Tannishblog

Yesterday in Boston, the city was shut down. CNN reports a bomb scare occurred throughout the area that literally closed the city down. A man was arrested in connection with the placement of several "suspicious objects" found in prominent areas of the Boston, described as "circuit boards with blinking lights." State police responded, news spread at the speed of pixels, and statewide panic ensued. On CNN’s video clip of the incident, comments by the governor illustrates the level of fear experienced.

What happened? A "guerilla marketing campaign" by Turner Broadcasting System backfired. The devices were depictions of a new cartoon character on Adult Swim, done in LED lights in a similar style to the old lite-brite games.

Is this a bomb?
Would anyone really plant a bomb that flashes with this many lights?
What kind of idiot could possibly think that this is dangerous?

Have we gone that far? When did we get so fearful? Here is a textbook example of the effects of political propaganda in the Internet Age. We in America have been conditioned to believe in the over-hyped, bludgeoned to death and ceaseless coverage of "the War On Terror ™." Despite the disinformation, bogus reasoning and the political, economic and social fallout, the belief in our post-cold-war boogie-man is palpable, destroying our reasoning capacities. Despite the education and reasoning of a whole metropolitan populous, a few dumb-looking devices ignites the fear and loathing of America.

We’ve all seen enough TV news coverage to imagine how the media first-responders can whip up a situation, sensationalizing for the camera, without bothering to gather facts - let alone check them. Milliseconds later, the vacuous reporting in in living rooms across the globe. Instant panic. This illustrates how the terrorist responsible for 9/11 have won.

Conservative supporters of our president ( all eight of them) will likely scoff my reaction. Let them. They’ve been wrong the whole time. Once again, I lay at the feet of our leaders the consequences of  a failed leadership built of social distortion, negative propaganda, fiscal irresponsibility, and an attitude of contempt of the law and disdain of the political process.

We average people, represented by the commuters and businesspeople who reacted illogically in Boston, just want to feed our families. We want our leaders to lead us into a good place, not to where we stand right now. We wish for a comfortable retirement, and a safe future for our kids. Although nothing is certain in life, what we’ve been seeing lately is daunting, and our uncertainty grows. Perhaps it’s not terrorists we should be fearing , it’s our leaders.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 12:53 pm and is filed under In the News, Apocalypse, 21st Century Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.