Reading the news today, I was just wondering something. Is it possible that as more and more terrorist incidents happen (or almost happen as the case may be) the less people will care?
Follow me on this one. We all agree that terrorism is a horrible abomination. No argument there. It is terrible and sad when people are killed by fanatics. However, reading about these recent arrests that were announced late last week and seeing what has happened since, I’ve noticed something.
On Friday, the stock market actually went UP. Granted, airline stocks got hammered, but overall, people weren’t all that worried (and if you don’t think where people put their money isn’t an indicator of how they feel, you’re crazy). Then, today I read that despite a “security threat level” of “severe” (whatever that means) in Europe, that European air traffic has rebounded to normal. Its been 4 days.
What I’m wondering is if the acts of terror will just sorta become ‘one of those things’. Not that killing people is ever just a non-event. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that they have already killed thousands upon thousands of people. They leveled 2 symbolistic buildings. Blown up trains and cars and whatnot. And, are obviously still attempting to do more. Yet, we are sort of paying little attention. Pretty much business as usual.
Maybe this is a good thing. I mean, the whole point of terrorism is to disrupt the larger society by commiting acts of violence. If those acts are diminishing in their impact, if we choose to not give the terrorist the ‘mind space’, don’t we win? Granted, this may push them to try bigger and bigger displays. But, I have to imagine that those are much more difficult and far more expensive to plan and execute than some jackoffs with box cutters.
I dunno… maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m just losing interest and failing to be as scared as I was in 2001. I do know that there is no way in hell another airplane in this country gets hijacked without every passenger going batshit and doing something about it. I guess thats why they’ve changed to just trying to blow planes up again.