From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Sat 16 Nov 2002 - 23:29:29 GMT
Grant, I would generally agree with the point you make, with one
distinction: 'terror' has a profound psychological effect, whereas 'normal'
death tolls on the road (or from smoking, with even bigger numbers that the
ones you cite), don't.
Israel and Palestine are instructive. Roughly, the Israelis as a percentage
of their population are suffering one WTC-sized event per week. They are
inflicting a WTC-sized event of the Palestinians at the rate of 3 per week.
Neither is giving in to the terror. Have they got used to it? Have their
societies, generally, made the psychological adjustments needed so that this
becomes 'normal.' As long as terror does not seem normal, a society may go
to extraordinary lengths to 'protect' itself, such as the US has done, with
huge financial outlays, a compromise of civil liberties (being radically
compounded by the Homeland Security bill, extraordinary daily disruption
(especially for travelers and visitors and employees of federal facilities),
and the creation of an increasingly Orwellian domestic atmosphere. And that
was a single event. We could count Oklahoma City as a second, Kasi, and the
first WTC attack as other events, but the point holds, I think. Our
reaction has been huge; in Palestine and Israel the reaction per event may
be more modest. Your thoughts?
Cheers,
Lawry
-----Original Message-----
From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf Of
Grant Callaghan
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 10:38 AM
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: The terrorism meme
>The fact is that the real blame for the deaths is not the terrorist his
>fault, the blame lies by the US government consequently staying
>in areas where they don 't belong.
>Terrorism is equal placing bombs and setting up psychological
>pressure.
My philosophy is that people are responsible for their own actions.
Therefore, they, themselves, are to blame for the damage they do to others.
If I kill someone it's not G. W. Bush's fault unless he sent me out there to
do it.
The Muslim terrorists just don't understand the magnitude of the problem.
They don't realize that we're willing to sacrifice over 40,000 Americans a
year to keep our cars and the way of life they represent. If you count the
injured, it's over 100,000. The losses at the WTC were a drop in the bucket
by comparison. If 40 thousand deaths a year won't make us change our ways,
the puny efforts of a few bombings aren't going to do it. They are just a
small increase in the number of accidents we are willing to put up with.
Cheers,
Grant
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