[Much as I’d like to change the subject, I’ll finish out the week with this one in hopes that a few readers will take the government’s side. As things stand, most who have weighed in in the forum apparently believe that the Boston bombing, and 9/11 as well, were the work of a special-ops team fielded by Uncle Sam. Although I am wont to attribute nearly everything that’s seriously wrong with America to bad government, I stop short of believing that ours would plan and execute mass murders in U.S. cities. RA]
As investigators sift clues that now include clear photos of two suspects in the Boston bombing on Monday, Americans have reason to be confident that the FBI will find the person or persons responsible for the deadly blast. When the Bureau says they’ll leave no stone unturned, they mean it literally. Pulling together millions of pieces of evidence left by murderous explosions is one of the things they do best. Lockerbie comes to mind — and before it, the solution to United Airlines flight #629, which blew up in mid-flight in November 1955, killing 44 people. John Graham, who had taken out an insurance policy on his mother, a passenger, was convicted and executed.
The incident was dramatized in the 1959 Jimmy Stewart film The FBI Story. In each case, investigators literally rebuilt the planes fragment-by-fragment to solve the crime. This they will do again, with all possible diligence, to make certain that the Boston killer does not go unpunished. Success in unraveling this crime could come from a photograph or video, from a tipster, from fragmentary evidence at the scene, or from a combination of any or all of those things. But it will come, and we will all breathe easier when the cowardly perpetrator of this heinous crime is in handcuffs, on his way to a holding facility.
Vigilance Now a Duty
Even then, however, the effects on America’s already wounded psyche will linger. We have all been made more jittery by this episode, and from this day forward every unattended suitcase, shopping bag or parcel in an airport lounge, bar or restaurant will be viewed not merely with suspicion, but with fear. Airports that have grown increasingly unfriendly toward travelers since 9/11 will become even moreso, bomb scares will grow more common, evacuations all-too-familiar. Popular foot races that draw tens of thousands of participants, such as the Bay to Breakers and the Bolder Boulder, will require rigorous security measures that will take some of the fun out of these events. Any place where large numbers of people gather presumably will be viewed as a high-value target for the jihadists. This new fact-of-life will impose on each of us the burden of vigilance. With the Boston bombing, it may no longer be possible to imagine a better world in which such precautions have become unnecessary.
All is still in the pasture….the sheep have been scared into the pen by the barking dogs (the media) and all is well. The sheep will not even question if a wolf was even there just that the dogs barked and all is well now, never to look at the past or question anything they are told…until the next manufactured crisis where all the sheep follow the barking dogs again distracted once again from seeing the butcher truck pull into the farm…
“Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.”
-Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society p50, 1953
“Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.”
*- Bertrand Russell, “The Impact of Science on Society”, 1953, pg 49-50*