in the next few months a politician of some kind will introduce a bill that will be killed in committee dedicated to preventing bombings of marathons in the future. Boston will hold a candlelight vigil for the dead and the wounded, there will be a human interest story on the runner who lost their legs, and at least one or two networks will run something titled close to "finding hope in this tragedy."

At some point FOX news is going to have a reporter make a joke, maybe a month later, about how it coincided with people doing their taxes and everyone will laugh about it, because a month from now this event will barely register on our memory. By then we'll probably have another shooting, or a bombing, or some kind of storm, or whatever.

What will come out of this is death, lies, and repressive security measures. Great. Who wants to take bets on what is restricted next? Anyone? C'mon step right up, there aren't many left to choose from. Safe bets on are on a dumb measure like searching people's bags before they get to be in the crowd at a marathon. That's my bet.

Fuck. I'm going to watch a movie and then get angry.