Crime: looking different
The recent shooting/murder of a young Brazilian man in the London tube in the aftermath of terror attack hysteria has me thinking about the power of fear and what people might be willing to do or not do because of it.
I found myself walking through a number of home improvement and discount stores today -- i was trying to find Japenese beetle traps, since these nasty bugs have invaded big time this Summer. Alas, everyone was sold out.
But what I found myself pondering was about the thoughts and reactions of the people in these stores, particularly in the unmentionable discount store, to the whole "terror" scenario. People are conditioned. I mean we are all conditioned, but some worse than others. I conclude that because of their conditioning folks will react according to the way big brother suggests they react. After a while that reaction becomes simply automatic.
In the case of "terror" I became convinced that presented with the option, say, of nuking Iraq,as a plausible solution to the "problem" of terror, most would problably say right on. Maybe this would not be so, and a fair number might have basic civilized human qualities such as logic and compassion kick in versus primal self preservation, if someone sensible had power and access to their sensory input, TV, whatever.But that is a very big hurdle to overcome today.
The cabal have done an excellent job propelling the populace well along the way toward domesday thinking; anything, I mean just about anything that can be made to seem a threat is automatically expendable. The quicker the better. Bush wasn't kidding. He doesn't do nuance. And neither anymore, I fear, do most people. The most difficult and subtle of questions is reduced to a simple yes or no. "You're either with us or with the terroists". How powerful. How ignorant. How simple. So what if a few innocents get capped? Just the price to pay.
Meanwhile, the sense of what it means to be civilized gets killed in the bargain.
I found myself walking through a number of home improvement and discount stores today -- i was trying to find Japenese beetle traps, since these nasty bugs have invaded big time this Summer. Alas, everyone was sold out.
But what I found myself pondering was about the thoughts and reactions of the people in these stores, particularly in the unmentionable discount store, to the whole "terror" scenario. People are conditioned. I mean we are all conditioned, but some worse than others. I conclude that because of their conditioning folks will react according to the way big brother suggests they react. After a while that reaction becomes simply automatic.
In the case of "terror" I became convinced that presented with the option, say, of nuking Iraq,as a plausible solution to the "problem" of terror, most would problably say right on. Maybe this would not be so, and a fair number might have basic civilized human qualities such as logic and compassion kick in versus primal self preservation, if someone sensible had power and access to their sensory input, TV, whatever.But that is a very big hurdle to overcome today.
The cabal have done an excellent job propelling the populace well along the way toward domesday thinking; anything, I mean just about anything that can be made to seem a threat is automatically expendable. The quicker the better. Bush wasn't kidding. He doesn't do nuance. And neither anymore, I fear, do most people. The most difficult and subtle of questions is reduced to a simple yes or no. "You're either with us or with the terroists". How powerful. How ignorant. How simple. So what if a few innocents get capped? Just the price to pay.
Meanwhile, the sense of what it means to be civilized gets killed in the bargain.
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