9/11 really changed everything. Before, the news covered some events of genuine importance. Now, Americans are subjected to a constant deluge of "holy crap"-style terrorism coverage. Our heightened anxiety over 9/11 has been cultivated and stretched out over the past six years, to the point now that any event which even superficially resembles a terrorist attack, no matter how briefly, gets week-long national coverage. A steam pipe blows in New York? It's “especially frightening, considering what happened on 9/11.” Some rich douchebag crashes his helicopter into an apartment building? “A chilling reminder of the events that took place on 9/11.” We're so pathetically traumatized that an entire city can now be brought to its knees by an ad for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It hardly speaks of America as the proud, tough nation it imagines itself to be.
Of course, we're all a little tense, having been waiting, vigilant, muscles clenched, for the next inevitable strike. Any day, now, any minute, and... BLAMMO! It could happen to you, we're told repeatedly. It could happen anywhere. But really, how serious is the threat of domestic terrorism?
More Americans have been killed in the war in Iraq than have ever been killed by terrorism in the history of the country. A San Francisco Chronicle piece puts the odds of being killed by terrorism as slightly lower than dying in an avalanche. How much are we spending on avalanche prevention? Why is there no counter-avalanche czar? How many news stories have you seen about the threat of avalanches? Think about it: “Avalanches: Are we safer than we were?” Or “Democrats: Soft on avalanches?” Why does the liberal media ignore the avalanche threat?
You get the idea. From a purely rational perspective, we are spending a ridiculously disproportionate amount of time, money and attention on what amounts to a tiny threat. Not only that, but we have failed miserably in even reducing that threat, despite the astounding scope of our backwards approach to it.
It's truly amazing: we spend more on defense and security than the entire rest of the world, and the enemy is a shabby assemblage of repressed losers. Yet somehow the media manages to effectively convey the feeling that the country is some soft, white, utterly vulnerable blob of flesh, a giant, defenseless belly with no arms or legs, practically begging to be punctured and devoured by a teeming mass of impossibly disciplined super-criminals.
http://buffalobeast.com/118/avalanches.htm
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
